Trivia / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters

• Ashcan Copy: The NES version can be considered as this, since there were less copies than both the SNES and Genesis versions. Made all the more obvious since it would be Konami's final release for the system.
• First Appearance: Aska (SNES), and Sisyphus (Genesis) appear for the first time in the franchise.
  • In the SNES and Genesis versions, there's Karai, who had first appeared in Mirage Comics' TMNT during the time that the games themselves were released. In the SNES version, Karai is an unlockable Final Boss, but in the Genesis version, she is an unplayable computer-controlled only Final Boss, up until she's Promoted to Playable in the Cowabunga Collection version.
  • Also, it's the first video game appearances for these characters:
    • SNES: War (Villain of the Week from Archie Comics), Chrome Dome (Recurring minor villain in TV series), Wingnut (Protagonist in Archie Comics and Villain of the Week in the TV series) and Armaggon (Arc Villain in Archie Comics).
    • Genesis: Ray Fillet^note Also known as Man Ray in Archie Comics and Ray in IDW Comics (Archie Comics) and Triceraton (Mirage Comics).
    • NES: Hothead (Archie Comics and Toyline).
• Manual Misprint: The NES manual says to just press B to pick up the "Fireball" that gets dropped onto the stage. The real control is Down + B.
• Market-Based Title: While the Genesis edition still carries the Tournament Fighters subtitle in Japan, the SNES game was originally titled T.M.N.T.: Mutant Warriors instead.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.":
  • With the exception of the Original Generation mentioned above, most of the characters are known because of these games instead of their own origin materials (mostly from the comics). War, in particular, is an especially obscure character.
  • There was actually a misconception at one point that Hothead debuted in the NES game. Not only was the Dragon a regular in the Archie comics under the name, "Warrior Dragon", he had appeared in the toyline under the name "Hothead", two years before the release of Tournament Fighters for NES.
• No Export for You: Inverted. Unlike the other two versions, the NES game didn't get a Japanese release.
• Swan Song: The NES version was one of the few fighting games for this console, but also one of the last games AND the last fighting game for the NES. It was also the last game Konami ever published for the system.
• Vaporware: The Game Boy version.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Early screenshots and even pictures on the back of the box of the Genesis version of Tournament Fighters show Triceraton and Krang as playable characters. Even the final game, none of the bosses are playable, even though cheat devices show all characters, including Karai, work perfectly under player control. Cowabunga Collection reinstated the bosses as playable characters.
  • Aska from the SNES version of Tournament Fighters was originally Mitsu from the third TMNT live-action film as evidenced by her name from within the earlier pre-release builds of the game itself, but after the negative reception of the film, the developers had decided to change her name and create a new character in order to distance themselves from the film itself.
  • Concept art for the SNES version reveals that Scale Tail from Radical Rescue would've been used as a boss character alongside Karai and the Rat King, with a redesign that gave him humanoid limbs.

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