Turtles has some notoriety these days after being featured on AVGN and being on lists of hardest NES games. The game sold incredibly well and was a huge success for Konami. Other licensed games like the Cowboys of Moo-Mesa not so much.
It's reputation is deserved; it is soul crushing hard and I wouldn't begrudge anyone for using cheats. Respawning enemies, enemies placed blocking ladders, that awful dam/water level with a timer, bosses requiring lots of hits the list goes on.
I can forgive the difficulty to an extent as the music is great. The graphics fairly nice for an earlier NES game. I think later games like Kirby really showed what could be done graphically on the NES. With Turtles all characters are recognisable and there's some good cut scenes. Unfortunately it suffers from flickering common in NES games.
Gameplay wise it reminded me a bit of Ghostbusters in that you travel from various locations and need to collect items. The platforming feels a bit like Goonies II or Popeye in terms of ladder systems. And it can feel a bit like a goose chase as to where you go.
Overall this is a tough, frustrating game, but no doubt a classic game. I would recommend it for nostalgia reasons as well as an example of a grade A licensed title. To be honest I have completed rock hard NES games like Contra and Ninja Gaiden and they are easy compared to Turtles. In terms of Turtles games I prefer the two Konami arcade games (also must plays) and as much as I want to hate this game I can't.
It's reputation is deserved; it is soul crushing hard and I wouldn't begrudge anyone for using cheats. Respawning enemies, enemies placed blocking ladders, that awful dam/water level with a timer, bosses requiring lots of hits the list goes on.
I can forgive the difficulty to an extent as the music is great. The graphics fairly nice for an earlier NES game. I think later games like Kirby really showed what could be done graphically on the NES. With Turtles all characters are recognisable and there's some good cut scenes. Unfortunately it suffers from flickering common in NES games.
Gameplay wise it reminded me a bit of Ghostbusters in that you travel from various locations and need to collect items. The platforming feels a bit like Goonies II or Popeye in terms of ladder systems. And it can feel a bit like a goose chase as to where you go.
Overall this is a tough, frustrating game, but no doubt a classic game. I would recommend it for nostalgia reasons as well as an example of a grade A licensed title. To be honest I have completed rock hard NES games like Contra and Ninja Gaiden and they are easy compared to Turtles. In terms of Turtles games I prefer the two Konami arcade games (also must plays) and as much as I want to hate this game I can't.