Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: How Season 1 Made the Arcade Game Great! (And why the NES game sucks!)
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- čas přidán 30. 06. 2024
- In 1989, at the height of Turtle Mania, Konami gave the world TWO TMNT games. Only one was worth playing. Why? (Chapter Markers and more below…)
Episode information
GTV 170 “Hard Shelled Fuzzy Memories" or "A Tale of Two Turtles" Season 9 Episode 10
Original Airdate: May 17, 2024
Produced May 7-15, 2024
Recorded at Butsudan Studios and edited on my 14” MacBook M1 Pro! Edited and produced with Photoshop and Final Cut Pro, all paid for with Gainful Employment™ while riding the train to work and home, back and forth, day after day, and lunch breaks too!
0:00 GTV ID: With Nunchucks Where Available!
0:05 Prologue: A Level of Clarity
1:42 Chapter 1: Remembering Turtle Mania
3:43 Chapter 2: TMNT for NES on Day One!!
4:35 Chapter 3: I Discovered TMNT Arcade!
6:07 Chapter 4: Connections to the TV Series
10:00 Chapter 5: The Cutting Room Floor and Future Games
11:55 Lights Out!!
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Partial Transcript
One video game that I can (and have) come back to time and again is the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game! At the time it was such an amazing breakthrough in gameplay, with 4 simultaneous players, not to mention bright graphics and THE hottest license around at the time. The game still holds up thanks to these 3 key features. A true future proofing, without realizing it.
TMNT Arcade is a topic I have wanted to come to for quite a while, and has been often requested, though unlike episodes of the past, that compared TV and game, Monster Strike, Keith
Courage, Magical Hat and all the rest, I was never sure quite how to handle The Ninja Turtles. Nobody wants to hear an old man gush over something made for kids from the 1980s, but the idea started to come together not too long ago when I discovered the Cowabunga Collection. I was able to digest all of the games from the Golden Era all at once and take stock of how this series of games were handled in the moment. That led me to go back and revisit the animated series, which I, like many of you watched religiously in the early days.
I didn’t re-watch the entire run, just the original 5 part mini-series that started it all. Watching these episodes, alongside playing the arcade game and others, led me to see connections between the game and the show that, somehow, I never put together until now. I guess after 40 some years you just reach a certain level of clarity…..
I can’t honestly recall when I first heard of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The original comic series began in 1983, I knew nothing about it. I’m not going to pretend I did.
I think we all got our first taste of Leonardo Michaelangelo, Donatello and Raphael in the animated series, with the accompanying line of toys and video games. I do recall though, around the time of the first movie, the local newspaper was running the daily series. So by 1990, you had The Turtles in every media.
We were all there for Turtle Mania, but everything happened like a tidal wave, where one day this thing didn’t exist in everyone’s lives and the next day, it suddenly did and was everywhere! Sometimes, one’s memories can’t create the perfect picture. - Hry
Where did you get the footage of the TV show? Looks better quality than the US DVD releases.
Thank you! Finally someone likes it! There was a torrent i found that was upscaled for season 1 and i upscaled some of the stuff myself too. the DVD rip is only 360 isnrt it? booo
@@GTV-Japan The German KSM DVD release is currently the highest quality version out there (non AI upscaled).
Personaly, I rather dislike the smoothing look that AI upscaling gives. I always turn off motion interpolation on televisions too, can't stand that "Soap Opera Look".
I wouldn't mind so much if the upscale didn't add any extra frames.
But there's no accounting for taste :D
@@GTV-Japan I just got the entire 193 episode run of the original animated series for about... $28, on the XBOX Store!
@DontrelleRoosevelt woohoo!
First time I played this game was in the lobby of a movie theater. It was my friend's bday and we were all going to see the TMNT movie for it, while his mom was buying the tickets, 4 of us sprinted to the cabinet and played. I often say I think my childhood peaked when I played the TMNT arcade game for the first time, before seeing the TMNT movie. I may still be chasing that dopamine high 34 years later lol
That’s awesome to hear! I missed the movie in the theater because opening weekend was also the Nintendo World Championships in our city so of course I went to that. Thanks for sharing!🐢🐢🐢🐢
It's 100% true! I got the TMNT NES game in June '89! There weren't big release days back then, but it was one of three games I got on what was "day one" for the standards of the time. The other two where Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3. Mario 2 and TMNT were by pure luck. Mario 3 was gotten by calling 3 toy stores daily for about 6 months until it finally showed up.
Alright turtle power
How did you manage to get Mario 2 on day one!? That's awesome!
@@dacatindahat8275 cuz he's the man
@@NEStalgia1985 fair enough!
Mario 3 was definitely worth that effort!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the very first arcade game that I ever played when I was a kid. As a big fan of the first cartoon, playing the arcade game was an exciting experience because Konami was able to accurately represent the show from the character designs right down to the theme song.
Konami did a similar thing with the X-Men arcade game. Its character designs are the same as the seldom-aired Pryde of the X-Men pilot/TV movie, which is why they have those uniforms instead of the Jim Lee-inspired ones from the later TV series.
The game was actally based in the uniforms from the comics. The game was relased in Feb. 92, while the animation was only aired in Oct of the same year - so I doubt one has any relation to the other.
@@IconGamesBR Pryde was aired in 92 but it was produced in 89. Are you telling me the developers couldn't have possibly had access to it or any other exclusive material from Marvel and they went by what was available to the public?
@@luissopelana See my comment here about the 1st TMNT game. It is a strong possibility.
I used to come home from school every day, watch "Bravestarr" at 3:30pm, and "Ducktales" (woo-ooo!) at 4:00. One day Bravestarr wasn't on... and it was this weird show with Turtle people, with a title I couldn't quite grasp at first... The Turtles were ninjas. They fought Ninja ROBOTS!!!! There was a mysterious shadowy villain. And it was a WONDERFUL first episode. It was on again the next day too, and that second episode was even BETTER!!! By the end of the week, they'd aired the entire 5-epsisode mini series of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."
When it became a regular series I was hooked!!! Had all the toys, my friends and I watched it and played with them every day! Turtle-mania was a wonderful time... but yeah, that first game on the Nintendo sucked. Still does, despite the catchy music.
I do remember finally getting a crack at the Arcade game at the Pizza place my buddy was having his 10th birthday party at, and I spent the entire $5 my parents sent me with trying to beat that arcade. Couldn't have been happier when it came to the Nintendo.
How great is the animation in those first 5 episodes, though!!! Truly one of the great shows of the 80's, and greatest arcades of all time!!!
Thanks for sharing your story! The animation is pretty good but I laugh at some of the glitches. Mainly bandanas switching colors. Which happened often. I guess that point was a new shift for a new animator or something 🐢🐢
I didn't know bravestarr was older. I saw it all on reruns so it was almost all at the same time.
Toei Animation! They even directed those episodes.
Those first 5 episodes are some of the best TMNT ever done imo. Wish they had kept that quality and energy ford the rest of the original shows run.
I remember getting the TMNT 2 the arcade game in 1990 for my 6th birthday. Really loved it. I remember it came with a coupon for a free personal size pizza from Pizza Hut. I still need to get the Cowabunga collection. My favorite of the Turtles games was actually TMNT III The Manhattan Project.
I did appreciate that they stuck with 8 bit for a while. It’s a good game!
Massive nostalgic moment when I saw those VHS case/covers.
Newspaper comics used to be common for properties like this. He-man and the Rugrats also had (very well made!) strips too.
My paper never got those cool kind of comic strips like TMNT, Star Wars, or Star Trek.
Wow! I can’t imagine 🐢
@@GTV-Japan There was also a Simpsons comic strip that my paper didn't have, that I only found out about when an out of town relative visited and it was in the newspaper he brought with him.
Speaking of The Simpsons, that Konami arcade game was also based exclusively on very early material, prior to Sideshow Bob being revealed as a villain! Bob is a helpful character in the game and gives the player a power-up.
Except for his skin color, Smithers is colored like he is in that one episode where he's black. (He's also a bomb-throwing, complete psycho in the game, which is not from the show. But he probably just didn't have an established personality at all, only Burns' assistant.)
When Marge Simpson is shocked, you can see a pair of rabbit ears as part of her skeleton. Marge's hair concealing a pair of rabbit ears was a (wisely) abandoned concept that never made it to air -- a reference to Matt Groening's rabbit characters from his pre-fame Life in Hell comic strip. And these rabbit characters also show up in the game, as there are very few established Springfield residents at this point in the series. Most of the enemy characters are invented for the game. (It's been a while since I played it. ALL the enemies might be made up for the game.)
As a kid I didn't like the original NES game, but, as an adult and playing it in The Cowabunga Collection, I appreciate that it tried something different. The beat 'em ups are definitely better, but the original isn't a BAD game. It's just unnecessarily difficult. As far as the enemies go, the game, like the 1990 movie, was based more off the original comics than the cartoon and, in the comics, there weren't a whole lot of villains yet so they had to fill the enemy roster somehow. At least there's a little variety instead of just Foot solders and mousers.
For anyone interested I highly recommend Jeremy Parish’s video of NES Works that he did for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That should explain why the first NES game is so different from the arcade
My only access to the arcade version of this was at a local chuck e cheese and obviously mom wasn't gonna take us there just to play an arcade. But on that rare birthday where me, my brother, and my two friends were there, you knew where to find us. Seriously man, playing the TMNT and Simpsons games with three other people is awesome.
Radical!! 🐢🐢🐢🐢
Someone has probably already said it, but just in case: The foot soldiers only appear on the "overworld map" parts of the TMNT NES game, making them very easy to miss, if you're not actively thinking about it during those parts.
Incorrect. Foot soldiers also appear in the normal sewers and building areas. Enemy placement would be different depending on the turtle selected. Foot soldiers would also appear as a "boss" encounter with a healthbar.
I remember Children's Palace. That was like our Toys 'R Us, because we didn't have a TRU close to us.
Poor Splinter. Only 30 years old and has to walk with a cane.
I think we all know what happened the animals after they were used for the mutation. It's not like the Technodrome can pull through the local drive thru to feed its residents. Shredder's threat of dining on turtle soup wasn't smack talk. He was just hungry.
I got Tecmo Bowl and I wanna say Zelda II from Children's Palace back in the day. And shout outs to Babbages for anyone who remembers that establishment. I might still have my Babbages card at my mom's house somewhere.
The arcade game music is phenomenal. I still play it on my phone to this day.
I remember coming across that arcade game with some of my friends ---it was in a back hallway near a hotel exit door. I think it was the first time I saw "insert coin to continue..." whenever one of us died
Hey that’s a good point. When did arcade games start offering continues? I guess it’s not the first but it eventually became standard 🐢🐢🐢🐢
Ahhh, such a gem from my childhood. Spent a small fortune shoving quarters into it to beat it for sure.
As an 8 - 11 year old in the late 80s, I actually encountered their parody, Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, first. It probably wasn't until late 1989 or maybe early 1990 when I got into TMNT and I think the arcade game and movie were what got me into collecting the toys.
They also put in Krang's theme in Season 1 into the arcade game!
That’s what I thought! But listening to the music in the show it’s hard for me to hear it. Thanks for sharing! 🧠 🐢
I remember 1989. My brother worked at an arcade when TMNT came out. The 4 player cabinet was $3000 or so. It was paid off in two weeks. The NES game was alright, our options were limited back then. The movie came out in 1990? The turtles ruled that era. The last days of my childhood.
Thanks for sharing that info. I knew most standard games were about $2000. I’ve heard sometimes the location will pay less if they split the cash take with the distributor but $3000 in quarters means 12,000 plays! Seems impossible but I believe it! Having people jump in probably helped give it a boost🐢🐢🐢🍕🍕🍕🍕
You're 100% right about the arcade game being based on Season 1. It even copies the cartoons BGMs! But I get the feeling the NES game was made before the cartoon had come out. They probably only had a vague plot outline, some character designs, and random Mirage comics to go on. The Japanese title for the Famicom version is also very strange and not the "Mutant Turtles" one that was later used.
I had a line in there about that but I took it out because I wasn’t sure if the incidental music from tv was in the game. My ears couldn’t pick it up. I think you’re right. 🐢
@@GTV-Japanthe cover art for the NES game shows the turtles wearing their traditional comic accurate red bandanas, so being based on the comics is likely an accurate guess!
(The turtles wore all red initially in the comics. It was started as a riff on Daredevil, who wore all red at the time. It’s also why the foot clan are called the foot, since they’re supposed to be like the Hand).
@ArchGeek I have to wonder why they even wore those. What identity are they trying to conceal?! Well it’s more to think about next time I’m drinking at the campfire!
@@ArchGeek That artwork was from one of the early comic book covers.
@@GTV-Japan Creators Eastman and Laird did not think the comic would last beyond a single issue so it's probably just because other comic book heroes wear masks.
Hi there! Amateur TMNT/VG historian, here. So my understanding about the TMNT games and their development is thus:
While Konami acquired the liscense to the TMNT in 1987, the games had vastly different reference material during their development. The makers of the NES game were mostly handed comic materials and early Playmates development materials (namely the colored bandanas) to get a feel for what the TMNT were at the time. The Arcade team actually started a little later, and were primarily given the cartoon and production materials from Fred Wolf studios to work off. The two teams were not in communication within Konami, and since they kept to themselves, not much was being shared back and forth. The cartoon was shown to the NES team at the same time, which made them go back and add elements (namely Rocksteady and Bebop) to be somewhat more aligned with the TMNT brand.
While the games did release at the same time, the arcade game benefited from having the cartoon's reference material. The NES game became a weird amalgamation of the cartoon and original comics, which is why it looks and feels grittier (and even uses an old comic cover for the game's label). Further evidence of the comic being a bigger influence on the NEs version can be seen in the designs of Shredder and Splinter; both look, and have the colors of, the comic versions instead of the cartoon. If you want to know why the TMNT are fighting a cavalcade of weird aliens and robots, well, take a look at this cover: (image.keycollectorcomics.com/media/teenage_mutant_ninja_turtles_5.jpeg?height=300) Things got even weirder inside those issues, so the team likely was told "go nuts."
Thanks for the info!
I always thought that first turtles game had to be a reskin of some kind, the worlds best kept secret
Though I'm far too young to have catched the original airing of the 80's cartoons, i do have flashes of memories of watching reruns of episodes on tv when i was a baby
Awesome! I wonder how long reruns were on tv? 🐢🐢🐢🐢
"Raphael... HE'S THE LEADER OF THE GROUP" (Hoping those lyrics still drive other Turtle fans up the wall too)
He was though, wasn’t he? For a while anyway.
@@GTV-Japan I'm pretty sure Leonardo led them in the 1987 cartoon and 1990 movie (where that song T.U.R.T.L.E Power with that lyric came from). Still a fun song though not as iconic as the cartoon's incredible theme
@nicholascooney I think it was that Raphael was the leader but was too wild or something so Leonardo took over. I think was just the movie. But I vaguely recall one episode where other turtles took over the leadership role and it didn’t go well.
@@GTV-Japan yeah it was one episode where leo doubted himself so each of the other tutrles tried a stab at being the leader
@nestermrcool wow! Nester! Thanks man! 👍
TMNT Arcade uses Crime Fighters game engine. It came earlier in the same year the TMNT Arcade game did. The first NES game likely started development before Crime Fighters was finished and someone at Konami later had the idea to apply TMNT to Crime Fighters.
The first NES TMNT game had a different title in Japan. It was called Geki Kame Ninja Den, which translates to Radical Turtle Ninja Legend. The Famicom port of the arcade game was called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the third Famicom game was called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2.
That's interesting!
Yeah! How weird! It’s like the Rambo naming convention!
R you serious? That's pretty much as bad as our NES release of "Dragon Power" not ball lol
The story passed down why the original NES game was different is the developers were given pictures of the Turtles with bare bones material and were told to "just make a game". The developers of the arcade game were actually given the 5-part mini series to go on. The developers of the original game kinda got a raw deal.
I think the foot soldiers in the first NES game are the occasional overhead gorilla-looking mooks that the player runs into in various areas.
I got the NES game knowing full well what it was. I loved the challenge. I got so good at it, I remember being able to rip through it really fast. I picked up on the tricks and junk. I played it again on the collection and realized I was one heck of a gamer at 12. Not so much anymore. 😭
Shredder's Revenge really scratches that itch.
Ooh dang, it does make sense that Splinter must've been driving the Turtle Van in the arcade game! Also explains why he was randomly kidnapped in the start of the next stage. They crashed, and the Foot must've immediately snatched him from the wreck. :o
Been marathoning the 80s cartoon for Ninja Turtles slowly, since the start of the year. And yeah, holy smokes, they really did lean into the elements of the five-episode pilot for the arcade game! I may be one of the few people who like it over Turtles In Time, and Konami really did stretch as much of the small source material bits as it could for both this and the first NES game. Though for the latter, they definitely had to take some... creative liberties from the Mirage comics to fill the roster and ideas.
And trust me, when I first played the arcade game at a Chuck E Cheese's at my cousin's birthday party? It just wasn't the same any longer, compared to the NES port.
I actually got a Raphael figure from a friend before I even knew what TMNT was.
Radical! 🐢
Rewatching the first five as an adult allows me to see just how “Toei” these five episodes are.
I've always thought that either the first TMNT for NES was a conversion from some other game in development, or it didn't take the cartoon as reference but the comic books, which were in black and white and had all kinds of funky characters that never made it to the cartoon. Then they released TMNT II for the NES and the world didn't see such a faithful arcade port until Street Fighter II.
I do remember questioning the need for arcade anymore after playing sf2 at home. The NES TMNT 2 was good but it was a shame there was never a 16 bit budget port later on. Probably would’ve done well 🐢
I never noticed it until watching this video, but I'm very amused by the fact that the transport module at the end of stage 1 of the arcade game not only burrows from the Technodrome to the surface (solid ground), but also through multiple floors of the Channel Six building (mostly air). I was fortunate to have been a kid during peak Turtlemania, and loved it in all its forms. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
Thanks for watching 🐢🐢🐢🐢🍕
You are such an underrated channel. The combination of nostalgia and new information even I didn't know, was great.
Thanks for the support! 🐢🐢🐢🐢
I’m
Surprised the 1st level is not based on Aprils’s ANTIQUE STORE caught on fire like in the comics/1990 Film.
To answer your question at the end about how Konami could have made two different types of games on two different platforms, I have a small theory.
The most popular type of game on the NES were platformers, like Super Mario Brothers. So they probably thought that making a Ninja Turtles platformer was a good idea.
At the same time, the most popular type of arcade at the time were beat 'em ups, like Double Dragon. So it was probably a no-brainer that a Ninja Turtles beat 'em up arcade would be a smart safe move.
Maybe this information is a obvious and everybody already knows this, I just wanted to put my two cents. Fantastic video, made me very happy! Keep up the good work. Blessings!
Thanks I appreciate the feedback! I like leaving open questions like that to see what everyone thinks. You’re probably right. I’m sure lots of kids in 89-90 were asking this. Take care and have a great weekend 🐢🐢🐢🐢🍕🍕
I remember getting the original turtles on the NES as a bundle for Xmas because I was obsessed with the turtles, Even as a kid I thought what the hell is this, I must’ve been 4 or 5 and the game was impossible especially those underwater levels so I had no desire to finish it but just like you the arcade version blew me away this is what we should of had
Yeah!! When you don’t even want to push thru just to finish it, you know something is wrong.
TMNT for NES is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma... It came out a few months before the arcade game so it sort of makes sense that both of them are different. It being an American IP that was mostly unfamiliar to Japan might have also been a factor. However, the fact that the comic was very different from the animated series was probably the one thing that made Konami produce two very different games. Maybe they were testing the waters to try and see which version would sell more copies?
Anyway, if you love TMNT the Arcade Game and Turtles in Time, you should buy Shredder's Revenge for Switch. Tribute games did an excellent job on it and the game feels like a long lost sequel to the Konami arcade games.
Awesome episode, by the way 👍🏻
Yeah it’s possible but I also think at the time there wasn’t much source material as it was. Oh well at least we got what we got! Thanks for watching as always 🐢🐢
This was my most satisfying arcade vicotry of all time. Came up short so many times, and finally then defeated it late game. I saw some people at Krang and begged my mom for $2! lol
The turtle blimp actually does appear in turtles in times true hard ending on snes credits as well as the arcade version once you beat it.😎
It’s in the nes game too!
@@GTV-Japan Yes that's true too! Man that game is evil lol
The Neutrinos weren't in the game, but their cars were!
This game...this one has been in my memory and heart since the very first time i saw it in an arcade.
Just like you said, I thought, "It's like the cartoon!!!"
The cabinet was unique too, 4 joysticks, great sound and the gameplay was really fun.
I played it so many times and of course I spent lots of coins, but I managed one day to finish the game with a single coin.
Thank you for showing the connections between the game and the first 5 episodes.
Konami did a great job, with this arcade.
Thanks man!
I’m glad ya like it! Thanks for watching 🐢🐢🐢🍕🍕
Foot soldiers in the first NES game are in the over world when you walk to the next level
You are such a diamond in the ruff! I cannot explain how much I love your specific editing style and point of view! Thank you for giving us your gift! I have no nostalgia for many of the things you cover however I am always so drawn in by your style! Ive gone through many gaming channels but all feel so hollow. Yours is about the only one I am interested in. You should be very proud in your backlog of videos! Thank you again!!!
Thanks I appreciate that ❤️! My goal is to make the ultimate evergreen channel that covers truly obscure stuff like like nobody else 🐢🐢🐢🐢
Cowabunga, indeed! The TMNT arcade game was truly a slice of nostalgia right there. All this action makes me want to get a pizza, know what I mean? Well done. 😁
==long post warning ==
In Chile (at least in my city) our first exposure to the TMNT was around 1990-91 with the arcade game, so we played it without major context. In fact I thought Baxter on stage 3 was a kid.
A few months later knockoff figures of the 4 turtles started appearing (the official figures would arrived one or two years later). When the TV series was finally aired, it started from season 2, so we all thought the cartoon was actually the sequel of the game!! And never understood why the “drill vehicle” was so different between the cartoon and the game. Until years later finally the 5 part season 1 was aired and finally we got the story straight.
The ost of season 1 is amazing and I’ve been looking for it since forever, and still not on CZcams. Specially looking for the first episode music during all the interaction between April and the punks, and the technodrome music on later episodes.
There’s many plot points I never got from the 1st season:
1.I thought Rocksteady and Bebop got fusioned with the animals and that’s why they were that dumb. (They didn’t sound dumb on the first episode in human form).
2.If all the punks were mutated, why Shredder never used them against the turtles? What happened to them?
3.Baxter was forced to build the mousers so he should be innocent instead of being arrested and put on a madhouse.
4.We never saw the amazing weaponry the foot soldiers showed in that first episode ever again.
About the first nes TMNT: it was completely different so me and probably most kids on my area, just ignored it and went straight to the 2nd and 3rd nes games.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I like hearing these things. And surprisingly this comment is kind of short compared to some others! Thanks for watching and have a cowabunga weekend dude!🐢🐢🐢🐢
The way the mutations worked in the cartoon was that a human would mutate into the last animal they touched before they'd touched the mutagen. So Bebop, Rocksteady, and the other gang members were forced to touch zoo animals and then exposed to mutagen. So they were originally humans. But in some later episodes, the writers forgot and had Bebop or Rocksteady remembering when they were regular animals back at the zoo.
The other mutated punks were shown at one point, but then the writers must've forgotten about them.
Baxter is probably treated as a villain because he was an outright villain in the original comics. Publicly he claimed his Mouser robots were created for exterminating rats, but he was planning to actually use them for evil. April was his lab assistant, but he fired her -- by having the Mouser robots hunt her down and kill her! This is where the TMNT meet her, saving her life. And April being a lab assistant is the reason why she's wearing a jumpsuit in the cartoon, despite her career being changed to a TV news reporter. That's simply what she was wearing in her first comic book appearance.
One of my proudest moments was beating the original NES TMNT game.
Sir, we salute you! 🫡
I always figured the NES was a reskin of something else Konami was already working on, and then the Arcade was based on the show.
Eating pizza while I watch this, how ironic! Great video as usual. Never realized just how much detail went into the arcade based off the original mini series.
Cowabunga!🐢🍕🐢🍕🐢🍕
Konami just had a knack for doing great things with limited source material. X-Men was based off a 20 minute pilot (Pryde of the X-men), and Simpsons was based off a few episodes of the first season.
And TMNT arcade blew my mind as a kid, FOUR PLAYERS! THE THEME SONG! YOU FIGHT BEBOP AND ROCKSTEADY AT. THE. SAME. TIME! It's the little things ya know?
I did also found out much later about the similarities with the show on the arcade game,the same or close to it might happening with some other titles like bucky oh hare,maybe xmen or wild west cowboys of moo mesa! 🙂
I remember Moo Mesa, somehow!
TMNT rocked !!!!!! that game Was challenging on nes but I still enjoyed it . I liked how it was a lot longer than the arcade version ,
Once I played the arcade game the first time, I made excuses to go anywhere I found one of those cabinets, almost daily, during the summer.
TMNT stuck with me, and then came Mortal Kombat... and that's another story!
The older I get the less friends I have that still play retro video games from the NES...Retro gaming is a lonely path
There were few things more magical in the 80s than going to a place like Toys R Us pulling that ticket off the shelf that showed they had the game you were dying to get in stock.
My first Turtles game was Turtles In Time on SNES. Kind of hard to regress from that
So true!🐢🐢
Its definitely nostalgia speaking, but I like the NES game. It does alot of things right (the music for example), but it does many things very wrong. It is so close to being something really special like an open exploration Castlevania, but there is just enough jank to hold it back.
The NES game handles surprisingly well if you use RetroArch's runahead/preemptive frames feature to get rid of the input lag. Setting it to 4 brings the lag from 4-5 frames to 0-1.
Also aren't the guys that throw shurikens supposed to be the Foot Clan?
The music is very good. Bouncy NES bass! 🐢
People tend to praise the second arcade game as a classic but to me the first one is where it's at. As you said, it's perfect. Not only technically, but the timing couldn't have been better, everyone was into the Turtles back then. It was like playing the cartoon. Seeing it in the local mall arcade for the first time was one of the highest moments in my gamer life.
About the NES games I used to think like you, but today I'd rather play the first one. I don't know there's something about it that makes me come to it from time to time. And I love its OST.
As far as just the BGM itself TNMT on NES is really good!! But it’s just not very turtle-y 🐢
I'm sure you're aware of it but the NES version of The Turtles arcade game have a couple of more references to the series, like in stage 4 (which is 5 in the NES version due to an added stage), instead of refighting Rocksteady and Bebop, you get to fight Baxter Stockman in his fly form. The Nes also adds a frozen New York with a weather device which caused it (destroying after beating the boss turns winter back to spring) which also happens in Episode 5 of the first season.
One thing you didn't mentioned was that before you fought Shredder was that you fought Krang in his robot exoskeleton, which is also in the season finale (minus Krang became of the size of a giant but that was used in Turtles in Time).
I have such fun memories and nostalgia for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, but I never played the arcade game until I got the Cowabunga collection for my switch and I’ve been playing a lot lately, I hope you do the turtles in time. Sequel when you can anyway great video and great retrospective on the 1989 arcade game..
Thanks! I’m sure I’ll revisit Turtles in Time and line it up with the second season which it does very closely.
It is natural to assume that at the beginnings of the nes console they were limitations,so there's no need to think it too much why the first tmnt game was weird to the touch! The thing i know as a big fan of the series until now is that i first saw the tmnt game on nes in one of the first big mall's we had in greece,and of course the film wizard and wanted to play it like a mad man.The problem was i didn't had an nes and my gaming life started mostly with gameboy! Though i played all the turtles games on the portable,it made me even more to wanna play the nes game as well but the nes was pretty expensive close to the end of its career as a system.Then the snes was appeared and i gone directly to the 16bit era and played turtles in time there! I had an nes afterwards from a shop with vintage stuff accompanied with some games,some still closed to their boxes! I have now both tmnt from nes 1st and the second arcade version which was really groundbreaking for its time for the 8bit system! I played and beat them in original format,as well in an emulator on my pc.I also have upploaded the playthrough in my channel! 😉 The thing i don't understand however with this new cowabunga collection is why in some arcade versions the games make you choose the turtle you want before entering the title? Does anybody know anything about this setting konami made in this collection?!? Lately kevin eastman signed my freddy funko casey jones black light as well and i am really exited for this also!
I also grabbed the 🐄abunga collection on PS4 and am very happy with the whole package.from the history of the games and literally zoomable photos of Every angle of every single game box ,to multiple location for every game applicable. Just excellent. Nice episode, nostalgia mushy memories.
🐮 abunga!🐢🐢
I never got much further than the Van stage in TMNT for nes in my entire childhood. I got to that mechanical turtle once.
Turtle Mania was a crazy time for sure, I know I can't place individual releases so much as major events. I remember the first time seeing the Hostess Pies (with slime inside!), the first commercial I saw announcing the arcade version getting ported to the NES, and of course the countless Saturday nights spent playing the arcade game at the local bowling alley. The original NES title was for sure a gigantic shock; something I enjoy less as intended and more as this bizarre fever dream version of the franchise (rumors were it was a game in development with the license applied as an afterthought, something I think was disproven with the devs basically saying they had an extremely loose understanding of the concept so was mostly guess work).
Hostess pies! I remember now! Those were great!
Great video! Thank you for putting it together and helping me relive so many dope memories.
The AI upscaling is horrific though 05:46
Well that’s just how it is on the open seas 🏴☠️
@@GTV-Japan Aye aye matey!
The game was made with love, and it will remain a perennial work of art. Super advanced for its time and it's difficulty level remains up to par in 2024.
1:52 ooooof, Optical flow murdered these clips
Hold on. You played the NES game BEFORE you saw the arcade game.
You lucky dog!
I played the arcade game, then saw the magazine advert which implied that the ZX Spectrum game (the machine I had in 1989/1990) was a port of the Konami arcade game.
I got the Spectrum game (which ended up being a port of the NES game), and was utterly disgusted!
Oh my. I can’t imagine the game on the spectrum!! 😭
So that begs the question - have you tried TMNT: Shredder's Revenge? It's basically a love-letter to the arcade beat-em-up TMNT games, and plays fantastically well. Expect a lot of appearances from a lot of characters across the franchise; heck, there's even an appearance by the seldom-seen Mutagen Man in the Survival mode.
No I didn’t. I guess I should
I loved this video. It mirrors exactly my experience and thoughts of ,my child engagement with the games you mentioned here, as well as my growing observations of how the first season is a direct influence of the arcade game, which was the best choice (as after season 2 the show is less straightfoward and structured). The arcade games felt like mini movie events (or OVAs) of the TV show; where the stakes were higher and more serious.
I was definitely a huge fan...of the toys and cartoon! Found the archie comics way later, and the mirage ones after that. My aunt got me into them, and worked on and took my brother and I to the premiere of turtles 3! This video was great, I saw the connections, but not blatantly. To this day, turtles 2,3,4, and hyperstone heist are the only beat'em ups I've ever beaten, and I really want the arcade pcbs some day (sooo expensive!). Fun fact I'm sure others have mentioned is turtles 1 was never released in Japan(lucky them), and you never fight a triceraton in turtles 3, or go thru a dimensional warp in 1(the 2 with straight up mirage comics covers on the game cartridges). Memories, i even like all 3 fighting games, not my usual genre!
Who was your fav? Mine was Raph, of course.
Great video, thank you for the memories! Further turtles (shows, games), are very hit or miss...
Also, did you know in other parts of the world they are called teenage mutant hero turtles and Michaelangelo cant use his nunchucks? That was odd.
Raphael was my favorite too. He was the rebel! The nunchucks were removed from the show entirely and replaced with a grappling hook if I recall 🐢🐢🐢
I remember the arcade from the Fun N Games arcade in Aventura Mall in Miami, Florida.
That was a great game!
You know even back in the day I thought it was really strange how much harder it was to get the Turtles to swim in that first NES game than Mario! Didn't Donatello say in that one episode that water is their natural habitat?
He did! Maybe there was too much undercurrent
Loved TMNT so when the game dropped, I HAD to get it.
Cowabunga! Like, this is a totally radical video dude!! Great look at the early TMNT games. I still get three of my friends together annually to play some TMNT arcade!
Awesome dude 🐢
I remember playing this at my local Major Magics (think Chucky cheese) and spending all my quarters in this. Well that is until the Simpsons arcade machine went in.
Woohoo!!
I loved the TMNT arcade port more on the NES because it had more length and extra bosses.
I wish there was some way they combined the greatness of the graphics and mechanics of the Arcade game with the NES's port's extra stages and bosses.
The arcade game was fun but it was a bit on the short side.
Good point! The bonus stages were fun!
I still play the arcade game with my kids on PS4…it’s still very good and holds up today 👍
It’s the perfect game to play with kids. Everyone can join in and have fun AND you can pass on the tradition of the original turtles and 2d games to the next generation!!🐢🐢🐢🐢🍕🍕🍕
I noticed even back then, the episode april said " I'm destined to become a 28 year old hag" my brother comments " she's 27?'
And yes I noticed the same age in the game.
Yeah in season 2 she says that. So if the game is based on season 1, it was correct! 🐢🐢🐢
I happened to be wearing a Ninja Turtles sweatshirt today. I never even wear printed clothing. It’s destiny!
Cowabunga!! 🐢🐢🐢🐢
ahhh Chuck E Cheese, the good ole chuck e cheese days, this and that Scary ass Jurassic Park Arcade
I don’t remember that one 🦖
@@GTV-Japan Different Chuck E Cheese Experiences I supposed
@supsollc.3647 yeah. There wasn’t one nearby. However the mini golf, arcade and food court at parkway center was more than enough for me!
Correction@@GTV-Japan difference ARCADE experinces I never been mini golfing before haha
This story couldn’t be better told, from you being there, it gives the right context- just as I remember. I got the NES game on Xmas.
Wow! I hope you thanked Santa! 🐢
@@GTV-Japan I was very happy of course! I found recently a picture of me opening that game :)
TMNT 1 was a port of of the earlier Commodore Amiga game turtles, which was based on mostly comic and promo material. The cartoon series came later.
TMNT 1 is not related to the show, even the cover is from the comic series.
It was later part of that continuity.
In the marketing material (on the cowabunga collection) they even had that on one of the sheets, nothing altered only stating the Commodore and IBM brand.
The TMNT has also diffrent covers: Eastman/Laird comic with the fight scene and also the genereic Japanese Cartoon Turtles. Same game!
Wow! Amiga! That’s cool to know 🐢🐢🐢🐢
@@GTV-Japan Several re-releases contained Panini stickers and Stick-on Tattoos, all from the cartoon series.
That was Konami branded later on!
@philhenry5096 ah Panini! My favorite maker of sticker books that was also named after a sandwich. 😂 I liked their MLB books. That was a craze for a while too.
@@GTV-Japan But it's not accurate at all. The NES game was ported to the Commodore computers, not the other way around. And Bebop and Rocksteady weren't in the original comics.
@@KasumiKenshirou You are right! I replayed the C64 version and noticed it, too. There was much going on at the time of development, but still its strange how the commodore mentioning is on the old material, too. I discovered so many strange ports yesterday....
The old NES one had the turtle van and blimp in it too, and foot soldiers in the first few levels. I think the NES one comes off as weird because it combined stuff from the original comics/roleplaying games (even the cover is from the comics with the all red headbands) and the tv show, where the arcade was just the TV show. indicently, because I am from Australia, my first contact was the arcade machine first, then the TV show after, and I never read the comics so the NES game was really jarring.. also the toyline too with the odd colouring.
I guess we can only wonder what the legacy would be if we never had an arcade game 👾
89 was definitely the year TMNT came on everyone's radar and with a bullet. The arrival was sudden and immediate.
I have no hard data but it feels like the first two seasons might have been on Saturday syndication which means not many watched it. Maybe even Sunday, which means less. But somehow the second season was a smash hit. Enough tonight movie and game deals. But 5 days a week in September 89 was clearly the start. It all just seems so fast
I hated the original TMNT as a kid. Now, as an adult, I really dig it and appreciate the deep game mechanics...still hard as balls, though (especially the Technodrome).
P.S. RIP James Avery.
Yeah who knew all that time Uncle Phil was Shredder!!?
I would say the first NES game is based more on the comic with some cartoon characters mixed in for us kids to recognize it as I guess most of us had seen the cartoon but never heard of the original comic at that time.
Exactly!
I bought the game boy TMNT and was disappointed that it wasn't like the arcade game.
Great video! I’d love to see one just like this for the Simpsons arcade. Apparently that was based on just season 1 as well.
I’m thinking about it. But the more I look it seems like there isn’t a strong connection to the events of season one. Artistically it’s a perfect 10 but anyway I could certainly do Simpsons and X-men together in one video in the future. 🐢🐢🐢
I played this in the 2010s on 360. Such great memories
I really enjoyed playing the arcade game i enjoyed playing TMNT 2 and 3 on the NES system my favorite bad guy is krang metal head Leonardo are my favorite characters I wish super krang was on the show or super rocksteady and might Bebop.👍😎
awesome work and insight! 🤘
The NES-game was more based on the original comics, design-wise. I believe that the game was designed to be something completely differently in the first place, before they got the license to TMNT.
That would make sense because a lot of it is so generic and unrelated to the series!
I think it might've been made during the early period when the toys were being developed. Are any cartoon exclusive characters that WEREN'T toys in the NES game?
Bebop and Rocksteady weren't in the original comics but were in the first wave of action figures, so that's probably why they were in the game. The artwork in the game looks a lot more like the toy packaging than the cartoon designs.
In a cutscene shown in this video Shredder is wearing a red shirt, which is how he was colored in the original comics (on comic covers and the vintage colorized collections of the B&W comics). (The original Shredder toy had a stupid looking color scheme not based on either the comics or the cartoon.)
Great video, but those TMNT clips look terrible, and I'm assuming they're AI up-rezzed? It doesn't look like a TV frame upscaller, it looks like every frame was blended from one to another and the result really isn't good. The game footage looks fine though.
While they DO look like they've been A.I upscaled, I don't think that's the problem you're noticing. Many of the A.I upscaling software actually handles 2D art VERY well, you can get get results that look almost like native HD content. No, the problem is they've also used A.I to increase the framerate, leading to that ugly smeary melty look.
Wondering if he threw that in to trip up the copyright bots.
It was to trip the copyright system! And it worked!
Man, I love the TMNT franchise, and I LOVE the first arcade game. I know everyone prefers Turtles in Time, but seeing the original machine in the arcades as a kid blew my mind. I used to go to the arcades even when I had no money just to watch the attract screen with the cartoon music. And the game itself was AMAZING. I never had the chance to play on a 4-player machine, but it was a blast no matter how many people were playing. I'm currently watching the 2012 TMNT CGI cartoon with my family, and I must say that it is the best animated series the Turtles ever had. Great stuff, really. Thank you very much for this excellent video. It brought back great memories (as usual with your content) and also made me think and discover things I didn't know or had forgotten (also a common feature in your videos). More TMNT, please!
I’m sure you notice how I set things up for more videos in the future. So I think TNMT 2 will be in the cards someday 🐢🐢
@@GTV-Japan I was hoping the references to other games were indicators of future videos. Nice to read that it was the plan all along. Maybe even a video about a certain AMAZING arcade game by the same developer that had yellow people in it. You can make a very similar video about how the first season of THAT TV show influenced the game. Konami sure was firing on all cylinders at the time.
@GimblyGFR the copyright monster won’t like that. Doh!!
@@GTV-Japan Damn that monster!
The 2003 cartoon was the best, and directly adapted many stories from the original comics (but also made some drastic changes, too). Co-creator Peter Laird was heavily involved with this cartoon, which was a huge benefit.
3:03 Oh the VHS tapes were great memories. And then who could forget the pizza hut song on the live action movie?
I remember that long sappy commercial with the baseball team on the VHS tape. My baseball coach just made us run after games. Double if we lost. Which was often.
Yes......YES
This was one of the fondest years of my life as a kid, Turtlemania had just begun and this arcade machine popped up out of nowhere. We absolutely lost our sh** when we first saw it.
I have lost count of how many hours and how many 20 pences and 50 pences got spent on this game depending on where I could find it.
You were literally playing the cartoon, it was a dream come true as a Turtles fan.
They don't make games with this sort of passion and attention to detail anymore.
I'd like to hear more about the turtles in Japan. It feels like they haven't had much of an impact on them, outside of that ova.
Also a good topic would be when every turtles media did a time travel story.
They have no impact. Most people I’ve talked to remember the first home game and that’s it!