I know the other 2 are awesome games, but 1 is pretty good. There's lotsa detail and it's clear Konami put in the work. Also, yes it's hard but so are many beloved NES games. What do you think?

Definitely a great start for the TMNT video game franchise, I think it just gets overshadowed by better games like Turtles in Time. It'll be forever remembered for that damn water level though and the sheer difficulty of the game. Top 25 NES games for sure in my book.

A few things come to mind, which might be boiled down to "difficulty spikes". Most notably for me were the infamous water level; the insta-kill spike walls, and the end level(s).
As far as the rest of the game, overall I agree with you. It has some catchy as hell music and purty (for the time) graphics. Just remove the rage inducing difficulty spikes and the sky's the limit!

Because it SUCKS!!!

Because AVGN made a video about it?

It's a decent game, but has some annoying aspects to it.

Its because everyone had played the arcade game and expected a traditional beat em up. They learned their lesson with the sequel. If you take that disappointment away though and judge it on its own as a game, it is a very good game and a lot of members here defend it to the death in the threads. Still plenty of haters, but probably a lot more fans of the game than you think are out there/here. 

2 and 3 are awesome of course but in my opinion can get too repetitive for replay value for me. I never have much of a desire to play either often as much as I do like them. 1 however I feel could have been just as good if not better and over they years found myself playing that one more. The game play is pretty fun and I don't feels its repetitive. I think if they focused more on characters from the cartoon than the random ones they had on 1 it would have been more polished. The difficulty isn't too bad but maybe a slight easier would make it more appealing too. Like mentioned above the music is pretty damn good as well. And yes the water level sucks, but all the others are good. Very good game in my opinion. Just gets overshadowed but the other two.

The physics/controls are wonky. Try hitting your head on the ceiling crossing that gap, you know the one.
Or the strangely balanced weapons. Nunchucks barely hit anything, the bo staff lacks animation and has a noticeable delay when swung.

I actually prefer this one over all the other Turtles games. Not sure why. It could be nostalgia, but I played Turtles 2 a lot more as a kid. I think it has more to do with it being more of a challenge, and I guess I also find beat'em ups a little bit monotone.

Why it has a shaky reputation? I think it boils down to the things said already in this thread.
It was too difficult for children at the time, therefore people remember it as frustrating. It also had a bit clunky controls. The jumping is a bit stiff. Some people also had problems with the swimming level. AVGN also pissed on it in an early video, which didn't help. However, a lot of people like it too, it was a superpopular game in its time... and I remember for a long time that was the video most people disagreed with AVGN on.

It actually had most characters from the cartoon. Bebop, Rocksteady, Shredder, footsoldiers, mousers, The Techmodrome, etc. Then all the Turtles, April, Splinter, the Turtlevan etc. Most of it is there.
It just lacked Krang and Baxter Stockman. This may have been due to it being more based on the original Mirage comics which didn't have these characters or the original TMNT movie. Krang first came later with the animated show. I think the problem is perhaps more that the developers chose to make a bunch new enemies along the stages so you wouldn't just be fighting footsoldiers.. which is fine, but many of them are so crazy and wacky in design they stand out too much.

I think it's better Than 2 and 3. I actually sold two and three, one and four are the only ones in my collection.

I prefer 1 to any of the rest on the NES, personally.

The challenge isn't straight forward or immediately rewarding. Same thing with Friday the 13th on the NES. Very few people "get it" and can make the game fun. Most people give up on both TMNT and F13 in minutes.

one of the first games I bought when I started collecting. I still suck at it but a gem of a game

1 was good in its own way. But the arcade game had mass appeal.

As a casual, you could only get so far in the original NES game, and you had to kind of know where you are going. The arcade game was just a button masher, anyone could enjoy mashing the attack button while admiring the pretty graphics

I've had the game since it was new. It's not a fun game to play. The jumping mechanics suck, the damage model sucks, endlessly respawning enemies suck, level design sucks. That fucking seaweed level. Not to mention Raphael is basically useless because he has zero range.

you can just walk across that gap. I figured that out like 2 years ago. How dumb is that.

There's another jump later in the game that's near impossible as well.

There's a jump that is literally impossible in the DOS version. DOS got so many shitty ports.

 

I actually like 1 more than 2. Most people don't like 1 because it has many flaws and those get highlighted more than its strengths. That tunnel near the end of the game with jetpack guys was just ridiculous, you need luck to beat it. I like it more than 2 though because 2 has really basic gameplay and is basically a far inferior version of 3.

The water level. Thats the reason. Solid game otherwise. The only saving grace is that the water level is very early in the game and won't take to long to get back to after some inevitable game overs.

Beat me to it.

It isn't held in high regard because it isn't a very good game. This has been the general consensus since it was new, so the AVGN theory is out the window. There is a lot about the game that is done very well (especially the music), but unfortunately, the bad FAR outweighs the good. It sold well when it was new because everyone was so excited to get a TMNT game, and even when we first played it, I think we all liked it because we WANTED to like it. But not long after, we all began to realize it just wasn't that great of a game.

What is with people griping about the water level?

I thought complaining about that was just a meme perpetrated by people too young to have played this game back in its day.

The water level is pretty decent and not particularly hard to memorize the layout so you can get through it. Sure, you will die the first few times you ever play the game because you have to learn the level, but once you have actually spent any amount of time with the game the water level is a fairly easy sigh of relief amidst some fairly unforgiving combat and sparse health upgrades of other levels.


Personally I think it is a good game, and my friends and I all considered it good back in the day.

It was in the daily or weekly rotation at my friend's house where we would play Double Dragon (usually only to the Abobos in Mission 3), Marble Madness (usually only to the level with the pistons), Mario 2 (usually just played 5 or 6 levels until we wanted to move on) and TMNT (usually to where we just fell into the water in the sewer in Mission 3 by bumping our heads and failing the jump).


We weren't looking to beat these games, we just played a few levels for fun and moved on.

But the water level of TMNT was never where we packed it in  

People were bitching about this game long before Youtube