Ninja Turtles Guide
There is an attack and a jump button. Press two buttons together for a special move, and press jump and attack afterward in conjunction with the analog stick, to pull off a jump kick. You can pick any one of the turtles as long as they aren't already taken by another person. There are five stages that scroll from left to right in a 2D plane, with a few fun ones mixed in like the skateboard stage and the elevator stage or the vertically-scrolling stage. The Turtle animations are pretty good considering the time they were created, and the music is super cheesy, but the whole notion of ninja turtles that love pizza, turtle power and all that, well, there is still some strange, wonderfully horrible attraction that gives the turtles never-ending resonance. There are a handful of bosses with patterns to learn, and together with one, two or three other people, you can pummel, punch, throw, and jump your way to a win in an easy 20 minutes.There are a few basic strategies for Ninja Turtles, like crowding enemies into corners, or jump-kicking the pole-bearing enemies. Each turtle has slightly different moves some are quicker or have longer reaches -- but let's face it, it's not a brain-powered activity. And the game is designed to kill you. It forces you to die multiple times and spend more money (except now you just die and restart for free).
Each of the nine bosses hides out in a familiar Ninja Turtles locales like New York streets, rooftops, and sewers. Most stages conclude quickly; you'll breeze through quick, randomized assignments like killing enemies, disarming bombs, and infiltrating hideouts in three to five minutes each, and then progress to a boss who doesn't take much longer to ninja to death.The only thing that slightly tempts me to return to stages is to discover alternate boss battles, like how Rockstead joined the fray second time I attempted Bebop's stage, or Slash fighting alongside Wingnut when you run into the turtles' winged foe again. Even though they still often err on the side of insanity, the longer boss battles do include a modicum of strategy to avoid more pronounced attacks like gunfire patterns and invulnerable spinning attacks. On top of that, the inclusion of arcade-reminiscent multi-colored life bars makes the battle seem even more epic as you chip away through seven levels of life. But as much as those boss battles are relative high points the first time around and even better on a rematch, I'm not looking forward to slogging through another round of the samey objectives beforehand.
Completing all nine stages in Ninja Turtles runs around four hours total, but during that short time it beats the odds by still managing to become repetitive on multiple fronts. You'll visit many locales more than once, which amplified my anger toward the sewers and rooftops. Since the objectives all trade on variations of destroying or disarming a certain number of targets, it all blends together into repetitive and flavorless mayhem. The only thing that slightly tempts me to return to stages is to discover alternate boss battles, like how Rockstead joined the fray second time I attempted Bebop's stage, or Slash fighting alongside Wingnut when you run into the turtles' winged foe again. Even though they still often err on the side of insanity, the longer boss battles do include a modicum of strategy to avoid more pronounced attacks like gunfire patterns and invulnerable spinning attacks.
The core nature of today's games is different from the basic nature of arcade games. Ninja Turtle was designed to steal, erm, I mean "prompt" you to put just one more quarter into the coin-op slot. As such, the value of your game was tied into beating that "Insert Quarter" sign that flashed at you after a cheap death. It was a challenge, and that challenge meant you had an incentive to learn all the skills possible to outsmart the quarter-munching mentality of the game. The fewer the quarters, the more time spent playing while other were waiting, the better you were. There are two modes: Single-player, which offers the ability to play with three others offline others can instantly jump in and play at any time and Xbox Live mode, which enables two to four others to play the same exact four-level game online. The modes are split: You can't play online and have another local player jump in, and vice versa. The game offers leaderboards, some smartly designed Achievements (don't get blasted by a boss's flame thrower; knock down all signs, don't get turned into a baby turtle by Shredder and so forth), voice-support, and some basic options. Each of the nine bosses hides out in a familiar Ninja Turtles locales like New York streets, rooftops, and sewers. Most stages conclude quickly; you'll breeze through quick, randomized assignments like killing enemies, disarming bombs, and infiltrating hideouts in three to five minutes each, and then progress to a boss who doesn't take much longer to ninja to death.The only thing that slightly tempts me to return to stages is to discover alternate boss battles, like how Rockstead joined the fray second time I attempted Bebop's stage, or Slash fighting alongside Wingnut when you run into the turtles' winged foe again.
