Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (SNES) review "I always choose Raphael."

Right off the menu, down to the options: Change the controls so special activates on “X,” crank those lives up to 07, turn off back attack, dash on manual and colours to “Comic.” I want absolute control. Can’t have the computer hijacking my inputs to make back attacks when I need to dance around my enemies. I’ll typically leave the difficulty on “Normal,” but I’ve taken this cart out to lunch on all of its modes.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, or TMNT IV, owing to the three prior games released for NES, is a classic for a reason. It condenses the arcade experience down to the console with almost no loss of quality. If you’re a stickler for pixel art, as I am, you’ll notice the halved animation frames by comparison, but … Konami has ways of compensating for this.

TMNT IV is a rock’em sock’em quarter munching brawl fest that featured in arcades after the success of the original TMNT The Arcade Game. While the original was a faithful port limited by the NES’ relative limitations, TMNT IV brings every hit home with an improved soundtrack thanks to the SNES's superior audio hardware.

Choose one of four Turtles, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael. Each varies in speed, strength and special attack power, so getting to know them will be your surest path to victory. There are a few tricks to learn: A dash, which can be used to slam enemies or slide through them, depending on which button you hit after your turtle begins to run. This is why I always set dash to “manual”; double tapping allows you to dash from a standstill.

See, Raphael has a gentle touch with his “swordbreaker” paired sai but is the fastest of his brothers. While exploring their abilities, Raphael can perform one trick which elevates him to the top of the heap: His dashing special attack does as much damage as his usual but doesn’t cost any life to perform. You can literally kick dash through a crowd of enemies and clear the screen in a hurry.

Technically, TMNT IV is no marvel by modern standards, but it was the best home port available. The Sega Genesis version was overall smoother and better animated. Still, a single standout mechanic unique to the SNES version separated TMNT IV from the herd of street brawlers that crowded the system. Hit an enemy once, position yourself just right, and you’d spin, toss, or roll kick your enemy right into the screen with a choice audio cue that never becomes wearisome.

The advantage of this was the introduction of a new boss, who required you to do this in order to destroy Shredder’s mech from his perspective. This was pretty exciting stuff. Throw In Kazuhiko Uehara and Harumi Ueko’s hard rock soundtrack, and you’re in for a thumpin’ good time.

To say TMNT IV’s controls are precise is an understatement: You have perfect control of your turtle, and no button press goes unanswered. Whether you’re getting squashed by a rogue wrecking ball or falling into an uncovered manhole, TMNT IV’s animations express that satisfying feeling you expect from an expertly crafted work.

Remember, the SNES had no force feedback, so animation and sound had to do all the work of communicating the physical experience in caricature. The experience was improved by a few aptly chosen samples at level intro screens, player injury or death, and this captured the slapstick nature of the 1980s cartoon handily. TMNT IV is a two-player adventure and has been scaled beautifully to the challenge in contrast to the quarter-hungry four-player romp. In the adjustment, each turtle has twice as many hit points to lose. With some practice, you’ll be cheesing the Shredder in Final Boss form with your dash attack, too.

To say the TMNT IV’s soundtrack is memorable is frankly a disservice. Overclocked remix, ever ready for a style change on your favourite music theme, did us one better by authoring an entire remix album in tribute to this title’s indelible approach. A few games made the short loops typical of SNES games enjoyable, and TMNT IV is a fine example of that.

While we’re on the subject of limitations, those of the NES were no secret. There were many tricks applied to improve this situation over the SNES’ lifespan, such as compression, streaming, and – gulp – recolors. The Arcade edition of Turtles in Time utilized some sneaky tricks to whittle down your very small pool of hit points, encouraging you to pump more quarters into their machine.

For instance, Foot soldiers always appeared on the screen in their default purple and then would change colour to signify a change in attack style. A yellow soldier would throw a boomerang-style weapon, whereas a pink one could block your attacks, requiring a dash attack to break their defence. Less concerned with coin consumption and more with memory reduction, TMNT IV eschews the trickery and saves a few precious kilobytes of memory to boot.

The point of TMNT IV was to bring the arcade experience to home consoles, and this port stands out as a shining example of how it should be done. This is everything you expected to find in the Arcade version and more besides. This is a definitive title and an excellent addition to any collector’s archive.

Has it aged well? Absolutely yes. Its controls are reliable; the music is exciting and fun; mechanics are varied and interesting; the characters differ in attributes but are easy to learn. The relative simplicity of its gameplay could be called accessible. Players of all ages can pick it up and have a good time, and isn’t that what games are for?

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Community review by hastypixels (March 26, 2017) Wisdom comes from effort and mistakes.