Over the past 9-ish or more years, it has been widely accepted that Konami, well, sucks. Pachinko nonsense, practically bowing out of the game developing and publishing business and awful mistreatment of their well established IPs and Castlevania NFT crap has made the once great Konami a company every bit deserving of the hate it gets.
BUT. Every now and then Konami will do something to remind us that at one point, Konami was a worthwhile company. The best thing Konami has done in recent years is re-release select games in their catalog such as the excellent Castlevani Anniversary Collection, Contra Anniversary Collection and Castlevania Advance Collection. I've given up hope on Konami reclaiming their lost glory but when it comes to retro releases, they've shown that they know how to not screw things up.
One collection from Konami that I've long wanted to see was a collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle titles. Konami was the go-to company for games with the green machines in the late '80s to mid '90s. On the NES, SNES, Genesis or the arcade, you were well covered for a slice of turtle action. But since the TMNT is a licensed property, this meant that such a collection was nigh impossible. True, we had seen re-releases of the 1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade game the 1990 NES TMNT game but a big collection of Turtle games? No such luck. That all changed during the March 9th Sony State of Play when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection was revealed.
I'm sure you've heard this a million times from every '80s brat either in person or on the internet, but the Turtles were my childhood. The 1987 cartoon series introduced me to the TMNT and made me a life long fan. It is a well known fact that the Turtles were originally conceived with a darker tone and themes in 1984 comic run but it was the '80s cartoon show that bought the franchise the fame it so richly enjoys to this day.
The Cowabunga Collection focuses on the Turtle games released based off the 1987 series. The 13 games included are both arcade titles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, all three NES games, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project, the SNES beat 'em up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time, the Genesis Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist the NES, Genesis and SNES versions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters, and all three GB games, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Footclan, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Back to the Sewers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Radical Rescue. Whew! That is a lot of green ninja action and I would not have it any other way.
Like Konami's other retro releases over the past few years, Cowabunga Collection will include artwork, sketches and the like. Save and rewind features are now standard features of retro collections and our supped up Turtle anthology will have them, meaning the Dam level on NES TMNT will be far less painful. I just might see the ending to that game for once.
Cowabunga Collection has no release date yet. All we know is that it is coming out this year. We'll be getting a physical release and the asking price for this collection of 13 TMNT game is just $40. For what we're getting a plethora of beat 'em ups, some brawlers and some action titles, I have no problem with the price of admission. No matter what system you prefer to game on, this collection is coming to everything so everyone can join the party. When this game does drop I'll have the pizza ready.
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