Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Game Boy Advance)

US cover.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a multi-genre beat 'em up video game based on the 2003 cartoon developed by Hudson Soft and published by Konami for the Game Boy Advance on 2003-10-31. This game was a companion to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game released on the three main sixth generation consoles, and even included a password to work with the GameCube release. Each is part of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe.

In the game's story, the turtle's sewer home has been ransacked, April O'Neil has been kidnapped by Baxter Stockman, and a gang of thugs called the Purple Dragons are terrorizing the neighborhood. The turtles have to use every technique Splinter has taught them and join with Casey Jones to defeat the mastermind behind all of this chaos: Shredder.

Personal

I played this game to batter familiarize myself with the Game Boy Advance library and because I was curious what TMNT had evolved into after I stopped following them when I was a kid. I found the game to be decent and a lot less of a kick in the teeth than the ones I grew up on.

Status

I don't own this game. I beat it easy difficulty on 2021-12-31 and again on normal difficulty on 2022-01-17.

Review

6	6	7	5	6

Best Version: Game Boy Advance

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The standard beat 'em up genre is competently designed and features most of the tropes expected from it.
• The additional genres aren't very good, but they at least break up the main genre to prevent it from becoming stale.
• It's nice that each turtle has different controls. In addition to the different weapons, each has a different special jump: Leo and Mike can double jump, Don can pole-vault, and Raph can climb walls.
• I like that the game gives unlimited continues, but still has a significant penalty for dying.
• The engine used during the cut-scenes, which is similar to that used by dating sims, is employed effectively.
• The art is drawn well and matches what kids would be seeing in the cartoon of the time.
• Having three different skill levels makes the game more accessible to gamers of different abilities.
• Having to collect hidden crystals throughout the game helps add some replay.

Bad

• While the beat 'em up sections are pretty mature, as with most multi-genre games, all the other genres are limited resulting in rather boring game play. If the designers had concentrated on just one more genre, it probably would have been more enjoyable than several limited genres.
• Since the player's health is carried across acts, this can result in the player getting stuck without enough health to reasonably make it through the next act which will lead to frustration. If the game always filled the player's health at the end of each act and just made the next section a little harder at the beginning, they could alleviate this problem.
• The turtle head status icon art usually looks pretty bad.
• Getting all the crystals only results in a different password for the GameCube port, which is not very rewarding. An additional ending scene would have been preferred.
• The "easy" difficulty setting doesn't warn you beforehand that you won't get to see the ending. I would have liked to know this so I didn't waste my time playing it.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Media

Covers

Both games use the same box art as their AAA release counterparts. This is misleading since their GBA game is entirely different.

• 

  The US box uses the 2003 TMNT logo, and has the four turtles in a city street with their weapons drawn and they're coming at you ready for a fight.

• 

  The European art has just the turtles, each in a battle stance.

Videos

Longplay - Hard, no hits, all crystals.

Links