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TMNT Turtles in Time: Better on Arcade or SNES? (hint: It's SNES)

MrCunningham said:
I kind of wish they put more effort into the game to make it more of an original title.
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I feel as though Konami was on cruise control for the system, like other Japanese devs at the time who did not take its market seriously with a primarily domestic viewpoint. Until their former colleagues at Treasure totally blew their efforts out of the water and made them look bad. Konami's output after that feels kind of reactionary to Treasure somehow.

I don't know where you'd fit Rocket Knight Adventures into that equation though.
 
sphinx said:
but Konami did change something because I know for a fact TMNT (1) was beatable with one coin, I remember watching all afternoon one boy playing by himself with Donatello and beatl it with one coin, can't remember if he lost a life but we were all like "WTF... it was possible)

same with the simpsons, that game I finished it without losing a life using Homer.

but Turtles in Time it was cheap all the way, for every stage you didn't die, the enemy would move faster and be more aggresive in the next one. shitty coin muncher,
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Maybe it was the difficulty sliders on the cabinets?

But I do agree, there was something cheap about it though compared to the rest.
 
lazygecko said:
I feel as though Konami was on cruise control for the system, like other Japanese devs at the time who did not take its market seriously with a primarily domestic viewpoint. Until their former colleagues at Treasure totally blew their efforts out of the water and made them look bad. Konami's output after that feels kind of reactionary to Treasure somehow.

I don't know where you'd fit Rocket Knight Adventures into that equation though.
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Personally I love Contra Hardcorps and I fell that it is every bit as good as Contra III. I also enjoy Bloodlines as well. Overall, I thought their Genesis lineup was solid. But Hyperstone Heist does feel like it was a smaller project with a short development time. Rocket Knight Adventures was one of the real highlights though, an so was Konami's excellent port of Snatcher for the Sega CD, with its rather good localization.
 
Arcade gave you a better challenge, graphics, music and 4 player co-op.

SNES just changes and add more for a complete experience.
 
Carlius said:
best TMNT game is on NES. Project Manhattan was it? so good.
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Loved that game on the NES as well. Man, growing up as a kid with the TMNT first coming out, after being a huge He-Man/Voltron/Transformers nut was such a good time to be a kid in the cartoon era.
 
Genesis Tournament Fighters suffers mainly from being designed purely for the 3-button controller and just has single punch and kick commands. The AI difficulty is also just pure bullshit. I do actually prefer the cosmic setting in the game though. It reminds me of the more out-there stories from the Archie comics, and the background art is just really cool in general.
 
Konami was the number one during those days.

Most of my library were Konami games. TMNT, Contra, Tiny Toons, Zen, Castlevania.. the list goes on. The Tiny Toon's sports game on Genesis, holy shit we laughed hard. Manhattan Project was never released in Europe, always wanted it back then. But I moved on to 16 bit so it wasn't that big of a deal in the end.

Their Sega output wasn't as good, but still solid. Castlevania was underrated and Hard Corps was amazing. Holy shit, Hard Corps. Called Probotector over here. I first dismissed it as I 1CC'd the GB game consistently and was burnt out, I bought another game for about 10 bucks instead. But that one sucked ass so I traded it back and luckily Probotector was still on the shelf for the same price which I took home instead. Was floored by that first level.
 
lazygecko said:
Genesis Tournament Fighters suffers mainly from being designed purely for the 3-button controller and just has single punch and kick commands. The AI difficulty is also just pure bullshit. I do actually prefer the cosmic setting in the game though. It reminds me of the more out-there stories from the Archie comics, and the background art is just really cool in general.
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I liked it's setting too, but as a game it should had been way better!
 
Timu said:
I liked it's setting too, but as a game it should had been way better!
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Yeah. When even the NES version comes off as a game that was more "put together" better than the MD/Gen version, you know that something wasn't quite right.

Sad, too, as I think the MD version probably made off with the best OST of the trio.
 
SNES version is by far superior minus the 4 player aspect. Music is better, gameplay is better, controls feel tighter, and the best last boss (Super Shredder).

Arcade isn't bad but fun to play through with 4 people. Remake is the worst. Nothing redeeming about it at all.
 
I don't understand how SNES has better music, hell songs like Neon Nightriders, Bury My Shell on Wounded, and Technodrome The Final Shell Shock all sound better in the arcade version to me.
 
SNES version is the better game but the soundtrack is plagued by that horrible DRAMATIC SYNTH CHORD effect that should have died in the 1980s but for some reason Konami insisted on using in their SNES games.
 
entremet said:
What do you think of the NES port?

I really enjoyed. It was amazing given the hardware, plus two extra stages too.
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Very good effort considering the hardware, but in no situation would I ever prefer to play it over the arcade version.
 
NES Tournament Fighters was the one version I actually played back in the day since a friend had it. Odd that it was released here in Europe, since I think Manhattan Project actually wasn't.

I think it's also unfortunate that TMNT3 Radical Rescue on the Game Boy is also left out of these discussion. It's actually much more of a Metroidvania game (I think it was even designed by Iga, so that would make sense). Way, way better than the earlier GB TMNT games, and sweet music as always. A friend had this one as well so I had the fortune of experiencing it.

stuminus3 said:
SNES version is the better game but the soundtrack is plagued by that horrible DRAMATIC SYNTH CHORD effect that should have died in the 1980s but for some reason Konami insisted on using in their SNES games.
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It was all over their game soundtracks. Especially in the arcades. Violent Storm's OST is pretty much a de-facto TMNT score. I also remember hearing that orchestra hit in some early 90's action movie with Whoopie Goldberg and laughing my ass off.
 
Konami's arcade games are usually easier in Japan and (to a lesser extent) Europe.

In the USA there are numerous changes:

In X-Men, there aren't any health-restoring items. Also I think you could stock "mutant powers" so that special attacks didn't drain health.
Crime Fighters changed the health system from life-bars to a "countdown" where health slowly ticked away even if you weren't getting hit.
Turtles in Time removed a pizza or two.
In The Simpsons JPN you could "stock" extra health by grabbing food with a full health meter. This in effect creates a second health meter. The scoring system was also designed so that extra health translated to more points.

XEXEX, a 2D shooter(?!) was torn completely inside out. In Japan it was an R-type-esque checkpoint-based shooter. In the US version the checkpoints were removed, the lives were replaced by a single health meter, and the unique and interesting weapons were removed. I'm still baffled that this actually happened.

There were probably numerous other minor changes made to their entire late-80s to mid-90s arcade library, but this is just off the top of my head.
 
Radical Rescue was brilliant. Might be even the best TMNT game.

PepsimanVsJoe said:
Konami's arcade games are usually easier in Japan and (to a lesser extent) Europe.

In the USA there are numerous changes:

In X-Men, there aren't any health-restoring items. Also I think you could stock "mutant powers" so that special attacks didn't drain health.
Crime Fighters changed the health system from life-bars to a "countdown" where health slowly ticked away even if you weren't getting hit.
Turtles in Time removed a pizza or two.
In The Simpsons JPN you could "stock" extra health by grabbing food with a full health meter. This in effect creates a second health meter. The scoring system was also designed so that extra health translated to more points.

XEXEX, a 2D shooter(?!) was torn completely inside out. In Japan it was an R-type-esque checkpoint-based shooter. In the US version the checkpoints were removed, the lives were replaced by a single health meter, and the unique and interesting weapons were removed. I'm still baffled that this actually happened.

There were probably numerous other minor changes made to their entire late-80s to mid-90s arcade library, but this is just off the top of my head.
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I believe that in Hard Corps Japan, you had 3 hit points per life. In the west, one hit means you're dead. Thats significant. And I prefer it this way.

But their arcade games were in fact just lame. They were designed to eat your coins. Their localizations anyway.
 
Just listening to youtube, I think I like the way the arcade music sounds more than the SNES version, but that's just me.

I'm actually upset at myself I didn't get the remake when I could. I knew that people were hating on it then as they are now, and it could all be true, but I still with I bought it because I've never played Turtles in Time. I have the original Arcade game on XBLA and NES, at least.

Garlador said:
Easily second-best Turtle game.
Graphics, music, stages... It STILL holds up so well.
gfs_29048_2_5.jpg
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Oh, I have this too! Maybe it's time to bust out the NES Advantage...

edit: from what I remember hearing, Castlevania 3 JPN is easier than the one we got in the States. I don't know any specifics, though...
 
PepsimanVsJoe said:
Konami's arcade games are usually easier in Japan and (to a lesser extent) Europe.

In the USA there are numerous changes:

In X-Men, there aren't any health-restoring items. Also I think you could stock "mutant powers" so that special attacks didn't drain health.
Crime Fighters changed the health system from life-bars to a "countdown" where health slowly ticked away even if you weren't getting hit.
Turtles in Time removed a pizza or two.
In The Simpsons JPN you could "stock" extra health by grabbing food with a full health meter. This in effect creates a second health meter. The scoring system was also designed so that extra health translated to more points.

XEXEX, a 2D shooter(?!) was torn completely inside out. In Japan it was an R-type-esque checkpoint-based shooter. In the US version the checkpoints were removed, the lives were replaced by a single health meter, and the unique and interesting weapons were removed. I'm still baffled that this actually happened.

There were probably numerous other minor changes made to their entire late-80s to mid-90s arcade library, but this is just off the top of my head.
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This is why I prefer the Japanese versions of their arcade games, hell I 1 credit The Simpsons easily thanks to that.
 
Manhattan Project will always be my favorite TMNT game. My mind was blown when i first saw that on store shelves since I've never seen it in magazine articles at the time.

It was a turtles fanboys wet dream. It was crammed for a beat em up. Very long levels that weren't boring, bosses all over the place and the best gameplay. It was one of those game where I couldn't wait to see which villian I'd see next as a boss.
 
Host Samurai said:
Manhattan Project will always be my favorite TMNT game. My mind was blown when i first saw that on store shelves since I've never seen it in magazine articles at the time.

It was a turtles fanboys wet dream. It was crammed for a beat em up. Very long levels that weren't boring, bosses all over the place and the best gameplay. It was one of those game where I couldn't wait to see which villian I'd see next as a boss.
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You just described my exact nostalgic memories of it as well.
 
Ragnorok64 said:
So I look at the list in the link and it has me wondering since so many people are praising the SNES version's "superior gameplay." Is the SNES version actually even better or is it just easier so people think it's better?
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-hitting enemies has a sense of weight in the SNES version. enemies in the arcade version recover from hits almost immediatly and react pretty strangely to attacks.
-slams and throws are random in the arcade version
-when you grab a pizza in the arcade version, your character strikes a pose and stop moving for a second. i know it sounds petty written like that, but considering the more numerous and agressive enemies, it can be annoying.

furthermore, I checked the guy's youtube account and he recorded all his 1CC runs of the arcade version on Easy difficulty. Not to take away from his considerable achievement, but if he feels it's necessary to do that for the game to be 1ccable without exploits, maybe there's a *problem*
 
So I never actually paid attention to high-level Turtles In Time arcade play before.
Yeesh, the rank is obscene! By the fifth stage, the game becomes the beatemup equivalent of Gradius III's arcade version.

There are just so many foot soldiers, and they're all using different weapons. Due to the way everything comes together, there's little the player can actually do aside from the safest possible moves. Even if you take the SNES version out of the equation, the arcade game has problems. I can point to any other Konami beatemup that shows far more restraint than Turtles in Time arcade game, including titles that came afterwards.

The game also looks rushed, at least more-so than its prequel. The backgrounds are mostly flat and uninteresting, with very little in the way of details. Shredder's appearance at the end of Sewer Surfin' doesn't make any sense. The randomness of the grabs & throws is also really off-putting. Then again, I guess if grab & slams were practically guaranteed as they are in Turtles in Time SNES, they'd trivialize the difficulty, but...oh well. Also the bosses are too easily stunned. Even the first Turtles Arcade game had the sense to code some hard-counters in after "x" number of hits (like when Rocksteady would kick after every hit, or Bebop after 2-3).

Glowsquid said:
-when you grab a pizza in the arcade version, your character strikes a pose and stop moving for a second. i know it sounds petty written like that, but considering the more numerous and agressive enemies, it can be annoying.
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I think you get several invulnerability frames during and after the pose at least.

EDIT: I take that back. You're invulnerable during the pose, but you can get hit immediately after the pose ends. This freakin' game.
 
lazygecko said:
I think it's also unfortunate that TMNT3 Radical Rescue on the Game Boy is also left out of these discussion. It's actually much more of a Metroidvania game (I think it was even designed by Iga, so that would make sense). Way, way better than the earlier GB TMNT games, and sweet music as always. A friend had this one as well so I had the fortune of experiencing it.
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Not by IGA, but it was directed by Hiroyuki Fukui (who would go on to be a Producer for SOTN after IGA took over the project).
 
This isn't really the right thread for me to share this, but I just realized something that's bugged me all these years about Turtles in Time: I received the game equivalent of getting these action figures for Christmas:

EQiAj7D.jpg


My first Nintendo home console was a Super NES, and so I missed out on owning the excellent TMNT2: The Arcade Game for NES. So when I finally had a Nintendo console, I'm sure you can imagine I was ecstatic to read in EGM that an arcade Turtles game was being ported over to the SNES. I enjoyed it immensely as a kid, and it's still one of my all-time favourite games, but...

Yes, the Turtles are there. And yes, all the baddies you would expect to fight are there. But it's just all so different. It starts in New York, but you're eventually sent all over time to unfamiliar Turtle locations. You fight Bebop and Rocksteady, but they're in pirate costumes. You fight Krang, but he's got these wings and he's flying all over the place. You fight Shredder, but it's...Super Shredder. Ugh.
And yes, I realize you "fight" Shredder in the Technodrome, but that's more of a mini game than anything.

None of this is to say the game is bad, but as a kid, I wanted that core Turtles experience, even if it had already been done before on lesser hardware. I wanted the regular Raphael action figure. But what I got with this one was...Astronaut Raph.
 
I like every version of this game, even Reshelled... and I like them all because I loved Turtles In Time on SNES so much and TMNT in general. It's the same reason I like wildly different lost director's cuts of some of my favorites movies.

Iced said:
This isn't really the right thread for me to share this, but I just realized something that's bugged me all these years about Turtles in Time: I received the game equivalent of getting these action figures for Christmas:

EQiAj7D.jpg
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Those were amazing. I won the set of those at school in 3rd or 4th grade and I remember getting called to the office to get them... I thought I was just in trouble again.

Samurai Leo went awesome with Usagi Yojimbo and Panda Khan, especially if you had a suite of the plastic weapons that you could mix and match all over them.

Like most people, I kinda hated the third TMNT movie for the reasons you probably didn't like Turtles In Time... and it's occurred to me since the last thread about this that the time traveling stages are kinda lame... but it fits the cartoon versions of the characters, since they'd always do lame stuff like that. I only realize that now though, so it's too late for me to unlike it and like TMNT 2/3 on NES better.
 
If only the HD remix took the best from both versions of the game and turned it into a masterpiece.

SNES is definitely overall the better version due to content and touch ups done to the overall game feel but the arcade version is so nostalgic for me. I would always want to go to Chuck E. Cheese for my birthday as a kid just so I could play the game even though I owned the SNES version. The frames of animation and 4P mode was just too rad.
 
lazygecko said:
I feel as though Konami was on cruise control for the system, like other Japanese devs at the time who did not take its market seriously with a primarily domestic viewpoint. Until their former colleagues at Treasure totally blew their efforts out of the water and made them look bad. Konami's output after that feels kind of reactionary to Treasure somehow.
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To be honest, I think Konami's Genesis output is outstanding. Hyperstone Heist is the only one that sticks out as kind of lacking compared to it's SNES counterpart, but even that is great.
 
SonicMegaDrive said:
To be honest, I think Konami's Genesis output is outstanding. Hyperstone Heist is the only one that sticks out as kind of lacking compared to it's SNES counterpart, but even that is great.
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Agreed.
Rocket Knight Adventures is one of the best games on the Genesis.
Hard Corps and Bloodlines are both fantastic.
Buster's Hidden Treasure is a very decent platformer.

I don't buy the part about Konami being "reactionary" to what Treasure was doing.
After all, Rocket Knight came out a month before Gunstar Heroes.
 
4 player > SNES improvements

Much preferred the music and animation of the arcade version too. Honestly, the additional stages made the game too long, and fatigue sets in before finishing it on SNES. :/

I will say that the SNES port was still fantastic.
 
lazygecko said:
I feel as though Konami was on cruise control for the system, like other Japanese devs at the time who did not take its market seriously with a primarily domestic viewpoint. Until their former colleagues at Treasure totally blew their efforts out of the water and made them look bad. Konami's output after that feels kind of reactionary to Treasure somehow.

I don't know where you'd fit Rocket Knight Adventures into that equation though.
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man what

RKA >>> Sparkster SNES
Bloodlines >> SCIV
Hard Corps >> Contra 3

Hyperstone Heist isn't even bad
 
I love that sound effect the bosses make when you hit them in the SNES version. i also love the train stage where you fight Leatherhead and the music having a guy yell Hey!
 
Can't remember if you could do it on the arcade game or not, but I loved how on the SNES version you could control whether you flung the foot soldiers from side to side or throw them into your screen depending on which direction you were holding the D-pad. Made for some nice strategies to rack up the points. If I remember right I know in the arcade version you could of course do either, but I thought it was more random on which it would do.
 
Dipship31 said:
Can't remember if you could do it on the arcade game or not, but I loved how on the SNES version you could control whether you flung the foot soldiers from side to side or throw them into your screen depending on which direction you were holding the D-pad. Made for some nice strategies to rack up the points. If I remember right I know in the arcade version you could of course do either, but I thought it was more random on which it would do.
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The arcade version was random. That was a nice addition to the SNES version.
 
There was one song from Hyperstone Heist I adored. It made that stage my favorite stage.

I was disappointed it doesn't exist in any other version, but it's when you're breaking into Shredder's Hideout.

Regardless, man, the music of these games was something else. It's almost criminal they didn't use the original music for Re-Shelled.

I can't think of too many games TODAY that were as energized and pumped you up to pound through a thousand foot soldiers.
 
Garlador said:
There was one song from Hyperstone Heist I adored. It made that stage my favorite stage.

I was disappointed it doesn't exist in any other version, but it's when you're breaking into Shredder's Hideout.

Regardless, man, the music of these games was something else. It's almost criminal they didn't use the original music for Re-Shelled.

I can't think of too many games TODAY that were as energized and pumped you up to pound through a thousand foot soldiers.
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Yeah the hideout inside and outside tracks are great. Probably due to them being original tracks for the genesis game.
 
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