Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (arcade)


 * This article is about the arcade game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. For information on the NES game with the same name, see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES game).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is an arcade game produced by Konami in 1989. It is a scrolling fighting game based on the popular comic and television cartoon of the same name.

The player chooses from one of the four Ninja Turtles: Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael. After Shredder kidnaps the turtles' friend April O'Neil and their mentor Splinter, they must give chase, save their comrades and defeat their nemeses.

This game was ported to the NES and the Atari ST under the title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game due to the fact that an unrelated game titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had already been released on these systems. These ports of the arcade game included two new levels for the benefit of home players, as well as altered graphics to include advertisements for Pizza Hut. The game was also ported to the Commodore 64, the Amiga, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, and the Amstrad CPC. However, it was the NES version that became extremely popular with game players, and was followed by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project for the NES in 1990 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time for the SNES in 1991.Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters also came out on the SNES as well as NES & Sega Genesis.

As with all merchandise relating to the Ninja Turtles, the name of this game was altered to Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles in the UK, due to censorship issues involving the word "ninja."

The original game was later ported as an unlockable extra in the multiconsole game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Battle Nexus, but with different music and most of the voice clips edited out.