TMNTThe Cowabunga Collection Donatello
Image: Konami

Do you know who's having a really good year this year? The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Tomorrow, the Year of the Turtle (sorry Tiger, we don't mean anything by it) continues with the release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection, a collection of thirteen of Konami's TMNT titles for the NES, SNES, Game Boy, Genesis, and Arcade. Some of the best, basically.

Reviews dropped earlier today for this shell-full of games, and it looks like the keyword is, appropriately, "Cowabunga!" Digital Eclipse, the team behind The Disney Afternoon Collection, the Mega Man Legacy Collection, the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection and more, have once again knocked it out of the sewers and delivered an excellent package.

We certainly think so, as the Nintendo Life verdict awards this compilation a delicious 9/10:

"TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection is indisputably the best thing Konami has released in a long while, meeting all expectations and then some. Bar absent difficulty settings for the arcade games, it’s an anthology that finally gets it totally right."

High praise, right? Well, it's not just us! We've rounded up what some of the other critics have said about this collection of classics.

Just like us, Nintendo World Report gave The Cowabunga Collection a well-deserved 9/10:

"The emulation is great, the features are numerous, and the explanation and accessibility of old games is among the best I’ve seen from one of these packages. Some of these games might have shown their age overall, but you’ll likely never find a better playing version of any of them."

Destructoid gave the Turtles an 8/10, calling this "a great repackaging":

"The standout feature for me is the extras menu. Here you’ll find boxes and manuals, ads and catalogs, and even comic book covers and still screens from several TV shows. There’s behind-the-scenes-style guides/bibles the designers had to follow for characters, and a music player. It’s a comprehensive look at Turtles history, and I surprisingly found myself digging into it for an hour before actually playing any games."

Gaming Bible also gave The Cowabunga Collection an 8/10, praising the presentation, though noting that the game's post-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge release should be taken into account:

"..these are bare-bones indeed after that moreish delight, so buy knowing that you’re getting improved-feature-set versions of much older games, with save-anytime (one slot per game) functionality a real plus, but they are still much older games. Then again, if you’ve the truest Turtle power in your veins, you already know what this is all about and you pre-ordered it ages ago."

Lastly, our friends over at Pure Xbox also awarded this an 8/10, highlighting a pizza-topping load of extras:

"Honestly, there's so much extra content included here it's quite difficult to concentrate on the games themselves, but concentrate we must! The 13 titles on offer are as comprehensive a collection of the glory years of side-scrolling Turtles beat 'em ups as we could really have asked for."

Given how fantastic we thought Dotemu's Shredder's Revenge was, and how this collection shows Digital Eclipse's love and appreciation for the heroes in half shells, we're confident in saying that the Turtles are more than back to their best.

Will you be picking up TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection tomorrow? Let us know!

Further reading

Please note that some external links on this page are affiliate links, which means if you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection - Nintendo Switch
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection - Nintendo Switch