Top 5 most frustrating NES moments. #3- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the whole game.

Now, I know the title screen is telling you to press start, and it's probably really tempting, but don't do it. For the love of God, don't you push start; because once you do, it's all over. There have been very few games that have been on the same level of absolute frustration like the NES TMNT game. It's hard to pick out just one moment in the game that sucks, because almost the entire game is next to impossible, so I'm just going to describe some of the more obvious moments in the game.

This game prides itself in being annoying. All of the enemies respawn, all the time. God help you if you have to backtrack through a stage. You could be making your way perfectly fine through a part of the level and come to a dead end only to realize you had to climb that ladder you saw three screens back. You just fought 48 enemies, jumped over next-to-impossible gaps, and lost 2 of your 4 turtles doing it. Now the game basically gives you the finger and tells you to do it all over again.

Probably the most annoying of all the levels in the game, nay, in all of gaming, would have to be the water level. If you've never played this game, try to imagine this: you're underwater, and have to diffuse bombs within a certain time limit, there's electric seaweed and vines that eat you alive, and you can't attack. The worst part is, you have to do all of that....with an NES controller. It's absolutely horrendous. To this day, I don't think I've ever seen anyone complete that level without dying, or at least losing one turtle.

Last, but certainly not least, is the freaking battle with the Technodrome. If you made it that far without using any kind of save state, or cheat, you deserve a medal. There's lasers flying all over the place, foot soldiers jumping out, and very little space to move. You only have a couple seconds each time the technodrome gets close to get a hit in, and it's so hard to do since you have foot soldiers constantly attacking you.



Anyway you slice it, TMNT for the NES is one of the hardest games you'll ever play. It's not very good either. However, at the time, it was one of the best selling games on the console. That blows my mind. Back in the day, reviews weren't based on graphics or extra content of the game, people just wanted to know two things: does it work, and what is it about? And, well, given those circumstances, yeah, this game isn't half bad. But if you dive deeper and actually open the book, you'll find it's full of BS.....meaning this game is a pile crap.