I was browsing through the virtual console and I noticed that the NES game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was worth 100 points more than a standard NES game. As from what I have heard, AVGN, this game is bad. Why make a bad game 600 points? Other than that, did any of you actually buy the game and felt ripped off?

Extra licensing issues. And the game is awesome for those that grew up with it.

the game sucked then and it sucks now.

This game is awesome. Any true Turtles fan knows this.

Blasphemy.

I think it's a bit funny how bad it is, so I like playing it, and some parts are genuinely fun. My masochistic side loves the water level. And who doesn't like riding in the Turtle Van after? Definitely not recommended for anyone without nostalgia clouding his vision.

the arcade games and Turtles in Time and the like, I totally agree that they are awesome. but the '89 NES TMNT game stank out loud. It had next to nothing to do with the cartoon series-es I grew up with and loved, and i remember being so freaking confused when my little brother and I tried to get through this game. Any 'true' Turtles fan who got this game as a happy-go-lucky seven-year-old has every right to be more than a little bitter about it today, thanks.

Be bitter all you want. I'll still love my game, and my action figures. Guess I'm not 'true' enough of a fan for you. shrug

i was directly responding to Edwin, who stated "This game is awesome. Any true Turtles fan knows this." take any issues with his terminology up with him, please.

As a 5 year old huge Turtles fan this game provided me with more than enough stuff from the cartoon:

-Controlling all four unique Turtles
-Going in sewers
-Driving the Turtle Van!
-Turtle Blimp (cutscene)
-Shredder
-messages from April and Splinter
-Bebop and Rocksteady
-Technodrome
-footsoldiers

Yeah, I also noticed that the NES TMNT game was 100 points more than most other NES games. I also grew up playing this brutally hard game and even though I actually liked it, that doesn't mean I'm going to pay 600 points for it now. Better off just waiting for the Turtles in Time remake!

@Edwin: if you can get to some of those parts, sure, but the gameplay was terrible -- the monsters' constant respawning was irritating as hell, the turtles couldn't freaking swim (despite being turtles, for crying out loud!), and once you lost Donatello, there went the fun. also, graphically it was nothing like the TV series i'd expected to see reflected in the game. i could never get past the part where you have to walk on the ropes between buildings (always died either during or soon afterward) and we both (because i had to share NES time with my little brother, lol) were constantly running out of ammo for the Turtle Van for whatever reason. i don't remember bothering with the original game but once after we got a copy of TMNT II: The Arcade Game, and after Turtles in Time there was no appeal whatsoever behind going back to that kind of frustration.

@ theblackdragon

My arguing is all in good fun. I know now that the game has many flaws, but when I was five I either didn't realize them or didn't care about them since I was so excited to control the Turtles. I have come back to the game as an adult to beat it after much patience and effort. It is pretty ridiculous how in level 2 you can swim underwater (and defuse bombs, no less!) and in level 3 you get dragged away by the sewer water with arms flailing.

@Edwin: ah, okay. I didn't know you weren't intending to be omg!deadlyserious.

anyway, can't wait for the Turtles in Time remake. I hope we get a wiiware version.

Have to agree with Adam here. Not the greatest game....but some parts were quite fun. And some of my best, happiest memories took place while playing it. TMNT II pretty much took over once that hit the scene, but to this day I will still occasionally play the first. And cuss like a sailor when I can't defuse those "dam" bombs or drown myself trying to get at a slice of pizza.

Unlike most license games, the rest of the TMNT games actually has a chance of being on the Virtual Console.

TMNT was voted Game of the Year 1990 in the reader polls in my local Nintendo mag.
Consensus is that it most definitely did not suck then.

People liked anything dealing with ninja turtles back in the day, even if the product did suck. I spent many hours playing this horrible game. But I also bought it on the VC as my first game because i love it so much despite it being so annoying.

It is a great game, if you ask me; horrifyingly difficult, but it was a game I could come back to time and time again on my old NES growing up, grab a snack, settle in with fierce determination, and see if maybe, by some stroke of divine luck, I might beat it this time.

...but I never did. Has anyone beaten this game? Cheats or emulation enhancements like repeatedly-restorable save states don't count.

I was extraordinarily proud to make it all the way into the final level a couple times when I was young, the Technodrome, but I never had enough turtles left to make it very far through those hellish final screens. For those who don't know where you were in the overall game: if I remember correctly, there is (1) the first map, (2) the dam, (3) the larger city map, (4) the air base, (5) the 'dark' map, and, underground as a boss in the dark map, the technodrome, which, if beaten, can be entered for the final screens of the game leading to Shredder (a large area but no over-map here).

I remember this game being good back when I was just a boy, but this game has aged horribly. One of the few games I regret purchasing on VC and I've got about 100. I would kill to have TMNT II-IV available on VC though.