There is so much in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Cowabunga Collection! I have great memories of playing many of the games, and I’m glad they’re all in one place, especially with how ridiculously overpriced some of them are.
Digital Eclipse put together the TMNT games from the SNES, NES, Game Boy, Sega Genesis, and the arcades. Several of these games can be hard to find, and thanks to some people in the retro game community, they are overpriced.
I haven’t even scratched the surface of what this collection has to offer. There is so much in it that I could spend days playing through all the games.
TLDR: This is a spectacular collection of retro games!
Gameplay
This is a beat-em-up rich collection. I don’t mean this as a bad thing, it is just how many of the games were made, and the style was popular in the late 80s and early 90s. The Game Boy Games and the fighting games help to break things up.
My favorite games in this collection are the beat-em-up games. The original arcade game is a lot of fun! This is the game that I remember playing the most.
Having both versions of Turtles in Time is great! I had never played it in the arcades and was looking forward to trying that version. It’s also nice to have both TMNT IV and Hyperstone Heist in one place, just in case you don’t own both games.
The side-scrolling games are a lot of fun. I know the NES game gets a lot of flack, but it is one of the best games on the system. It is a challenging game, and this might be nostalgia talking, but I think it is a wonderful game.
The Game Boy games are nice to have. The third one was the one I was looking forward to. It is one of the more expensive games for the Game Boy. It looks great and is an excellent game.
I’m not sure about the fighting games. They’re a bit of a novelty. The SNES and Genesis versions are fun, and I have some memories of playing the Genesis version with my friends. The NES version is a weird game.
There isn’t too much variety in the gameplay here. Konami, and the other developers, stuck to what they knew. Aside from the fighting games, I think they made some of the best games in the arcade and on the console.
Visuals
Most of these games look great! We’re talking about games from the late-80s through the mid-90s. There were also technical limitations on the different platforms.
For the consoles, I think the SNES games look the best. The sprites are very detailed, and the colors are bright. That isn’t to take anything away from the Genesis games; I feel the SNES ones look better.
Both Arcade games look excellent! Turtles in Time will look better because of when it was made, but the first arcade game is beautiful.
The Game Boy games were the hardest for me to talk about. They’re black and white Game Boy games, and they each look good when you compare them to other Game Boy Games from the time.
These games aren’t going to look as good as the others in this collection. The third Game Boy game looks the best, in my opinion. The first game could be skipped because of how easy the game is.
The Fighting Games
I’ve always thought that these games were strange. I remember a friend of mine renting the Genesis version and thinking it was a little odd. I wasn’t a fan of the comics, and I think I had stopped watching the cartoon.
I didn’t know who most of these were. I knew the Turtles and Shredder, but everyone else was a mystery. It reminded me of Double Dragon V.
Both were fighting games based on source material I wasn’t familiar with. It was also strange that two series known for being beat-em-up games would switch to tournament fighters.
When TMNT: Tournament Fighters and Double Dragon V were released, I can see why they were made. Fighting games were getting big around this time. I guess both franchises wanted to cash in on the genre’s success.
This doesn’t explain the NES version. It was probably a cash grab, but it was still a strange choice. Now that I’ve seen it, I think it is impressive that the developer got a fighting game on the NES, even if I don’t think it is a good game.
Where to Start
Here is my list of best to worst. All of the games are fun to play, but some are better than others.
- TMNT: Turtles in Time (Arcade)
- TMNT: The Arcade Game (Arcade)
- TMNT IV: Turtles in Time (SNES)
- TMNT: Hyperstone Heist (Genesis/Mega Drive)
- TMNT III: The Manhattan Project (NES)
- TMNT (NES)
- TMNT III: Radical Rescue (Game Boy)
- TMNT II: The Arcade Game (NES)
- TMNT II: Back from the Sewers (Game Boy)
- TMNT: Fall of the Foot Clan (Game Boy)
- TMNT: Tournament Fighters (SNES/Genesis)
- TMNT: Tournament Fighters (NES)
I don’t think there is a bad game in this collection. Each of them is great, even if there are some that I don’t like that much.
Conclusion
I’m thrilled that this collection was made. Several of these games have gotten very expensive, and this is an affordable way to play these games. There isn’t much variety of gameplay, which is a product of the time they were made.
The fighting games are a strange addition, but the SNES and the Genesis games are fun to play. The Game Boy games are excellent, as that system tends to get overlooked.
This is an excellent collection if you’re a fan of TMNT or like retro games! There is much more to this collection that I haven’t touched on, and I’m looking forward to going through the extras on it.