Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (Arcade)

While I had such a strong love for Konami’s beat ’em up X-Men that I would arrange for my birthdays to be held at an arcade featuring it, the nostalgic memory I hold for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time arises from one singular strong moment in time. Upon encountering the cabinet with my nephew (who is nearly the same age as me) long ago, we were pulled in by its presentation and hooked by its ninja bashing action, doing our best to make sure our tokens could carry us to the final boss. While we would go on to quote this game often and hold it dear to our hearts, for years I never returned to it, and in time I feared it might not be nearly as good as I remember, a thought strengthened when I played Konami’s first TMNT brawler known simply as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. A proper review should never be built on nostalgia, but when I finally got around to playing it again, I was pleased to see much of my positivity towards the game validated while in turn being able to see it for the game it is rather than a beloved memory.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time begins with the four mutated sewer-dwelling heroes known collectively as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles witnessing their long time villain Krang abduct the Statue of Liberty. Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael take off to try and restore the monument to its rightful place, and for much of the early game, this beat ’em up takes place in New York City itself. Despite battling their way through city streets and the sewers though, the turtles’ progress is stopped when their nemesis Shredder appears and flings them far back into the past, the leader of the Foot Clan making sure many of his robotic ninjas and mutated animal allies go back with them to try and turn the turtles into history. To get back to the present and continue their mission the turtles now have to fight their way through the past, different eras like the age of dinosaurs and the Wild West containing dangers new and old they’ll need to overcome.

Up to four players can work together to take down Shredder in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, each of the playable turtles having some similarities and unique features beyond just their weapon of choice. A quick simple attack string will be your best bet for dealing with most of the foot soldiers you face, but if you time things right and position yourself properly, you can grab a foe. The turtle can now swing them back and forth to slam them in the ground, hitting other enemies while feeling satisfying due to the game’s generally snappy animations and punchy sound effects. To take out the enemy instantly though, you can instead hurl them at the screen. Turtles can also pull off different jump attacks based on if you’re moving or simply leap up, and even how fast you’re running will let you utilize different attacks than your standard strikes. At times you may find a Pizza Power item on the ground to briefly turn invincible and twirl around to damage enemies, but more interestingly many levels feature things like fireworks crates you can set off or objects you can smash towards enemies for quick and heavy damage. Where the turtles are set apart though are their special attacks activated by pressing jump and attack at the same time. Leonardo’s sword swing covers the area around him quite well, Donatello and Michaelangelo both propel themselves forward for their attack, but poor Raphael is left with a short range kick. These moves are strong and more importantly can be mixed into your regular attacks quite easily. With many battles happy to pack you in close with your enemy, having such an effective range of attack options keeps things manageable and they do have valid use cases, the range of options small but all having purpose.

A lot of character is put into the way the turtles fight, react, and even take damage, and while it’s more the full set of four having a strong shared personality than unique behaviors, they still act like teenagers excited to show off their ninja powers and ones able to bounce back from injury well. You can see a turtle flattened like a goofy pancake by a wrecking ball, clasping at their feet and shouting “MY TOES! MY TOES!” when touching a spiky ball in the sewer, and even taking the fire-breathing attack of a raptor in the past rather well as their only response is “Forgot the sunscreen!”. The kooky and corny elements fit well with the energy of the action, this is a game where dinosaurs breathe fire after all and the robotic ninjas that ride atop them certainly aren’t serious themselves. The extra attention to animation likely lead to a range of the hazards and boss attacks on show, the pirate ship having floorboards that can smack up in your face in a classic slapstick gag while the final boss even has an instant kill attack that beats you by way of reverting your hero turtle back to their original unmutated form.

Luckily, the visual fun isn’t only skin deep, the game rolling out new enemies or at least new variants for the common Foot ninjas regularly. The early robotic ninjas will come at you just with their own meager martial arts, but later levels see them using all sorts of weapons from expected choices like swords and axes to firing flaming arrows and hurling strange spiked discs. In time they will get back-up from large stone soldiers with rapid fire cannons fairly regularly, but before then you’ll encounter opposition from robots with boxing gloves and what look like Alien’s Xenomorphs in the sewer, although at times it can definitely feel like the Foot ninjas are overrepresented. There are segments of the game that shake things up even when fighting standard ninjas, from the sections where you fight on hoverboards that offer freer movement to hazards that appear based on the location like a laser defense grid in the future. The thing that makes the ninjas feel rather similar is definitely how they react to your attacks though, folding a bit easily to quick attacks so you can sometimes not even really see what danger their specific weapon choice would present before you’ve knocked them away and moved along. Their numbers and back-up from other sources of danger do mean the fighting doesn’t become rote though, and the fact that enemies can often be kept from attacking for a bit with your combo is actually what helps the boss encounters work so well.

To cap off most levels you’ll face a much stronger boss, their total health unclear but how quickly they flash red a hint at how close they are to defeat. Baxter Stockman, a fly man with a gun with various attack settings, is an immediate introduction to this game’s effective boss design as he will recoil and flinch when attacked but will break through if you keep pressing your luck with a relentless assault. You need to land your hits and know when to back off or at least find the distance where you can hit the boss but they would need to move in a bit to hit you, and knocking down bosses with jump kicks or specials can also give you vital breathing room. Not every boss is cleanly balanced like Baxter though, the gator in the Wild West known as Leatherhead seemingly designed around disruptive attacks like a near instant knife stab, a knife throw to punish you for keeping your distance, and a quick scramble across the ground that’s hard to avoid. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time isn’t always going to play nice in trying to get you to pay to play more, if you do well the game even starts upping the difficulty, but you are given a few lives per credit, chances to heal, and the fact my nephew and I cleared the game with only the small sum of tokens we were given so long ago bodes well for things being manageable despite some moments that aren’t quite as kind. Even that instant kill de-mutation attack from the final boss will only happen if you back off when he begins to float up to build energy for it, the game trying to keep you engaged in battle rather than fleeing and landing small strikes only when it feels safe to do so.

THE VERDICT: While you’ll definitely spend a long time bashing basic ninja robots in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, plenty of extra touches and sound design choices keep you excited to press on and see what awaits you beyond more Foot fighters. The turtles have satisfying attacks and a good range of reasonable options for approaching a fight, and even when things go wrong, the voice lines and animations can cheer you up with some quick comedy. Bosses usually test your fighting approach a bit better, and while the game plays a little unfair at points, you’re still more likely to find fun frenetic action spiced up by the variety the different settings across time bring to the table.

And so, I give Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time for arcade machines…

A GOOD rating. While in my heart it is definitely GREAT, a critical eye definitely lands heavily on the overuse of the Foot ninjas to fill this short brawler’s enemy roster. A similar game like Final Fight has more involved special moves and individual foes put up a better fight while The Simpsons (also from Konami) has more eccentric enemies and more unique options across its playable cast to spice things up. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time certainly earns a spot in the same conversation as other classic arcade beat ’em ups, and it does have creativity permeating much of its adventure. It manifests more often as fun situations like time traveling, silly animations, and one-liners, but the battling is at least entertaining throughout because you have reason to break away from mashing the attack button based on level layouts and the enemies that shake things up a touch. Bosses like Baxter can be highlights or pains like Leatherhead and it feels like some tidying up should be done to certain elements of the game’s difficulty to make it cleaner and consistent. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time does want players to pay to play due to the arcade business model of course, but it doesn’t feel like it pushes too hard against a casual player so they and their friends can enjoy their time walloping whatever is in their way.

The SNES port of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time sounds like it made some significant changes and added content so perhaps that might be where I could find a Great version of this game, but I am relieved to see the game I was so charmed by long ago isn’t just some product of its time. While it has fun little touches like the bits of personality that spring up, in some other ways it almost feels like a pretty straightforward example of how a good beat ’em up game should be designed.  There is room to grow and not every game needs a part where a wrecking ball tries to flatten you, but the fighting is satisfying and simple, enemies aren’t overwhelming, and bosses are usually balanced to let you get in your licks while they’ll strike back for being greedy or not respecting their unique abilities. Not only does that ensure a playthrough will be enjoyable, but it makes it a nice comfort game to return to when you want exciting if not overly complicated action while at the arcade, so maybe I won’t wait another decade or two before I next revisit this vibrant classic.