Compared to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, its sort-of predecessor, this game is (sometimes literally) a walk in the park. This being originally an arcade game ported to the NES, the gameplay is much simpler and more straightforward. The goal is to simply walk to the right in side-scrolling levels, defeating everything that Shredder, Krang and the Footclan throw at you before you can proceed. Footsoldiers, small robots, wild animals, helicopters, you name it.
Actually, the simplicity of this game was a welcome change of pace after the much more complex (not to mention frustrating) first NES game, which featured maze-like stages, impossibly tough enemies, and one-hit-kill situations. You will find none of that here. Gameplay is purposely easy, just beat up everything that gets in your way over the course of ten widely varying areas. Every now and then you get to use a fire hydrant cap, manhole cover or parking meter to hit the baddies with, and there is one very cool level where you fight from a skateboard, but that's about all the variation in gameplay there is. This game was clearly made for mindless beating rather than strategy, but fortunately it worked.
In the beginning of the game, you can pick your Turtle to fight with, but theya re quite interchangeable, since their attacks have more or less the same effect (Leo and Donatello have a better range, though). Your attacks are somewhat limited anyway, to normal attacks, jump kicks and special attacks. Mastering the latter two is basically key to finishing the game. You get to use them on a significant horde of enemies, quite varied and some more tricky than others, so never a dull moment. But the real challenge lies in the boss fights. Several of these bosses are old acquaintances of the animated TV show, which makes battling them extra fun, and some of them, like Shredder and Krang, really put up a good fight.
People complained about this game looking significantly less good on the NES as compared to the arcade version. Yeah, what'd you expect? It didn't bother me, because it still looked much better graphically than the previous game. There was always good level music to enjoy, and the NES version had some extended and additional levels, so I'm not complaining.
This game offered a nice alternative to all the Legend of Zeldas and Castlevanias of the time that were more immersive, but also more headache-inducing. Nothing wrong with a little button-bashing every once in a while. Especially not when it envolves our four favorite green ninjas.
