TMNT (GBA kicks shell)
 

Picked this up today, it's GREAT-O. Yeah yeah, there's new TMNT games based on the upcoming movie for basically every system under the sun and even those that aren't, like GameCube. But the GBA version goes in a completely different direction to the other stink fests! This one's a true blue old school, side scrolling beat 'em up. I don't know which developer Ubisoft passed this onto it, but they're legends.

Choose your turtle and awaaay you go. It's obviously based on the movie, but there's very little story bullshit to bog you down between levels. It has an extremely entertaining combat system, allowing you to juggle enemies in the air, kick them back to knock down others and stuff. All sorts of background elements can be broken to get weapons if you're not satisfied with using the trademark one you already have, like say knocking down a street sign to swing around, or ripping newspaper box.. things out of the ground and chucking them about. The game also breaks out of the common old 'two enemies will attack at once while a third will shuffle back and forth' thing. Sometimes there's like five or six on screen, and you'll get messed up reeeeaal goood.

Enemies will drop coins, that bounce happily. You can also walk around the shops after each level. It's very River City-ish. Actually there seems to be a fair bit of extra stuff to do between each level, mini games and stuff. But you don't have to fart around with all that, you can just leap straight into the next level. Experience points are also earned, you get more depending on how stylish you are when killing people. I guess they do something eventually, I haven't put that much time into the game yet. The graphics are amazing for a GBA movie licensed game, the sprite animation is ultra SUPER MEGA fluid. It really looks awesome in motion.

Music is uuuh.. It's no classic Konami TMNT, that's for sure. I mean, it's technically pretty good (sort of cheese rawk with bits of muffled techno I guess) but forgettable. The only buuuupboooow is that there's no multiplayer. At all. You can call in a second CPU turtle to drop off health, but that's about it. Basically, if you're a fan of beat 'em ups, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! It dumps barrels of turtle soup all over Konami's horrible GBA efforts. A really fun game. And needs all the lovin' it can get because nobody gives a shit about GBA anymore!

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A proper review if you want~

How's the grappling/throw system? I absolutely loved Double Dragon Advance because of the grappling options you had, and the ability to do stuff like ground pound on enemies after a knockdown.

You can pick enemies up once knocked down, then hurl them at others. No cool Double Dragon style headlocks or anything. =( Also, you can hit fallen enemies with the baseball bat/poles, but not with your normal weapon, which is odd.

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Hahaha, flashback'd to Streets of Rage 2 where those biker dudes come outta nowhere and you can flying kick them. Good times.

This reminds me I actually own an american SNES and Turtles in Time. Time to go play ~

Guys on motorcycles that you have to jump kick are a sidecrolling beat em up cliche if there ever was one. Right up there with breaking crates/barrels/trashcans for powerups and automatic combos with repeated presses of the attack button.

Hey that's interesting...

It took me a while to finally get a copy (had to freaking go to best buy because walmart here doesn't get any new GBA games) and I love it. While playing TMNT the arcade game on the good old NES from time to time and never having a SNES to play turtles in time, I really enjoy this. I just kinda wish the free play area was bigger.