Retro Game Of The Week: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall Of The Foot Clan (Game Boy)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall Of The Foot Clan comes from a time when the Turtles were as hot as they’d ever be. Pity it’s not a very good game, then.

In Retro Game Of The Week I pull a game from my collection and write about why it’s important or interesting. Or in some cases, badly dated and rubbish.

I can fondly recall when I first became aware of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Game Boy start screens tended towards the bland. Saved space, you see.

No, it wasn’t the cartoon, or indeed the classic Konami arcade game. It was quite a bit earlier than that. For reasons I’ll never understand, my local bookstore in the regional hamlet of Armidale ended up with a copy of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles And Other Strangeness Role Playing Game book, first published in 1985. I think I saw that copy in 1986, and quite how it ended up there I have no idea.

It didn’t sell (because it looked quite oddball, because it was), so it went on special. I was into my RPGs at the time, so I bought it.

It’s wonderfully weird, expanding out the Turtles universe with all sorts of other optional mutated creatures… but I digress.

Me sir! Me sir! Hit me sir!

This was years before the cartoon, based on the much grittier original Turtles vision that was itself a pastiche of Frank Miller’s Daredevil. Which, for the trivia fans is why the Turtles foes are called the Foot Clan, because Daredevil faced off against the Hand. But again, I digress…

By the time the Turtles became the money-spinning-mega-property of the late 1980s-early 1990s, I was a bit older and not really in the core age demographic, though I could not ignore the sheer quality of the Konami arcade game. It’s an astonishingly good four player scrolling beat-em-up, even to this day, and highly recommended.

Let’s… not consider what’s about to happen to Donatello, OK?

 

But that’s not what I’m dissecting today, because Retro Game of The Week is about games in my collection, and that brings us to the first Turtles game for Nintendo’s Gameboy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall Of The Foot Clan.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall Of The Foot Clan has… really nice big sprites? A pretty good rendition of the Turtles theme given the limitations of the Game Boy speaker?

Even on a murky Game Boy screen, this is a good looking game.
If only there was some substance behind the visuals.

It definitely looks a LOT better than the NES game that so many retro gaming fans still go nuts for. I have no idea why, because that game’s terrible… and sadly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall Of The Foot Clan isn’t much better.

Raphael. Well known for taking on the evil Foot Clan armed only with… egg whisks?

Outside of its very nice visual presentation — mostly — it’s a very dull game.

It was dull back in the day, frankly, because you just walk or jump to the right, hitting a very small number of foes who then explode, lather, rinse, repeat and, generally speaking, finish way too quickly.

What are they doing to April? No, on second thoughts, don’t tell me.
Maybe she’s just screaming because she saw a cute puppy. Yes. That.

You only get four lives — because there are four turtles, y’see — but that’s generally going to be enough for all but the most limited gamer.

Now I can hear some folks complaining that I’m picking on their childhoods and that it’s a game for younger kiddies, but there too I feel like I should fight back.

Pizza, that well known food that floats in the air with the word “PIZZA” beneath it, just like in real life.

Games for children shouldn’t be brutally hard to speak of, but equally (and especially at that time) most kids might have only gotten one or two games per year, if that. A game that they could rinse in an afternoon with ease isn’t a good value buy for parents or kids alike.

Astonishingly, researching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall Of The Foot Clan, I find that apparently US Nintendo Power rated it amongst the top 20 Game Boy games of all time.

They are, by any sane measure — or heck, even a measure developed under the influence of strong pharmaceutical chemicals — WRONG on that score. I mean, it’s not terrible, but it’s equally in no way deserving of a top 20 slot.

When the evil Shredder attacks, we’ll turn around and show him our backs!
That’s how the lyrics go, right?

Hey, I did say in the intro that Retro Game Of The Week wasn’t always about good games, right?

How to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of The Foot Clan today

My own copy came — I think — in a job lot with a bunch of other titles, because it’s not something I would have sought out.

There’s an old cash converters sticker on the back that suggests that at one time it traded for $16, but I’m sure that’s not what I paid for it.

But what if you want to play it today?

You’re in luck; it’s in the TMNT: Cowabunga Collection, along with a host of considerably better TMNT games that are far more worth your time. Seriously, if you like your retro games and you don’t already have it, go grab a copy now. Oh look, here’s a handy (affiliate) Amazon link for the Switch cartridge version!

	Buy The Cowabunga Collection (Switch)!	Buy On Amazon

Also read:
TMNT: Cowabunga Collection Review (Digitally Downloaded)

But what if you wanted the Game Boy original? Based on completed sales, that $16 price sticker might represent a bit of a bargain, with loose copies going for between $30-$40 on eBay.

Boxed copies? Sellers seem to want a LOT more for those, considering that $30-40 loose price. Like… ten times as much, typically speaking. Ouch.