Lost Classics: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Tournament Fighters (SNES, Genesis, Nes)

In 1994, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle franchise was waning in popularity. As it would soon go dormant for a while, Konami decided to make one last attempt to cash in on the franchise by releasing a trio of fighting games for the SNES, Genesis, and NES. In an era where the difference between multiplatform releases meant more than simple graphical upgrades, the three games were vastly different.

The NES version featured a seven character line up, consisting of the four turtles, Shredder, Casey Jones, and Hothead, a mutant dragon from the original Playmates Toyline. It was one of the few one on one fighters available for the system. On a sad note, not only was it the last Konami game for the system, it was the last third party game for the system as well. However, the game lives on as pirate game developers lift it’s code for various bootleg NES versions of Street Fighter 2.

The Genesis version featured the four turtles (of course), Casey Jones, April O’Neil (huh?), Ray Fillet (a character from the comic books), and Sisyphus (a new character created just for the games). There are also three boss characters, Karai(the ex-leader of the footclan in the comics), Krang, and Triceriton. It didn’t make use of the the recently released six button controller, and the darker graphics were seemingly more in the mood of the original comics than the cartoon series.

The SNES version, considered to be the best of the three featured 10 playable characters (the turtles, War, Aska, Wingnut, Chrome Dome, Armaggon, and Cyber Shredder) and 2 bosses (Karai and the Rat King). It featured a four-button scheme, and super moves, not unlike the SNK games which were rising in popularity at the time. Along with the usual versus and arcade modes, there was a story mode which followed the turtle’s battle against Shredder.

Since the Turtles would go on a brief hiatus, the three games would be sadly overlooked (despite the SNES version even being featured as a game in the 1994 Blockbuster video game championships), however with the original NES and Arcade games being bought to Xbox Live Thanks to Ubi Soft, there is a fairly good chance of all three games hitting the Virtual Console soon.