Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game – Best Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Games Ever

Way back when, Konami released an amazing Ninja Turtles game for arcades. When it came time to drop a game on the NES, though, they gave us the rancid rodent meat that was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Well, something had to be done. That game was pile of goat vomit. So they came out with the second one, and even wrote “The Arcade Game” on it. Was it awesome? Yes. Was it exactly like playing the Arcade machine... eh... no.

Now, this wasn’t the same as the actual arcade game that every kid on Earth had played and fell in love with at their local Pizza joint. It was a mediocre substitute for the arcade game – but take something that is completely butt kicking awesome and make a mediocre version of it and you get a great game. This game rules, despite being a watered down version of the real thing.

Yeah, the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game was just impossible. It was hard as nails, and it wasn’t very faithful to the source material, all things considered. Spiders and dudes with chainsaws? Eh. Well, the overhead map was interesting, but overall the original game just fails. The electric seaweed water level in the first pretty much cemented the fact that most kids would have to play through the initial stages over and over and over for eternity without getting some mad skills. Ugh, and timers are so annoying in that water level.

Yeah, my friends and I had hours of fun playing the second game, though. This was all we wanted – a game where you could be one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and run around beating the crap out of stuff. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 The Arcade Game was perfect. It was great. There was just one tiny problem: the game was actually kind of hard. It wasn’t annoyingly hard like the first – but it was hard enough to be frustrating.

Just when you thought you were gonna do really well, you would get your ass handed to you in TMNT 2. Then you had to start over again. But that was okay, because the game kicked ass.

Yeah, sadly, this game required a lot more skill and timing than future incarnations of Turtle beat ‘em up games – like Turtles in Time for the SNES. Well, at least in my opinion. TMNT 2 The Arcade Game was a long game, and even getting through the first few levels was a real challenge for my younger self. That hurt the playability a bit, because no kid wants to struggle through the first few levels over and over getting butt stmoped repeatedly by Rock Steady. Oh TMNT 2 – I love and hate you all at the same time. Okay, I just love you.

The graphics were really not the greatest in this game, I have to admit. Still, it was just so cool to have a Turtles beat 'em up game. We craved this as kids. Everyone I knew loved that Konami Simpsons arcade game, and the X-Men game, and of course, the actual Turtles Arcade game. Those beat 'em up arcade games needed NES counterparts, and we finally had one. An actual port. It was so sweet, and it still is. I want to fire up this game right now!

Why they never ported over the Simpsons beat 'em arcade game to a home console (any console) is still up for speculation. It would've been awesome on Super Nintendo.

Go Turtles!