I'm a longtime fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. The comic book and original cartoon was a big deal to me when I was young. I saw the original trilogy in the theaters. Not only did I have all three soundtracks, but I begged my parents to bring me to Pizza Hut so I could get the Coming Out Of Their Shells cassette as well. I had an air-conditioner box filled with the action figures. And luckily for me, there were a lot of video games based on the series. This is the first in a series of posts that will explore some of the titles related to the Game Boy Player Land blog. First up -- we'll take a look at the three Game Boy Advance games.

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released by Konami in 2003. It was intended as a handheld port of the Gamecube game of the same title. Not surprisingly, the Game Boy Advance and the Gamecube games are completely different. While the Gamecube title was 3D, this one would be a sidescroller. It plays rather similar to some of the Game Boy Konami games from the series, though oddly it strays from the formula of the Ninja Turtle beat-em-ups that Konami had perfected in the arcades. However, this isn't to say the game is bad. It's a rather competent game that allows a good amount of playing time seeing as each turtle has his own levels to tackle. Konami being Konami also included several levels of other genres, such as switching to first person to keep things interesting. What's funny is that level-varying concept seems to be borrowed from the Battletoads games, which of course were a bit of a ripoff of the Ninja Turtles to begin with. Ultimately, the game isn't a classic, but it is worth a few bucks for the several hours you could sink it to it.



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In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Battle Nexus Konami used the same formula as the previous game, though seems to make everything a lot better. It's also a 2D take on the 3D Gamecube game of the same title, it allows each turtle to complete his own missions, and it throws in some other kinds of levels like Shmup-inspired ones to keep things fresh.  However, it seems that to some degree this game just pulls everything off slightly better than the first. It's almost ineffable, but it just feels like a better and more perfected game. The controls are comfortable, the graphics and animations are great, and the music is good. Collectors should note that the first two games were reissued together on a single GBA cart as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Double Pack.



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TMNT was released in 2007 to coincide with the CGI movie of the same title, and it's easily the best of the GBA games. Though it plays the closest to the Konami arcade games, this game was actually published by Ubisoft. Although the Gamecube version is a 3D game similar to the Konami ones, the GBA port is an old school brawler and completely worth checking out. The graphics are fantastic and will appeal to fans of the comic books, and the gameplay is pure classic arcade beatemup. This one is not to be overlooked!

I'm aware that there was a GBA Video release that contained a couple of episodes of the revival cartoon, but I've never bothered to pick this one up. Later posts will focus on the Game Boy and Gamecube Ninja Turtles games. But what did you all think of the Game Boy Advance releases?

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