Getting right to the point, I've loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for as long as I can remember. I always had the newest toys when they came out,
I own all three movies and the soundtrack from the second. I even went to the freaking live concert and still own the
cassette tape of said concert. Even
to this day do I frequently obsess about the TMNT. I visit the website regularly, own the first couple waves of toys, and watch the show whenever I get
the chance. And of course, combining my two greatest obsessions, I own all the newer TMNT video games.
If you've read my Christmas article, you know I got the first set of games around December 25th of last year, and how I loved them so. The GBA game,
in my opinion, was right up there at the top of the "best GBA games ever" list. It was the perfect beat 'em up side-scroller, with excellent graphics and
a great aural experience to boot. I played it through several times, and even my brother who doesn't really like video games (particularly of the
side-scrolling sort) got really wrapped up in it at one point. So could Konami pull through and make the sequel better? Take a look at the box art, and
judge this book by it's cover.
Does it not scream intense? The last game's box art was kind of disappointing and plain, but the moment I saw this one I thought "Wow. This game is
going to kick ass. The box alone looks like it's going to kick ass." But enough about the box art. It's only so relevant. Though probably the most
entertaining picture that's going to appear in this article. You'll also notice that It proudly displays 4-player action on the corner there, though
for
some reason they made the French part to be more outstanding to the eyes than the English. Anyhow, they're really trying to promote the ability to have
4 players with the new releases. Probably because the first games had very little opportunity for multiplayer. The console had only 2-players at max, and
the GBA version was single player only. It's a great feature, considering the material, and coincides with Nintendo's newfound obsession with playing
together. (Not that they never cared about it before, they're just really going at it now)
So with the sweet-ass box art and a new multiplayer feature, you're definitely wondering by now how Battle Nexus stands up to its older brother.
While I'd love to say that the second game is without a doubt leagues better than the first, it's just different enough that you can't properly
compare the two. Whether you like Battle Nexus or the first game better will overall depend on what kind of game you like,
because although they are
similar in many ways, the differences really set them apart and make them two entirely different games. In other words, this game takes the foundation
that the first laid down and builds it up way into space.
Oh and speaking of into space, I guess that's where I'll start. As the first game covered the major events of the first season of the show, Battle Nexus
highlights the bigger events of the second season. Or at least the first half of said season. The game opens with a recap of how the first season ended and
the second started, with the Turtles being teleported to a planet galaxies away and saving the Fugitoid from both those evil Federation guys and the Triceratons. Right now, you'd probably want to have seen at least two or three episodes of the show to have any idea what I'm talking about. In any case,
that's about as far as they follow the actual plot set forth by the show.
So after that, you get to the start screen. Ooh. Lightning. Then it's start new game and such, and you're treated to a really long (and the only, so
far) cutscene that fleshes out the more skewered story. You see, while it follows the basic plot of the cartoon, they changed it around a lot so that
they had something to make a decent game out of. In this story, the Turtles and the Fugitoid escape to a secret lab. There, they can use Fugitoid's
teleportal to go hunting around for crystals to power up the teleportal, because it can only get you so far without the proper amount of crystal energy.
But then the biggest fault in the game comes into play.
Somehow, back on Earth, Baxter Stockman has managed to hack into the teleportal's system and made it so that when a turtle uses the teleportal, he will
be taken to his destination, but his weapon(s) will be teleported some distance away. How he managed to do this, I'll never know. I guess you could find
plausibility in it because (bigass spoiler, if you care) Shredder is an Utrom and has all that knowledge and stuff about how
life does actually exist on other planets, plus all the technology necessary to make something that could affect something that far away. Oh and I guess
I should mention that instead of the Turtles being teleported from the basement of the TCRI building (the Utrom's Earth base), they just get magically
warped right out of their lair out of the blue. Oh. Wait. Maybe it was Shredder's doing. I can't really remember. It was a really long cutscene.
Either way, once you've cleared the hurdle that is picking your difficulty level, you get to choose which mode you want to play. There are three, and I'll
start with the obvious choice. Like I said earlier, you're mission is to warp into enemy territory, steal crystals, and go. It's a simple task, and made
simpler in easy mode, because you don't actually have to get the crystals to progress, but you do only get to play the first three of five worlds. A fair
trade, I'd say. The greatest thing about this game is that it's at least twice as long as the first. Maybe. I'm not sure, because I don't want to do
the math. The first game had 17 levels (including bosses and vehicle levels), and this one has 5 worlds with 6 levels apiece. So that's like 30 or
something. And as with the first, there may be more once you've completed all the standard levels. I don't know. I haven't gotten that far yet.
I mentioned earlier that when the Turtles would teleport, their weapons would be taken somewhere different, no? Well, that's the biggest problem and
genre-changer for this game. In this game you start every level sans-weapons, with only an infinite number of shuriken to defend yourself. Needless to
say, shuriken are pitifully weak. So your first objective is to get to your weapon. Just because Metal Gear Solid was such a huge success doesn't mean
that Konami has to start incorporating stealth into every second game they make. Boktai was understandable, but not Ninja Turtles. Yes, ninjas
do play the stealth card frequently, but Ninja Turtles games have always been about busting heads and such. Not hiding in doorways to elude security. They
did it well, but I'd still prefer more action.
Oops. There's the Metal Gear again. At least the level design is really good. The way the last game worked, you had a set of levels for each Turtle,
but in this one you get to use any Turtle in any level. So with that in mind, they made every level with puzzles and spots that could only be solved
with specific Turtles, so you have to play through each "on foot" (more on that in a while) level with at least two Turtles if you're out to get every
last crystal, which is requisite for any progress in hard mode. It adds a little bit of life to the game, and the levels are rather big and allow for
a lot of exploring so it doesn't get too dull.
So as I was saying, the shuriken blow as weapons, and you really can't do much until you've gotten your weapon. Chances are, if you try to kill
something without your weapon, you're going to get killed. You could always be really careful and throw a star, hide, throw a star, hide, and so forth,
but that takes forever. Luckily, grabbing the weapon makes everything so much easier.
Enemies will fall with minimal effort, and you'll be kicking ass
all over the place. On easy, that is. The game is actually quite difficult on normal, and I can't imagine what horrors reside in hard mode. Triceraton
soldiers are an actual threat on normal mode, and in situations where you have one on each side of you, you're pretty much screwed. The other enemies
aren't that bad, but bosses can show you a thing or two about getting your ass kicked. More on those guys later.
A little ninja action and even more MGS reference. In the next game the Turtles are going to be communicating by codec and April will recite famous
quotes and proverbs when you save. Yes, enough of that, it's time I told you about the levels where you don't run about slicing things apart. Every world
has three normal action stages, two vehicle stages, and a boss stage. And there are several kinds of vehicle stages. The first is the muta-board stage.
Pretty much just jumping and shooting anything that comes at you, but there is a tough mini-boss in the second one. There isn't much to say about it,
except for that it's probably where the idea for Race Mode (more later) came from.
There are also some mini-ship levels. I'm not sure what they're really called, but the thing looks like a little spaceship, but isn't, cause it doesn't
go into space. Whatever it is, the levels play out kind of like R-Type, with the side-scrolling shooting and all. Notably, the third boss is fought
in this kind of level. Lastly, there are real spaceship levels. Which are just simple rail shooters. Just aim and shoot. Enjoyable, and it gets pretty
frantic if you're playing anything above easy mode. There may be different kinds of vehicle levels later on, but I'm not that far yet. Only finished
easy mode and the first world on normal up to this point.
I think I mentioned that the bosses are tough, right? Well if not, I'm tellin' you now. The bosses of
Battle Nexus are no picnic. Of course, everything
I type from this point will be in reference to normal mode, because easy mode is easy all around. The first boss is the huge sewer worm thing seen in the
first or second episode of the second season. He rolls around, shoots, and chews on your head. Not a huge trouble, but you won't beat him without taking
damage. The second guy is the real trouble spot. Beating his is hard enough,
because he's got a really big hammer, and it hurts. The worst part is that
you have to beat him with Mikey at one point to collect all the crystals, and Mikey, well, we'll say Mikey isn't exactly the
strongest of the four
terrapins. I just managed to scrape by with Leo, who is the strongest, and it took me at least ten tries to do it. The third boss, the spasmosaur (fought
in the Triceraton gladiator pit on the show) isn't too tough, because it's a shooting level, and once you've learned a safe spot, you're good to go.
I haven't seen what the next two worlds have in store, but I'm pretty sure that the Shredder's going to be in there at least twice. And he was hard as
Hell to beat in the first game.
Take the advice. There is no satisfaction in beating Easy mode unless you're as completist as I am. You do get a password for the GC version, and it's
not a bad password at that, but still. Easy mode is a bit too easy. I don't think I died even once. But I digress, because there is still much more that
needs to be reviewed. Though I'm thinking that thins is getting to be just a little long. I'm around 2100 words now, and I can tell that there are going
to be quite a few more, because there's tons more material to be covered. And you know what happened last time I wrote something that ended up being
twice as long as a normal article. That's right! I didn't just put that picture that says "To be continued" there for kicks. It's time for another
two-pager, people. So click below and zoom to my favourite was of artificially making my articles look super-long!
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