When it comes to all the ninja turtles games on the nintendo consoles, it’s hands down that ninja turtles 3 is often the most overlooked but best game of the series. It’s the most challenging and the one with the most depth (if can consider a ninja turtles game to have any depth that is), and I think it’s the best in the series.

Story.
The turtles are taking a vacation in Florida, while they soak in the rays they keep up what’s happening by tuning into Aprils news casts on TV. When their TV goes fuzzy Shredder appears and kidnaps April and then suspends Manhattan in the air. Now it’s up to the turtles to figure out how to get home with New York suspended in the air.

Graphics.
The graphics in the game are not bad, the turtles looks a bit better and the colors are brighter then they where in the Turtles 2, but there’s not to much to distinguish the difference between the 2. However there is a noticeable decline of attack animation, all of them have only one normal attack swing, unlike turtles 2 which had at least 2 attack swings.

Sounds.
You get a rather beepy version of the turtle themes of course, these sound a little bit better then the ones in turtle 2 but there still NES quality. There are also the usual generic sounding hits and explosions found on NES games.

Gameplay.
The gameplay is the same has in 2, go to the left side of the stage to the right and beat the stuffing out of any foot soldiers that appear and beat the boss at the end. Of course there are obstacles, mini bosses, and traps to get around. While the gameplay isn’t that much different what makes this so good is that there are more differences between the turtles then there are in the 2nd and 4th ones. Also the special B & A attack combos differ between the turtles, and you are also injure one power point for using them making it riskier to use them.

Turtles.
So what are the differences well here they are.

Leonardo.
Like in all the other turtle games Leonardo has got the average in all the stats, he’s got a fairly fast and lengthy attack. For a special move he spins around in one place with his swords. This can hit an enemy more then once doing a good amount of damage to a boss. Problem is that he’s a siting duck after words meaning he can get hit causing more damage to his bar.

Rapheal.
Like usual Raph has an attack that’s very fast but very short. You have to get close to an enemy to use it, but this isn’t a problem for bosses cause most of them have a pause at one time or another. You can hit them several times with Raph si. For a special move Raph does a drill spin that covers half the screen, it only hits each enemy once but it gets him out of harms way

Micalangelo.
Micalangelo got a reach and speed a little like Leo, however what makes him different his is Kangaroo kick. Mike uses his arms to propel himself in the air and hit the enemies, while this goes pretty far it doesn’t always hit the ground base enemies that are in the middle of his kick. It’s not a bad move though if you want to hit large enemies like bosses and get away with out a scratch.

Dontello.
Dontello has a long reach but slow swing, he can hit enemies far away but only twice before getting hit. His special move has him summer salting in the air with his bow. This travels some ground but not much, just like Leo he can get in more then one hit. And even though he moves some, just like Leo he can stand to get hit after he’s done doing it.

Difficutly.
In the regular difficulty this is the hardest turtle game by far, you got traps in weapons that can easily set more then 4 dots off of your life bar in a single hit. Along with some really hard bosses and some long stages this can even bring a season pro some difficulty. Of course there is a code that lets you into an option screen where you can change difficulty and amount of lives given (why they make you enter a code I don’t know). Anyway’s on the easy stage enemies take only half has much damage to kill and do less damage to you, and with a maximum of 7 lives a youngster can get pretty far. On the down side for some reason when you continue from a game over it puts the game back on the normal difficulty and with 3 lives.

Secret of the Ooze anyone
This defiantly has a lot of marketing for the 2nd ninja turtle movie in it (hey it’s better then Pizza hut), There are Toka, Razor and Super Shredder to fight.

Final recommendation.
If you’re a turtle beat em up fan then this is a game you should check out. Also wouldn’t mind ever seeing a 32 bit port of this on the GBA


Recommended: Yes