Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue is a 1993 side-scrolling Metroidvania developed and published by Konami for the Game Boy. It is based upon the classic 1987 animated series.
One year after the events of Back from the Sewers, the Turtles (sans Michelangelo) were watching a special bulletin from April O'Neil about a prison break. She gets kidnapped during the ordeal, so Heroes in a Half-Shell move out to help her. Some time later, Mikey returns back home with pizza... only to find out that his brothers are missing. As it turns out, Shredder has kidnapped not only April, but Turtles as well. He issues Michelangelo a challenge to find them at the abandoned mine located at the edge of the city. The party dude has no choice but to get his nunchaku ready and save his family.
Unlike the prior titles for the Game Boy, Radical Rescue changes the formula in favor of open-world structure. Michelangelo isn't the only playable character, however. Over the course of the adventure, the player can find the rest of the Turtles: each brother has his own special ability required to progress.
The game would be re-released as part of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection in 2022.
Tropes:
- American Kirby Is Hardcore: The Japanese version's cover features all 4 Turtles depicted in 1987 cartoon's signature style. For North American and European versions, however, Leonardo is depicted in a realistic and muscular manner.
- Boss Rush: Before taking on Shredder himself, the Turtles have to get through all prior bosses (Scratch, Dirtbag, a Triceraton, Scale Tail) once again.
- Canon Foreigner: Scratch and Scale Tail were specifically made for this game.
- Cats Are Mean: The very first boss of the game, Scratch, is a mutant cat in a prison uniform.
- Character Select Forcing: Different obstacles require different Turtles to be picked at certain scenarios. Michaelangelo can hover through spike sections, Leonardo drills through certain blocks, Raphael retracts into his shell and goes through narrow passages, and Donatello climbs walls.
- Covers Always Lie: When it comes to North American and European versions of the game, anyway. Despite featuring Leonardo on the cover, you start the game as Michelangelo.
- Distressed Dude: This time, Leonardo, Raphael and Donatello are being captured from the beginning of the game. Michelangelo has to bust them out in order to unlock them as playable characters.
- Early Game Hell: Michelangelo is the only available Turtle at the start, and you have a little amount of health. As soon as you move on to rescue Leonardo, you encounter many enemies and obstacles that require proper timing to attack and dodge. And of course, Scratch is a rather difficult boss to deal with in such a state.
- Final Boss: Radical Rescue returns to the status quo of having Shredder as the last obstacle.
- This Is a Drill: Leonardo's special manuever is to drill through the blocks with his twin katanas.
- Oddball in the Series: When it comes to the whole Game Boy TMNT trilogy, anyway. Fall of the Foot Clan and Back from the Sewers mix up beat-em-up action with platforming and have linear stages. Radical Rescue goes as far as to give players full-fledged "Turtlevania" - thanks to the large overworld map reminiscent of classic Metroid titles.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: Notably, Splinter's message to Turtles contains a typo. Strangely, it wasn't fixed for The Cowabunga Collection re-release."Well done, my Turtles, but Shredder has kidnapped April. He's more powerful than ever, my sons, so focus your powers and prepare for buttle!"
- Shout-Out:
- Before each boss, the Turtles have to go through empty boss corridors heavily reminiscent of Mega Man games. Same also goes towards the Boss Rush before Shredder.
- The Mega Man homage continues with disappearing-reappearing blocks scattered across several sections of the game (although they slide in and out of walls).
- The heart power-ups are identical to their Mega Man X counterparts in terms of function - they expand the Life Meter.
- The inventory is laid out akin to Super Mario Bros. 3 bonus cards, but each slot is reserved for specific items (the Pizza life restores, the keys and the key cards respectively).
- Turns Red: Shredder himself is the only boss with two phases. His attacks become much faster and harder to dodge during the second phase. Such change is also accompanied by a faster-paced 8-bit rendition of Shredder's final boss theme from the original TMNT arcade game.
- Wall Crawl: Donatello's specialty.
