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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: The Manhatten Project (NES)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: The Manhatten Project review

Game: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: The Manhatten Project
Platform: NES
Genre: Fighting Action (Brawler)
Developer: Konami
AKA: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Manhatten Project (JP)

Reader review by joseph_valencia

May 30, 2009

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project". Say it aloud. Absorb its cover into your retina: the Triceraton, the mousers, the turtles, the army of foot soldiers, and Manhattan floating in the sky like Sonic’s Angel Island. Forget all those other wimpy beat ‘em ups with their generic thugs and their standard streets and alleys. You know what? "The Manhattan Project" has robots, stone warriors, submarines, the Technodrome, and even a UFO. Beat that, Final Cat Fight or Streets of ‘Roid Rage.

But spaceworlder, it’s soooooooooooooooo dated.

Shut up, Tiny. "Ninja Turtles III" is as fresh as it was in 1992, at least if you consider invention and imagination to be “fresh”. Each level is a discovery. Here is a game where you begin on a Florida beach, go surfing in stage two, board a submarine, trek across a wrecked Brooklyn Bridge, fight across the streets of New York City, take a detour into the subways, infiltrate the Technodrome through the sewer underworld of said city, and somehow end up on a UFO. Each level has an endless variation of foot soldiers, some bare-handed, some throwing ninja stars, some slinging sand in your face, others tossing boomerangs, and many carrying an assortment of ninja weapons. There’s also the stone warriors of Dimension X and even…fugitoids?! Yes comic fans, this game has fugitoids.

It would be a crime not to mention the bosses. Rocksteady has a harpoon gun. How bad ass is that? In the next level, you fight some sort of Ox who relentlessly smacks you with a pipe while occasionally charging to and fro like a bull on a sugar buzz. Even the obligatory Krang battle has a fresh twist that I dare not reveal, except to say that the little brain knows how to multi-task. This game is so epic, you get two fights with Shredder.

But spaceworlder, it’s sooooooooooooooo repetitive.

Think of what you’re repeating: you’re beating the stuffing out of robots and rock people. That is awesome repetition. Besides, unlike the simplistic "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game", you have more moves at your disposal. There’s the basic ‘tap A-button’ attack, the throw, the jump kick, and a unique desperation move for each Turtle. The points even tally up differently depending on how you attack or finish an opponent. For example, blowing up a foot soldier by throwing another enemy at him gets you more points than just smacking him to death.

You see, there is more to the game than just tapping one button repeatedly. But even if that’s all there was to it, "Ninja Turtles III" would still be entertaining due to the variety of enemies, traps, levels, and bosses. It also goes without saying that "Manhattan Project" has awesome music, because it’s a Nintendo game made by Japanese people.

But if you want a “contemporary” repetitive action game, be my guest and play "Devil May Cry". If you don’t want to play a game with some pistol-wielding wimp who fights generic demons in a standard gothic cathedral setting, Manhattan’s waiting. Just remember to take a blimp instead of a bus.

Rating: 10/10

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