Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game

THE BAD:
No 4 player option.

SUMMARY:
One of the most popular arcade titles of the 1980s & early 1990s, the Turtles' 2nd NES title mirrored the arcade game whereas the original was totally different. The story's just like in the arcade-hack & slash your way through vatious stages on your way to the big battle with Shredder to save April & Splinter, and of course the world.
Although the graphics obviously aren't arcade perfect, they're still very good-even the arcade's cutscenes make an appearance here! Sounds are good as well even though they couldn't recreate the spoken dialogue from the arcade, but the TMNT theme song's here too. A big thumbs-up to gameplay, though, with the addition of new areas the arcade version didn't even have-it makes the game longer and adds to the replay value. Controls are simple and solid, but it takes some practice to get the special attacks down, as they require good timing on the buttons.
Also lacking is a 4 player option. Although it wasn't really available on NES at release time, they could have redone it later on after the 4 player accessories became available, that way you could truly recreate the arcade experience. Another fun thing to note is that when the game was first released, they did a tie-in that let you get free pizza from Pizza Hut when you bought it-pizza is the turtles' favorite food, you know!
Overall, it's another excellent arcade-to-NES port and the extra stages thrown in help add to the value of the game. A must-have for fans of the turtles, and goes very well with pizza on the side.