Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Hard to describe"

Apparently, the time this game came out was the season of fighter games. This was also the last game Konami, the legendary NES publisher rolled out for the Nintendo Entertainment System. This makes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TNMT) IV: Tournament Fighters a somewhat significant game historically. And by pitting Ninja Turtles against each other in fights and putting the fighter genre stamp on an otherwise arcade action game, TNMT IV does attempt something different. While the novelty is great in the first few hours of play, the more one gets into this game, the more the weariness starts setting in.

To give the game a sense of progression, a campaign mode is thrown in with a wafer-thin plot. Essentially, Shredder challenges the turtles for a fight and the turtle chosen to play as must clear the other fighters before a final showdown with Shredder (Which is nothing but a normal fight much like when other characters are involved). Everything else revolves around the fighting. Winning two rounds in a fight results in a victory. As players, you have access to kicks, punches and special moves for each character which are incredibly difficult to pull off. There are four locations in the game and each has its own distinct look and color scheme to differentiate it from the rest.

The visuals are sharp which is kind of expected after TNMT III and given that this was amongst the final releases for the NES platform. The sounds are a pleasant hear too. Every setting has its own music which speeds up in the penultimate seconds of the fight. In addition, there is a separate tune for sequences that add to the campaign's story.

In addition to the campaign, there's the usual player v/s player -and player v/s CPU modes expected of a typical fighter. Further, there is a tournament mode which allows you to create a tree or hierarchy of matches, the qualifiers of which will move up to the next round and so on until the last man standing wins. An options menu allows for adjusting the speed and difficulty of the game. Be prepared for some insanely fast and tough matches on the highest of these settings.

TNMT IV serves as a good mix to the already excellent TNMT line-up of games for the NES and is fun to play with a friend or two. The novelty wears of quickly though after playing many of these matches since there's nothing much else on offer here. Fighters fans may find this to be a treat. As for me, I prefer the arcade TNMTs !!!