Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time

Back in the day, I was really into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  However, it was in a weird way.  I never really watched the cartoon all that much.  I was just really into the toys, the games and the second movie.  But I think the greatest achievement was the fourth TMNT game...discounting the Game Boy games in which all of those things I loved the most in the Ninja Turtles franchise were combined into a object made from pure awesomeness.  So let's get the obvious gushing underway as we love what is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time.

So we find our heroes watching the news on TV with ace reporter April O'Neal reporting on the Statue of Liberty...for some reason.  But suddenly, Krang appears and steals it, right out of the pedestal!  Then Shredder comes on TV taunting the Turtles and daring them to get the Statue of Liberty back from his cold, metallic, ninja hands.  So the Turtles make their way to the Technodrome, beating up all the Foot Soldiers but when they come close to getting back the Statue of Liberty, Shredder sends them...get this, BACK IN TIME!  So now they have to go back to the future...then back to the past since they went far in the future and still get back the Statue of Liberty while beating up all the Foot Soldiers that traveled back in time with you...for some reason.

This is a standard beat-em-up and it has all the basic controls.  You jump, you hit and you can do a jump kick.  Obviously on the surface it sounds very generic and cookie-cutter but it's never WHAT you do with stuff, it's HOW you do it. And  the scope of moves here is pretty good.  You can do some neat combos and trap some enemies into them.  You can throw enemies towards the camera...and then you have to do that when fighting Shredder for the first time.  And then there's my personal favorite, grabbing a foot solider by his leg and bashing him from side to side killing anything else that gets in your way.  In my opinion, the control scheme here is the most satisfying one in any beat-em-up....ever!

But the main reason I can keep playing this game again and again is how crazy the time-travel aspect is.  The Foot Soldiers just don't come out of the side of the screens, they use the environment to get you.  In the pre-historic level they come in through hanging on to pterodactyls.  In the pirate level, they climb in through the side of the ship.  In the Wild West train level, they come in through horseback and in disguise!  All of this visual inventiveness here is at times clever and at other times awesome.  Then there's the boss-fights which had all, or maybe almost all, villains from the show.  You had Leatherhead, Rat King, Tokka and Rahzar from the second movie plus the perennial favorites like Bebop and Rocksteady and Krang.  It was like all of my toys came to life and then were kicking my butt.

If this may seem like gushing, you're right.  I am gushing about this since I loved this game so much.  And it's not just nostalgia talking, I gave it a playthrough before writing this review and everything I said still holds up.  The controls are still a dream to fight with.  The game looks amazing with bright colors and fluid animation.  The challenge is acceptable even though at times a bit frustrating.  I say this without any hesitation, this is not only the best TMNT game ever but it is the best beat-em-up game ever.

10/10