Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (SNES) review "Konami’s Turtles in Time was a pleasant surprise for the owners of the SNES Christmas of 1992. Based on the then outrageously popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles license, it was the SNES’s second most visually pleasing game as of 1992, next to Final Fight. "

Konami’s Turtles in Time was a pleasant surprise for the owners of the SNES Christmas of 1992. Based on the then outrageously popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles license, it was the SNES’s second most visually pleasing game as of 1992, next to Final Fight.

For those wondering, no, the resident reporter April has NOT been kidnapped again by the evil Shredder. Instead, Shredder has stolen another woman of colossal size, and her name is Statue of Liberty.

Obviously, the Ninja Turtles will go after Shredder. However, a problem will arise later in the game: the devious Shredder will violently thrust the Ninja Turtles back in time to where no turtle has ever gone before.

The beat’em up action unfortunately isn’t as fluid as I think it could be, as some of the special actions the turtles can do seem to be at random. I walk up to an enemy, press A, and perform a special attack. I do the same thing, but perform a different attack. However, the turtles do have distinguished speed and range between them, though they lack unique special attacks.

Coming onto the subject of special attacks themselves, I believe that they are well thought out. These attacks range from grabbing a footman and throwing him back and forth as a battering ram at other footmen, to my personal favorite, where the Ninja Turtle throws the footman off the middle of the screen so that you can see the footman’s surprised expression up close and it looks like he’s going to crash through your screen.

A second part of the battle system that I especially like is how the environment is semi-effectible. You could hit a fire hydrant to shoot out streams of water at your foes, or hit a barrel that explodes, or even fall down a manhole, giving you a few seconds of thinking time before your turtle comes aboveground again. Some enemies can perform special actions, such as a footman jumping from underneath a manhole and throwing the manhole cover at your turtle.

The level backgrounds are top-notch, but sometimes they don’t look well compared to the moving sprites of the turtles and their enemies. Additionally, I find faults with the turtles. They seem a bit too tall compared to the footmen that you encounter, and there body color seems a tad too bright green. Also, the turtles’ heads seem a bit large compared to the rest of their body.

This game was one of the few SNES games that used voice acting. While it wasn’t much, it was decent, the voice acting was used wisely, and it led a sense of realism to the game with your turtle shouting “Cowabunga!” Each of the several stages had their own unique music, and the music that played every time I went up against a boss filled me with adrenaline.

Turtles in Time has been argued to be the best of all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle games that have so far been created. I agree with those who think so.

Community review by yamishuryou (September 30, 2004) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.