Turtles II and The Manhattan Project are much better games. TMNT was a good rental game.

Me and my brothers played this on day 1. We think it's a solid game. Don't understand the people that are complaining about it not being good.

Other games are may be better, but that doesn't make this one bad. It's probably in the top 100-200 best NES games

I think it's a very good game. Sure, it did frustrate me a bit back in the day, but it's one of those games where once you learn a few tricks & nuances of the game to help you advance, it's a lot of fun.. Knowing to just walk over a few of the short gaps, utilizing Don's bo staff vs most bosses, loading up on scrolls, knowing the spots w/pizza where you can keep going back in to replenish health, knowing the routes to go, etc... It's a rewarding game to beat.

I agree that the water dam level's difficulty reputation is overblown. Not saying it is easy, but I don't find it to be that tough, and it's far from the most challenging level in the game. Akin to the Turbo Tunnel in Battletoads, I think the dam in TMNT is where a lot of people just got hung up and called it quits.

I think it's pretty decent, definitely better than a chunk of the NES library.

The water section never bothered me at all when I was a lil mafk although it did take a lot game overs to finally get it down. It was the zone that came after that with all the confusing ass paths that usually made me shut if off.

I don't think that the majority of people dislike the game I think it's just become an "internet thing".

Because it's not nearly as good as II or III?

I mean... it gets by based pretty much on the license alone.

Would you EVER play this game if it was anything BUT Ninja Turtles? I doubt it....

But since it's Ninja Turtles, and you can change between turtles (a neat feature), and there are familiar allies and some enemies, I'll play it and it's acceptable. Sometimes I would fire it up and just fuck around in the first couple levels, change around turtles and use their different weapons and enjoy the novelty. Then inevitably let myself die in the water getting zapped. That would be enough to have some fun with the game.

I recall beating the water level as a kid, but it was hard. Not hard enough to make me hate the game, though.

I still like it... I still would like to some day get far in it, potentially beat it? One of my friends did it by sheer will and determination so I know it's possible....

I like TMNT1, even though it's sunk my battleship about as much as any game ever has. It's hard for me to be objective about it since I played it so much as a kid. Many of the things that frustrate people about the game -- the controls, the dam level, the labyrinthine layouts of Levels 3 & 4 -- feel totally intuitive/obvious to me, thanks to repetition. (The basic trick to Level 4: if you see a magnet, choose the other path.)

I beat the game the other day after not having played it for years and years. In fact, it was the first time I'd ever beaten it on real hardware, and I got a 1CC on my first attempt, which has more to do with the fact that I played the hell out of Levels 1-5 as a kid before getting slaughtered over and over again on Level 6's final corridor. I guess I'm also more patient now, and I was willing to backtrack over and over again to get a pizza in Level 4.

The presentation of the game is really nice -- it's got a great soundtrack, attractive visuals, cutscenes, a lot of energy. It's also buggy and janky in a bunch of different ways. The only thing I really find unforgivable is that final corridor in the Technodrome; the jetpack soldiers are just overpowered in a way that makes reflexes and skill essentially irrelevant. You shouldn't have to use an exploit to manipulate their movement patterns to get through the area.

In a way, I think that TMNT1 taught me a lot about how to play "bad" games -- not that I think it's a bad game per se, because it's not. But the jankiness of certain things encouraged me to think critically about in-game obstacles: can I find a way to do this differently? Can I backtrack for health, or glitch my way onto a platform, or leave an area and come back to get the enemy group to change?

There's always a strat, in other words, if you're willing to look for it. (But OTOH, being asked to find an obscure strat to manipulate the jetpack soldiers in Level 6 is a bridge too far.)

Isn't it his most popular video? Or the one that made him popular? All I remember is it was a hilarious video but I don't hate the game. It was probably the weakest for the NES though. 

Revisionist history. This game was held in extremely high regard when it came out. For proof you can look at the Nintendo Power rankings from that time. It was in the top 5 for a looong time. It's actually a much more robust game than II or III as well. All of them are fun in their own ways. This is a great NES game.

I played it when it was new and thought it sucked then, too.

How old were you when the game came out?   None of my friends could stand this one largely for the reasons already mentioned.   TMNT II was much better since it played just like the arcade game (and I think that's what people were expecting out of this one).

If it was so great, it wouldn't have been an 88 cent title at Funcoland for so long.
 

I loved it and still love giving it a try every now and then, but it's 100% because I never owned this game, borrowed it from friends at any chance I got and LOVED it as a kid. I rarely played the actual arcade game because the only place I knew that had it was the skating rink, and I rarely had quarters to play it while I was there, and I never played II & III until I was in college.

That said, I don't feel like it's a bad game at all, comparatively to other games. Even though it was to hard for me to get to far (keep in mind, I'd borrow it and rarely have it for longer than a week) but I still felt it was a solid NES title. Sure, it would have been nice if it was a bit easier, but since you had the option to choose between the four turtles from the start was novel enough and I felt the levels seemed pretty awesome graphically.

I'll tell you another one to talk about TMNT: Fall of the Foot Clan for the GB. That was another toughie (again, I had to borrow that one too) but I loved it as well. Also the only one I played on the GB. My question is this-- which is better the first TMNT on the NES or the one on the GB (piss green screen, aside.)

I like 1 . Rented it about a month after it originally came out .

I was 5 but my cousins were 10 and 12 and I played it with them and watched them play it constantly. Saying TMNT is better is an opinion. I'm talking about the FACT that this game was generally regarded as awesome when it came out. Just because your group of friends didn't like it doesn't mean it's not true. 

Also, come on with the price argument. You know price has more to do with how common a game is than how good it is. I don't even really need to provide examples of that. 

Check the numbers: http://vgstats.blogspot.com/2008/02/nintendo-power-charts-ne...

Fall of the Foot Clan is great. One of the best OG Gameboy games IMO. I still give it a go every so often.

I don't hate TMNT, I just find it rather average. I give it a chance once in a blue moon, but I always end up want to play something else. I never owned it as a kid, either, and I think I rented it only once or twice.

 

Those numbers also tell me that Bart Vs The Space Mutants was better than Castlevania?  

"Generally regarded as awesome."   Sounds very factual!   Also, it might rain tomorrow.  FACT.

 

I think the only reason it was so highly regarded is due to how hot TMNT itself was at the time, and since the game wasn't a complete turd people kept buying it since it was the only one out.

It's also better than Super Mario Bros! 
 

I wrote a review on this one!

http://takeontheneslibrary.com/fi...

My conclusion is that the game has a bunch of flaws and technical issues that didn't show up in other contemporary Konami games, which I think it a good answer to OP's question. It's still a game I like a lot, though.

I enjoy this game a great deal, but I also really enjoy Dragon's Lair and Friday the 13th, so maybe something is wrong with me.

Friday the 13th is a solid game, as well, though.

Dragon's Lair... yeah, you might be on thin ice defending that one    

I don't personally care for Friday, but there is a deeper game than what most reviewers will go into. I think only Cygnus Destroyer has actually talked about what you need to do in that game.

Dragon's Lair is too tedious.

I also find Jaws too repetitive (you could have had more to do in the underwater sequences, or at least more than two ports to visit.) I recognize that people do like that game as well.

Yeah, Dragon's Lair is really bad, control-wise, but I got a sick satisfaction out of learning exactly what to do to get through it, and prided myself on finally beating it.

I think Friday the 13th really hinges on "what do you want from the game?"

As a kid, I only played it at a friend's house during a couple of sleepovers, so we definitely got our money's-worth in jump scares, without really appreciating the nuance and strategy of the game.

As an adult, you can be a little more patient with it and try to play it "correctly", and it functions surprisingly well.


I think someone playing this game for the first time as an adult has probably missed a critical and necessary nostalgia tie-in, though, where remembering the game actually being scary is kind of important to the overall feel.

 

I don't disagree. In the 8 bit era, having Jason suddenly appear is a pretty effective jump scare. It captures that aspect of the movies pretty well.

I just find the map unintuitive and the game a bit too cryptic at points. It's certainly not as bad as its reputation in the AVGN era.