Review #345: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Tournament Fighters(Genesis)

 Jesus Christ!

 Back in the day Street Fighter II was kind of a big deal, so much so that almost every company in existence saw profits to be made and wanted in on the fighting game craze that was sweeping the arcades. The end result is that nowadays you can find dozens upon dozens of Street Fighter II clones between the SNES and Genesis consoles, and most of them haven't aged very well. And, if you ask me, most of them weren't very good at the time of their release either.

 There's 4 different modes to partake in on the Genesis version of Tournament Fighters: Arcade Mode, in which you must fight all 8 combatants + 3 bosses, Tournament Mode, which is actually a survival mode in which you try to survive as many fights as you can on one life bar, VS 2 Player and Training Mode, which is actually a single, normal round against a CPU opponent of your choosing. The eight playable characters are comprised of the four turtles, Casey Jones, April O'Neil, Ray Fillet and series newcomer, Sysyphus, while the unplayable bosses are a random Triceraton, Krang and Karai. For the era, it's a decent character roster, and all eight characters are pretty different from each other, which is always a plus.

 Controls are made up of a Punch button, a Kick button and a Taunt button. Each character has a plethora of different normal attacks, depending on which direction you hold when performing the attacks, as well as four different special moves and a desperation move, only usable when your health bar is flashing. The Taunt plays a rather interesting role in this game, as it will heal you a little bit each time you use it, and it's also used to perform the Desperation move as well as some specials with some characters. One thing to keep in mind is that the animation is terrible due to a severe lack of animation frames, some attacks, like most crouching kicks, are single-frame affairs.

 If you don't have someone to play this game with, you are in for a pretty rude awakening once you select Arcade Mode, because the AI is relentless. You can turn down the difficulty in the Options menu, but as, if, you win fights, the opponents will get harder, and the continues are limited... which makes for a pretty irritating game.

 Tournament Fighters on the Genesis is a sub-par fighter at best and a frustrating mess at worst. Unless you've someone else to play with, there's no fun to be had with it, and if you do have people to play with... why would you subject them to this game? Even the Genesis has a pretty decent port of Street Fighter II. It's sad to say so, but this game exists today merely as a curiosity, something to check out once or twice if you are into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and then forget.
 1.0 out of 10