Topic: 2014/08: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade) - BumFengShui

[JonLeung]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to BumFengShui's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade) maps.

Shredder is at it again, causing chaos in New York City.  In this very classic arcade beat-'em-up, you can play as any or all four Ninja Turtles, fighting your way through hundreds of foot soldiers.  You will also do battle with baddies including Bebop, Rocksteady, Baxter Stockman, General Traag and Granitor, before eventually facing off against Krang and Shredder inside the Technodrome.  Go save April O'Neill, Master Splinter, and New York City, you heroes in a half-shell!

Since the original comic in 1984, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have appeared in many versions over the past three decades.  Undoubtedly, the TMNT's popularity was at its peak in the late '80s and into the '90s, thanks to the 1987 cartoon and toy line.  Among all this Ninja Turtle media and merchandise were of course a number of video games, and the 1989 Konami arcade game was certainly among the best.  Being able to play as the coolest cartoon characters around, with up to three of your friends simultaneously was always a lot of fun, even if it meant taking advances on allowances to be able to have enough quarters on hand.  Sure, arcade games are not usually what you think you need maps for, because you don't usually get lost in those types of games.  But if you want to remember a time when Turtle Power was truly awesome, BumFengShui's hooked you up.  Cowabunga!

So to recognize this radical effort, and as the first arcade game maps to receive this honour, BumFengShui's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for August 2014.

[JonLeung]

I also made another thumbnail image:

But then I decided to make it match the thumbnail for the NES port.

[vorpal86]

Congrats BumFengShui! The classic money poppin' arcade beat em' up.

I remember way back in lower to upper 89 I had a pal who came over every other weekend with his mom to work who lived 25 miles away that would hang out from Fri - Sun evening. We walked at least two miles up the road and 2 miles back to the Mall to play this game, and two other games (Ghosts and Goblins and Super Mario Bros.) and anything else we had quarters for after the beating we got playing The Turtles Arcade game.

Those were some good times. The trip to the mall and back was just as fun. The game really doesn't need maps but they help here since the enemy positions are also mapped which is cool. At any rate, good work BumFenShui! Nicely done!

Cheers with Root Beers....!

[BumFengShui]

Thank you for this even though it's based on a technicality I appreciate it just the same. I'm really not happy with what I sent in though. I always wanted to do 4 variations (1P, 2P, 3P, 4P) for both of the TMNT games as well as The Simpsons arcade game. Though by the time I get around to that, I'll probably have changed my name again.

[JonLeung]

It's not a technicality...this game deserves it.  Due to the usually simpler nature of arcade games, perhaps very few of them do, but of those few, this is definitely among them.  My mother has spent many a dollar for tokens so I could play this game in the arcades.  And I'm sure I'm not alone in the TMNT/Simpsons/other brawler games ritual when having to kill time at the mall, or at a party where such games are present.  I kind of miss the arcade experience, arcades have dwindled so much in the past decade and those that are still up are filled with all those win-tickets-claim-a-cheap-prize-that-you-could-have-gotten-at-the-dollar-store games.  Some of them are neat on a technical level, but not on the fun-with-friends level.  They're practically like VLTs at the casino, but for kids.

I kind of miss the fighting game scene, even though I would easily lose to one of those hardcore guys that live at the arcade.  Though I guess I almost did become one of those guys when I worked at Playdium at West Edmonton Mall and could play games for free (maybe I never got uber-hardcore, but I did almost feel like I was living there)...again, good times.