I'm not a big fan of beat-'em-ups, but they're good for a session of mindless co-op. A gaming buddy of mine and I played through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time, a game that seems to be generally highly regarded.
I have to admit I didn't find much particularly compelling about the game. It seems very similar to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game, which I'd played through on NES a few years ago but didn't find particularly memorable. TMNT IV has a little more variety in terms of locales and there are some stages that shake thing up a bit, specifically a couple of hoverboard levels, including one that makes good use of the SNES's Mode 7 effects. I'm sure fans of the cartoons would get a lot more out of it (I never saw the appeal myself), but for me this just felt like business as usual, and a pretty mindless experience on the normal difficulty level.
Not much more to say about this. Finishing this game completes the list of most famous TMNT video games, so I don't have to worry too much about spending more time on them. The one other TMNT game that I'm curious about is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up, a Smash Bros. clone that was co-developed by some of the development staff of the Smash Bros. games. I'm not expecting much from it, but I'll probably check it out at some point.
Time for some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time links:
- Entry at Wikipedia
- Entry at Racketboy's Together Retro Game Club
- It comes in at #25 on sydlexia's list of top SNES games
- Apparently the game was remade not long ago. Here's a trailer.