Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection is another nice collection of classic video games from Digital Eclipse. The company knows how to release digital and physical packs that they know fans will enjoy. 2022 is a scarier year for these mutant turtles with this collection along with the newly released Shredder’s Revenge.
Will 2022 bring home more surprises or is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection the final treat for fans of this series? Time will tell, but now let’s see what makes this collection so special after all these years. Not every game here is a winner, but it’s generally a fan’s dream with just a few caveats.
7 Best: 13 games in 1
There are thirteen games in the collection, but only eight of them are original. This includes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (arcade), Turtles in time, tournament fighters, The Manhattan Project, Fall of the Foot Clan, Back from the sewerand Radical rescue. The other six games are alternate versions and releases. The Hyper Stone Robbery is technically an original game, but it is more of a remixed release of Turtles in time for Sega Genesis. It’s a good mix of co-op games with Turtles in time be the clear winner.
6 Worst: Missing Games
Not every game in this collection is a winner. The first two Game Boy games along with the first NES game aren’t worth the time of day. There are bad games on the list as well as some missing turtle games. Too bad the collection only extends to the SNES generation.
There are a lot of good Game Boy Advance games that they could have added, like TMNT, from 2007, which was a precursor to the Scott pilgrim against the world game. It’s also a shame that none of the PC versions or original titles, such as Manhattan Missions, featured. There is always hope that a second collection can one day be made. Getting the Re-Shelled Version of Turtles in time would be great too.
5 Best: Gameplay Improvements
Retro re-releases like The Cowabunga Collection are great because they usually add a lot of gameplay improvements. For example, players can rewind their gameplay if they don’t like how things turned out. There are new easy difficulties and a God mode that will make players invincible. Probably the best helper feature in the collection is that there’s a way to watch the games play themselves. Then players can step in at any time to take over. It’s an ingenious feature that more retro collections need.
4 Worst: I miss some online connectivity
Another big advantage of the collection is that it adds online connectivity to the games. Players can create or search a lobby for the two arcade games, the SNES version of tournament fighters, and the Hyperstone heist. Unfortunately, that’s where the online connectivity ends. It’s strange because most of the games in the collection have local multiplayer and co-op. Why were those four games chosen and not the others? Hopefully this can be fixed in a patch.
3 Best: The Art Collection
Another thing most remastered reissues include is art collections. The Cowabunga Collection is no exception and it is a TMNT joy of the fan. Players can gush over the game boxes, magazines, guides, documents and more. In addition, there are non-game-related bonuses in the collection, such as stills from the different eras of cartoons and comics. One of the nicer things is that the collection includes the Japanese versions of some games, along with the accompanying box art displays. The best Japanese box art is from Radical rescue or Close Call of turtles as it is called there.
2 Worst: Missing History Items
However, the bonus features are not complete. As much as there is to drool over, there are other things fans can’t help but miss, which can be true of many remastered collections. For example, where are the action figures?
The action figures are just as important to the fandom as the games, comics and movies. Presumably it would be difficult to digitize numbers and find them all, so it’s understandable yet disappointing. It would have been nice to have seen some video bonuses as well, like maybe a full episode or two of the cartoon or some commercials.
1 Best: the music
Even though some of these games are bad, at least fans can enjoy their music. For example, the original NES game is like torture in 8-bit form. It can technically be completed in less than an hour and yet it is seemingly impossible without cheats. The soundtrack will at least make the torture less annoying. That’s another bonus feature in The Cowabunga Collection although. If one doesn’t want to play the bad games, they can listen to their soundtracks in the bonus section instead. This is recommended as these games feature Konami’s best work. The only downside is that the menu background music cannot be changed to a player’s favorite tune. That’s just a minor nitpick though.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collectionwas released on August 30, 2022 and is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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