TMNT's Original Arcade Game Was a Licensed Game Done Right

02.08.2023 - 15:19 / ign.com

More pizza toppings don’t mean a better pizza. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles might like to put a bunch of ridiculous nonsense on their pies, but it’s hard to deny the simple pleasures of a slice of plain cheese or pepperoni when it’s done right. A similar declaration could be made about video games, and as cool as it is to see the medium constantly pushing the boundaries of new technology, sometimes less is more. Take for instance Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, which went back to basics, iterating on everything that made the original TMNT arcade game so beloved without losing sight of its charm.

Shredder’s Revenge capitalized on millennial nostalgia for the original arcade game. Some of that nostalgia might be tangled up with fondness for the original cartoon or happy childhood memories, but it’s worth putting into perspective exactly how much that original arcade game was the intersection of great ideas implemented well at the center of a maelstrom of “right place, right time” circumstances.

The fact that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and video games intersected at all was serendipitous, and almost definitely wasn’t part of the plan from day one. While Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were having their “Eureka!” moment over a drawing of a tortoise with nunchaku in late 1983, the video game industry was collapsing on both ends. The recession caused by “atari shock” decimated the home console market, while the arcade scene was floundering due to the oversaturation of mediocre games and backlash to moral panic.

The sorry state of video games in the early eighties might explain why some of the most beloved kids’ properties are all but absent in the video game space. G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and Transformers all conquered Saturday morning and after-school airwaves, toy aisles and comic racks, but their presence on cartridges and in cabinets was sorely lacking. He-Man got a text adventure. The most memorable G.I. Joe game was released five years after the cartoon’s final episode aired, when its earliest fans were likely entering high school. Transformers got a game, but it was exclusive to Famicom and only released in Japan. Also, you had to play as Ultra Magnus, the “is Pepsi okay?” of truck-shaped Autobot leaders.

Obviously, video games got back on their feet. The arrival of the Nintendo Entertainment System revitalized the home console market, and arcade games got a second wind thanks to some technological advances and outraged parents finding other things to be offended by. In the time it took all that to happen, a black and white independently published comic called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had snowballed in popularity enough to attract