FGC #669 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up

Sorry, folks, I got turtles on the brain. Last week, we looked at nine different games where the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles worked together to take down multiple, generally office-equipment themed threats. Unfortunately, the thousands of words dedicated to those beat ‘em ups did not sate my desire for turtle alphabet soup. So now we are going to quickly run through the true story of four teenagers, picked to live in a sewer, work together, and have their lives become games. Find out what happens, when turtles stop being polite, and start hitting each other.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters
Nintendo Entertainment System
1994

Alright, let’s see what we can do about giving each fightin’ turtle game a paragraph or five that even Mikey could sit through. We can do this!

The TMNT Tournament Fighters games were three completely different games released vaguely simultaneously for three different systems. We will cover them in order of raw terribleness, despite this one technically releasing a handful of months after its big brothers.

So we have a NES fighting game. It’s bad. It’s real bad. The four turtles are practically the same fighter with slightly different special moves (which, admittedly, makes this better than Mortal Kombat, which made the basics the same for its entire cast save Sonya). This means the fighters that are not turtles are the interesting ones, though we only have Casey Jones, Hothead, and Shredder. And Hothead is not available for mirror matches! Boo!

Anywho, the plot is that Shredder challenged the turtles to a 1-on-1 fight, so our favorite teens have to battle to see who is going to qualify for the title match. It is a flimsy excuse for the brothers to fight, but Splinter has been captured, so I guess they must play by Shredder’s rules. Hothead is Shredder’s literal dragon, and they all fight Casey Jones because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

If you conquer one player mode, Splinter is rescued, but Shredder escapes. Cowabunga?

This was the last third-party NES game released in North America, so please remember its historical value when you are playing other, better games.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters
Sega Genesis
1993

Genesis version this time! This one uses the ol’ reliable Genesis controller, so its three buttons are not much better than the punch/kick of the NES. In fact, the only added button is “taunt”, and that can restore health in versus mode. That’s weird, right? Is it really a taunt if it has a direct benefit? Put your hand down, Dan, no one was talking to you.

The turtles are significantly different this time, so at least we are past the color swaps of the previous adventure. And while we technically have the same plot (Splinter has been kidnapped), the “excuse” for everyone fighting is that Dimension X is just lousy with evil doppelgängers, so you are only ever fighting miscolored allies-as-enemies. So does this game even count for our central premise? Something to think about!

Joining the turtles on team good guy are Casey Jones, our first playable April O’Neil, Ray Fillet, and original character (feel free to steal) Sisyphus the Dung Beetle. Japanese culture loves beetles, and Americans love dung, so he’s got the best of both worlds. We also have a lineup of malevolent bosses: a random Triceraton trots out first, followed by Krang in his delightful robot body, and then Karai proves to be the real final boss that kidnapped the big rat. She is significantly overpowered in this appearance, so don’t feel bad if you decide to give up on the universal tour when she arrives.

Speaking of overpowered, desperation moves are available, and they can shave off something like an entire health bar with one hit. This was back when fighting games were trying to figure out exactly how to implement “super moves” and “meter”, and, well, here’s an example of what not to do. You can basically conquer the world(s) if you are comfortable with getting pummeled and then entering the exact right button combination at the right time.

Not much more to write home about, but if you do give it a shot, be aware that “Tournament Mode” is known as “Survival Mode” in every other fighting game that has ever been produced.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
1993

Okay! We’re at the good one! We have a reasonably full roster of heroes and villains, an SNK-esque control scheme of four buttons, and even unique endings for each character. For all the games aping Street Fighter 2 around this era, the SNES version of Tournament Fighters was the only one to come close to hitting the mark.

The turtles are very separate fighters, and just as differentiated as Dhalsim and Guile. We have additional allies in the form of Aska (an ersatz heroine from the third movie) and probably Wingnut (this version is goofy enough to be a buddy). The rest of the cast is less friendly, as we have War the Horseman of the Apocalypse, Armaggon the Shark, Chrome Dome, and a “mundane” Cyber Shredder. He isn’t even a boss!

But the bosses are pretty nifty, as we get a wrestling-themed Rat King, and Karai returning as the finale. Karai is actually the one place where this version lags behind its Genesis brother: Karai has extremely limited animations, and feels like an N. Boss or similar situation where she wasn’t completely finished before this tournament got going. But you do fight her while balancing on a speeding train, so that counts for a lot.

Note that the proper story mode only allows turtle players, and April and Splinter are kidnapped yet again. Additionally, mainstays like Casey Jones and Rocksteady are only seen in the backgrounds. Playing as one of those bad boys would have been a better choice than Armaggon.

Random trivia for the first game on this list I can glowingly recommend: This is the first appearance of “Cyber Shredder”, but the “cyber” moniker just refers to mechanical, cyborg enhancements. A literal cyberspace-based Shredder would have to wait for later turtle incarnations.

TMNT: Mutant Melee
Nintendo Gamecube, Xbox, Playstation 2, Windows
2005

The turtles decided to cooperate for over a decade after their adventures in 16-bit fighting games, but we eventually got another opportunity for Leonardo to show his brothers who’s boss. Unfortunately, it was not an opportunity for Konami to show anyone else who really owned the word “Melee” on the Nintendo Gamecube…

This is a 4-player fighter vaguely based on the simple principles of Smash Bros. Unfortunately, the gameplay is mostly ported from the 3-D beat ‘em ups of this era of turtles (see last week for more information), which does not translate to a good time for anybody. Those beat ‘em ups weren’t terrible! But they do not lend themselves to competitive multiplayer, either, as the gameplay of “keep hitting it” gets boring fast when you are having a (pizza?) party. Run up to your opponent, hit one of two attack buttons over and over, and call it a day. Fun for the whole family for like four minutes, and then you’re moving onto the game with Captain Falcon.

A decent roster could save this endeavor, but it wavers there, too. Our space picks are Sleeg the Alien that appeared in one episode, and Traximus the Triceraton. We also have “Monster”, which is based on a creature from a black & white movie that Mikey watched at the start of an episode that eventually had plot-relevant sewer monsters appear later. It is a bizarre choice. Past that, we have the old standbys of Splinter, Casey, April, Hun, Shredder, and Foot Soldiers. The 2003 TMNT series was light on “whacky mutants”, but nearly any of the critters from Battle Nexus (released by the same company a year prior) would have added something to this roster.

And despite the turtles having a varied moveset, they are overshadowed by their friends and enemies getting all the variant models. There is only one Donatello, but the roster includes three April O’Neils, three Casey Jonses, three Foot Soldiers, three Shredders, and two Huns. Two Huns! More Hun options than Mikeys! Something has gone wrong!

There is a one player mode, but the story is basically just a few excuses for why you are fighting alone against a random mob of Purple Dragons. April, Casey Jones, a generic Foot Soldier, Hun, Splinter, and even Shredder get to participate in their own private “stories”. Though, again, the justification is always “I feel like punching dudes now”. At least each of the turtles feel inferior for character-specific reasons.

Otherwise, this is a completely forgettable game, and likely a contributing factor to why Konami would lose the license to goddamned Ubisoft. Not to imply goddamned Ubisoft couldn’t produce one good game…

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up
Wii, Playstation 2
2009

Hey! It’s technically the featured game of the day! And it miraculously lives up to its eponymous ranking! Cowabunga!

Let’s start with the good: this one feels genuinely enjoyable to play. It is another wannabe Smash Bros. game with an emphasis on health points over nebulous percentages, but we do have a decent “crunchiness” that makes it feel a lot more substantial than previous (and future) wannabe mascot fighters. Thanks, Team Ninja and Game Arts! There are items in the form of Ninja Powers that add some variety to the fights, glowing auras make screen-reading easy, and the control of your fighters feels precise and measured. In fact, the addition of wall jumping and some acrobatic, Prince of Persia-esque poles miraculously add something more nimble to the Smash formula that has yet to be replicated in other smash-alikes. Oh! And we’ve got a playable Krang robot! Only the Sega Genesis came close to having that, and it required cheat devices…

Unfortunately, if we are looking at the roster, we have to get to the bad. This is maybe the most generic TMNT roster available: four brother turtles, their rat-master, April O’Neil, Casey Jones, a Foot Soldier, Utrominator (Krang), and Shredder. Karai returns as the apparent ambassador of TMNT fighting games, and our only “original” character in both versions is Nightwatcher… who is just Raph in a helmet. If you picked up the Wii version (which, at this point in time, even your grandma owned a Wii) you could also play as Fugitoid for the first (only?) time. Beyond that, we have three separate Rabbids available for some Ubisoft synergy. But Rabbids aren’t very TMNT! And four is the magic number! Not three!

And that is “the thing” about this turtle fighter: this was meant to be a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the franchise, but it feels like a tie-in to the TMNT movie from two years prior. We have the recognizable characters from that film (meaning we dropped the original characters/monsters/Patrick Stewart from that jaunt), and added an Ultrom, Shredder, and Fugitoid from the 2003 series. And that’s it! No Bebop and Rocksteady! No mutant mayhem! No unique aliens! Not even so much as one samurai rabbit! We have cool “comic panels” again between rounds (like that awful DS adventure from last week), but the playable game is generic TMNT in every way. This is the same franchise that has a team called “The Mighty Mutanimals”! There could be a little more creativity here!

And speaking of creativity, what there is of the roster does not feel very distinct. Even in the early days of Smash Bros, you would not mistake Mario’s fireball-tossing and coin-uppercutting for Link’s bomb-throwing and spin-slashing. These signature moves serve the same purpose, but they are very conspicuous. In Smash-Up, every character feels generically “ninja”, so, while there is technically some variability in the movesets, a hockey stick may as well be a sword or nunchaku. Neophyte ninja April and occasional leader of the Foot Clan Karai are practically echo fighters! And that works in a roster of 90, but not so much when you are only working with a cast more anemic than Mortal Kombat 2.

Oh well, these are minor complaints in light of the fact that this game is easily the one on this list you could happily pick up and play with your friends (assuming the Obama Administration is still in office). And the story mode ain’t bad, either! It is a little fixated on one-on-one fights (which makes sense given the petite roster), but it is justified by Splinter hosting a friendly tournament that may or may not be interrupted by Shredder kidnapping a robot buddy. And all the heroes get individual, story-based endings! That barely ever happens in Smash clones!

Or other fighting games…

Injustice 2
Playstation 4 / Xbox One / Windows
2017
(Though the turtles wouldn’t arrive until 2018)

The Ninja Turtles would appear in a few fighting games as DLC skins. Brawlhalla, for instance, allowed the full foursome to skin over preexisting characters with adorable, 80’s appropriate cartoon graphics. However, the Mikey skin could apply equally to Val as Steven Universe’s Stevonnie and Street Fighter’s Akuma, which does not merit a cowabunga. Similarly, official ninja turtle “costume parts” appeared in Street Fighter 6, and for something like a hundred dollars, you could dress your original street fighter up like a giant reptile. Why you would need anyone but Beef Not Afraid is a mystery to this author, but the option is there.

We will be here all day if we cover every time the turtles got referenced (and then had to fight), but Injustice 2 actually included the real ninja brothers. Or… some version of them. It is unclear if these turtles are distinctly from any given era, but they do exude big 80’s movie energy, which is the traditional qualification for being favored by Ed Boon. Fight Raiden’s home franchise, and you can learn how to spell Schwarzenegger, bros!

Technically the turtles are all one character, and Leo is the default. But if you bumble through a few menus, you can change a turtle’s weapon, and thus their whole identity shifts. And the turtles have different moves! Kinda! It is difficult to ascertain a full moveset while in the heat of battle, but Raph definitely has separate special moves from Mikey, even if they all share the same (radical) super move. Oh! And they all have different dialogue and general posing, so they do feel separate in all the ways that would matter in a Netherrealm game.

Despite being different characters kinda-sorta, they all share one solid story mode. Krang (who did not appear in the movies, come to think of it) teleported the turts to another dimension, and that just happens to be a place where Superman is evil and Brainiac is invading. Our favorite ninja defeat the giant nerd, and are then accidentally dosed with super power drugs by Harley Quinn throwing a pizza party. The turtles then fight their way back home, and completely trounce the Foot, because Shredder was ill prepared for the gang having the raw strength of Doomsday. Also, this apparently means they were fighting through Injustice 2’s cast without superpowered assistance, so that speaks very poorly of Black Adam’s power levels relative to Eastman/Laird-based dimensions.

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl
Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4/5, Xbox One/X/S
2021

Nickelodeon purchased the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise as a whole in late 2009 for $60,000,000.00. Nickelodeon didn’t really do much with them from a gaming perspective outside of mobile releases until 2018, when the TMNT would compete in Nickelodeon Kart Racers. At least one turtle would appear on the cover of each Nickelodeon Kart Racers game going forward (there’s three of ‘em!), but we’re not talking about racing games today, we’re looking for a fight! So we had to wait through 2 kart racers to get to Nick’s crossover fighting feature with 2021’s Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. Previous games on this list may have quietly adopted some concepts from Smash Bros, but Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl did its best to capture everything about the Nintendo platform-fighter that had premiered twenty years prior. And, while we have an excellent cross section of Nicktoon characters old and new here, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the most represented franchise (after all DLC) with four total playable TMNT characters. But not the ones you think! We only have Leo and Mikey from the actual turtles, and April O’Neal and Shredder for additional combatants. That’s fine. I guess. I mean, there is an entire mutant menagerie if you are going to focus on the 80’s era, but making it half humans… yeah… That’s fine…

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl felt half completed when it was first released (no items, no voice clips, no Jenny the Teenage Robot), but it apparently came together as a decent Smash-alternative somewhere in there (though still no licensed music, so don’t expect a familiar theme song). The TMNT reps are all pumping out quips and comments that match their toygetic, “rounded” style, and the playable turtles have appropriate movesets. Michelangelo even has his rarely seen later-seasons grappling hook! And while L&M get cool, black & white alternate colors, April and Shredder only have minor palette swaps for their secondary costumes. Boo. We could have at least had Shredder without a helmet.

Speaking of Shred-head, with the earlier games featuring the likes of Cyber Shredder, this is the definitive playable 80’s Shredder. Live your dreams of controlling the late, great James Avery! April O’Neal feels less “accurate”, as her Channel 6 Newscaster-based skills pale in comparison to her appearance in Shredder’s Revenge. But we will let that one slide, as the TMNT stages based on NYC rooftops, sewers, and the Technodrome are delightful. Good representation all around!

For a full TMNT inventory, the backgrounds may also include cameos from Foot Soldiers, Krang’s Amazing Robot Body, Mousers, and Mondo Gecko. Strangely, Mondo Gecko also appears as part of the menus, which seems to indicate that someone other than me absolutely loves Mondo Gecko. That can’t be right…

Unfortunately, Arcade Mode is not Story Mode, so there is no real plot to be had here. The turtle characters are expressive and recognizably acting “canon”, but there is never an explanation for why they decided to start whaling on Garfield. Maybe there was some residual animosity after Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue? Guess we have to wait for the sequel…

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2
Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4/5, Xbox One/X/S
2023

Officially, the art director of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 has stated the game to be “98% made entirely from scratch as opposed to being built off the first game.” Unfortunately, playing NASB2 immediately after NASB1 does not properly convey that concept. Half the stages are reused, a number of the most significant upgrades to NASB1 are repeated, and more than half of the NASB1 roster is back in action. This weirdly feels like picking up Splatoon 2 immediately after Splatoon (1) ended its trail of updates: it is an impressive improvement over release-day NASB1, but not all that different from the final build of NASB2. Oh, and sidenote? They dropped the turtles!

Some of the coolest characters from NASB1 did not make the sequel’s cut (Oblina, you will always be missed). Of team TMNT, only April O’Neal returned unscathed. Mikey and Leonardo, though? Completely gone! In their place we have Donatello and Raphael. To be absolutely clear, they are not echoes of their brothers. They are wholly unique characters, just damned forever to be separated from previous title brethren. It is understandable that The Powers That Slime didn’t want this to be a TMNT-dominated roster… but it’s weird! Assuming there isn’t a Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl Trilogy planned where (dropped) Helga Pataki can finally fight her crush’s grandma, dumping such a significant chunk of a beloved roster is peculiar.

Oh well, let’s focus on what we do have. These are the 80’s turtles again, and Donny and Raph do have their personalities shine through their movesets. Donatello has excellent range and encourages slower, more methodical gameplay. Meanwhile, Raph is a little maniac that zooms all over the screen and attacks with a flurry of offensive maneuvers. Someone understood the assignment! Additionally, Rocksteady replaces Shredder as antagonist DLC, and this is the first time the big lug has ever had a playable moveset beyond “punch” and “charge”. He certainly has punch and charge, but he’s also got a cartoon gun, grenades, the ability to throw barrels like Donkey Kong, and a direct line to summoning Krang’s Robot Body for his super move. Unfortunately, like his lonely toitle foes, he does feel a little hindered without his best pig pal…

And there is a campaign mode this time, with a loose plot (ghosts are up to no good) and guest stars Splinter (for training) and Shredder (for a boss battle). And Foot Soldiers and mousers are generic mooks! Nickelodeon is doing their best to get their money’s worth out of that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles license.

Still no playable Mondo Gecko, though. So that must mean we’ll see another excuse for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to fight again…

FGC #669 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up

• System: Nintendo Wii and Playstation 2. Aside from the additional characters, the main reason you would play this on the Wii would be…
• Number of Players: Four. It is always good to see all four turtles playable at once. We took all those arcade games for granted.
• Favorite Stage: A number of stages follow the Super Smash Bros. Melee pattern of having an unpredictable (to new players) loop of events to hop through. The most ridiculous is the Cruise Ship stage, which starts on a boat, smacks into an iceberg (!), and then involves dancing around on the back of a whale until the vessel respawns. As someone who still has Titanic-related trauma, I feel this level is in poor taste (but fun to play).
• Favorite Ninja Magic (item): There is this weird ninja magic that just makes claw marks appear on the arena in random places, and if someone runs into them, they are damaged. I cannot for the life in me figure out what is supposed to be happening here, but it is delightful.
• Not a Bonus: In one-player mode, there are bonus stages available to earn additional in-game currency. The bad news here is that you have three mandatory bonus stage runs per playthrough, and none of these bonuses are as delightfully short as E. Honda beating up a car. But it is easy to understand why these are required, as each of the stages highlight exactly how perfectly calibrated your ninja are, and nimbly steering your protagonist through an obstacle course is seamless. Just would be nice if it didn’t feel like such a filler interruption from the “real” game.
• Say something mean: The final boss fight takes place in an arena that has a trap that randomly targets a player, and then unavoidably zaps ‘em to take a chunk off the victim’s health. This is a fun bit of unpredictability during regular gameplay, but is a bit arbitrary when an errant laser forces a death on your hero in story mode. And it might be even worse when the random laser gets the final hit and wins the game “for” you.
• Just play the gig, man: We are dealing with a lack of familiar, licensed music again. And what counts as the soundtrack sounds weirdly… Well, it may best be described as “someone didn’t understand the 80’s”. It sounds like elevator music attempting to be radical. It’s not bad, just… what is the opposite of compelling? This is music for turtles to nap to. And the victory jingle is catchy, but indescribably absurd.
• Dressed to Impress: Your playable Rabbids are Raving Rabbid, which is a traditional Rabbid in its underpants, Ninja Rabbid, which is a Rabbid from Raving Rabbids 2 that is poorly cosplaying as a ninja turtle, and Splinter Rabbid, which, of course, is emulating Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell. He attacks with a dart gun and explosives. Like Splinter (Cell).
• Did you know? A Rabbid is more likely to appear in a future Super Smash Bros. game than any given Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. This feels wrong on a cosmic level.
• Would I play again: Give or take far too many excuses for a character to get stunned (and thus sitting around and waiting), this is easily one of the most enjoyable smash-alikes out there. There’s a lot that could be better, but general playability is far beyond other games attempting to take a shot at the king. If it were more immediately available (aka didn’t requite remembering where my WiiU got to), I might randomly play it on a rainy Saturday afternoon. There are always more trophies to buy from Splinter! It keeps the old rat spry!

What’s next? We are done with turtles (for now), so Random ROB has chosen… Hi-Fi Rush! Radical! Let’s kick shell to the beat! Please look forward to it!