My journey with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1989 for the NES. Blog post, strategy guide, and videos all inside.

[JoshDragon]

Hi guys,

I wanted to share this article with you from my blog https://gamingwithjoshdragon.wordpress.com/2015/02/01/early-gaming-memories-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-1-for-the-nes/

A few months ago, I created a YouTube strategy guide for the game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1. But since this was one of my favorite games as a kid, I decided to write an article about it as well.

I hope you enjoy my story and I'd like to hear about your early memories with gaming. What were some of your first games?

[Tanooki]

Didn't you link this at another site in not too distant of the past? It was a pretty impressive guide seeing the feedback it got. I was gifted that game along with Festers Quest the same year back in those days. Being that it was TMNT I put up with a lot of its crap, but I never finished it I don't believe, but I did get far. It just made me angry and frustrated as it was cheap hard, not fun hard like Ghosts n Goblins. Fester I finished once, wasn't worth the re-run. :)

[JoshDragon]

Fester's Quest is a tough game. I haven't played it in years. Never got very far in it either.

[bb_hood]

Fester's Quest is a tough game.

Fester's is actually not as difficult as most people think. TMNT is harder than festers.

[Tanooki]

I'd have to agree there. Fester kind of gets a bad wrap because it's just weird and the direction on it is a little aimless unless you really focus and figure it out so people get discouraged by the challenge and that. I do recall if you take hits your gun gets crappier, so it's not just health punishment making things worse. TMNT though is just brutal with some slightly wonky physics/controls, cheap moments in many places, and the fact you get one turtle 'death' and they're out unless you can pull off a rescue which all combine sucks much of the fun out of it.

[JoshDragon]

Honestly, Turtles 1 is not that hard. There's definitely some frustrating platforming sections and the "Hallway of Death" is a real pain in the a** but the rest of the game isn't that bad. Once you get the scrolls, you're pretty much in control of things.

However, there is one very important moment of truth point, late in Area 4, which can totally mess up your run. I'm talking, of course, about the spike compactor.

Also, there are four points in the game (stages 3-6) to rescue the turtles, and I outlined them all in my videos.

[JoshDragon]

What do you think about Bucky O' Hare or Ninja Gaiden 1? I was planning to LP one of them next.

[Tanooki]

Love the cartoon hated the game with Bucky. That one goes into the realm of cheap to be hard than just hard and sucks the fun out of it. Ninja Gaiden though that's a great one as are the two follow ups, though #3 is more of a favorite for me on the SNES and Famicom where they didn't make it nastier for the US market just to be sadists. :)