While the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles haven't made waves on the big screen since 2016, the franchise as a whole has been growing strong with a new show and brand-new games. Hot on the heels of the success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, the series has dipped into its arcade and at-home classics with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection.
Porting many classic titles from the late 80s and early 90s onto modern consoles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection contains a massive amount of gaming history in a single bundle. However, in keeping the classic experience of the games in this collection, some titles show their age without enough improvements to bring them in line with modern releases.
The crown jewel of the Cowabunga Collection is easily the original TMNT arcade cabinet titles, as well as the SNES port of the second of these two games, Turtles in Time. These specific installments were incredible back then and the same is true now, with improvements like increased enemy density to faster movement speed.
Each entry in the Cowabunga Collection includes an Enhancements Menu that allows players to make changes to the game. In the case of the two arcade titles, these enhancements are incredibly expansive, with a "God Mode" that makes players almost invincible, a "Nightmare Mode" that fills the screen with enemies, and a "Turbo Mode" that increases the speed at which the Ninja Turtles move. Any one of these enhancements can completely transform the game, especially "Nightmare Mode" and the absolute chaos it brings to any playthrough.
Beyond the new enhancements, the most popular titles on the Cowabunga Collection are also among the most influential games of all time. While the individual enjoyment of these games in 2022 will most likely be influenced by personal experience and nostalgia, TMNT: The Arcade Game and Turtles in Time are already icons of side-scrolling beat 'em ups. So, when it comes to how impressive the collection itself is, it can be difficult to beat a line-up that has so many games that have defined genres for decades.
To the same degree that many of the games in the Cowabunga Collection are iconic, however, some of the weaker inclusions to the bundle can bring things down. This is most notable in titles that come off as having been added to pad the list of available games, made worse by being given very little enhancements. When considering that this collection comes from the era of "Nintendo hard" titles with punishing resets and clunky controls, there is still room for improvements in the quality of the ports.
The most notable point of contention on the Cowabunga Collection's list comes from the three installments of TMNT: Tournament Fighters that appear. While having one of these titles makes perfect sense for a classic collection, especially the SNES or Sega Genesis versions, the version of the game from the original Nintendo Entertainment System is unnecessary. With two far superior games to choose from for both online and offline gameplay, it's strange that the worst of these three would be included. That being said, the differences between the SNES and Genesis versions are wide enough to possibly justify including both.
This same critique exists for two of the three Game Boy titles, TMNT: Fall of the Foot Clan and TMNT: Back from the Sewers. Both are incredibly short, feeling like an attempt at a 90s port of the arcade games to mobile devices. Aside Back from the Sewers being a perfect example of old-school "Nintendo hard" punishment, there's nothing inherently negative about these titles. Still, their inclusion appears to be more for the case of filling out the list and including the first two games before the much better Radical Rescue, which could have honestly stood on its own as the sole representation for TMNT on Game Boy.
Of course, even if there are a few games that don't add to the excellence, they can't bring the quality of the collection down too far on their own. Additionally, the list of games is only half of the equation for a bundle like this. What puts development on the Cowabunga Collection center stage is the emulation software on display. While the emulator built into the collection isn't as expansive as some software available on PC, it includes a decent amount of quality of life improvements that aren't normally found on console.
Following in the footsteps of emulators like the one developed for the Nintendo Switch Online virtual consoles, the Cowabunga Collection comes with the ability to save instantly and at any point, as well as rewind a few seconds. These can go a long way towards curbing issues players may have with the difficulty. Specifically, the harsh resets back to either the start of the game or beginning of a level can be mitigated with careful use of rewind and save states. However, only allowing one save state at a time for each game does limit the functionality of these quality-of-life improvements.
In the end, the quality of life improvements from the emulation and the enhancements make the collection a brilliant way to play some classic TMNT titles on modern consoles. Nothing has been "ruined" by being overly tweaked for the sake of modernizing, and the emulation only improves the games to make them more manageable. Combine this with the Cowabunga Collection's local and online co-op, and there has never been a better time to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles gaming fan.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Game ZXC was provided a PS5 code for this review.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection