I’ve gravitated to brawlers for a very long time, basically since they first started popping up in arcades in the mid-1980s.
The brawler — if you need a primer — is a genre of video game that involves beating up a bunch of bad guys who keep coming at you. Also sometimes referenced as a “beat ’em up” — though I shy from that designation as that to me denotes more of a one-on-one fighter like Street Fighter II — it essentially boils down to mashing punch and kick buttons, often with a teammate(s) helping you, through several stages until you defeat the big bad, probably/possibly rescue a family member/significant other, and live happily ever after (until the sequel).
There’s probably something to unpack there about why I enjoy these games as much as I do [insert analysis about wish fulfillment in regards to settling conflict with one’s fists HERE], but the appeal of the genre runs much deeper than simple violence.
To me, it’s all about how communal they are.
Brawlers, you see, are short, and since multiple people can generally play, they become communal by their very nature. That makes a good brawler a tremendous bonding opportunity, in the same way a sports title can be. You can gather with friends, have a quick, fun experience together, and then move on to other interests or part ways.
Gaming is just more fun when it’s done together.
But brawlers might be even better for cooperative play than sports games. In sports titles, you’re often taking on your friends and family. You’re opponents. In a brawler, you’re united against a common foe. Teamwork carries the day. And while “friendly fire” can be a fun aspect to that sort of experience too, it’s ultimately most rewarding to team up and defeat the game together.
So yeah, I like these kinds of games a LOT. And yet, when I sat down to think about which games are some of my all-time, can’t-miss recommendations, not many were emerging at the top of my list … for various, sound reasons.
Streets of Rage and Double Dragon haven’t aged all that gracefully.
Final Fight and Streets of Rage 2 were never really my jam at the time, so they don’t have that “first love” appeal.
Battletoads? A smidge too tough.
The Golden Ax series? A little too niche.
And honestly, most other arcade brawlers that came along afterward just felt too derivative.
Which is how we ended up with a licensed arcade port sitting here at No. 16.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time
Genre: Brawler
Released: 1992
Platform: SNES
No. 24 on GamesRadar’s Best SNES Games of All Time
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got their start in the comics, quickly got their own syndicated cartoon show, and then blew up like a watermelon filled with dynamite.
Ninja turtles were the most popular critters on the planet. And they were everywhere. From standard merchandising like clothing and lunchboxes, to all of the gazillion toys, to the eventual feature films, they had a product for virtually any occasion.
Licensed video games were an inevitability. But the history here is important, because context matters.
Put delicately, licensed games of this era were, by and large, shit.
So, just because a popular franchise was getting a video game(s), it didn’t assure anyone of any sort of quality. Most of the time, it was just the opposite.
This is the environment in which the ninja turtles made their video game debuts. But whereas the Nintendo received a single-player exploratory adventure game that was so challenging that it caused an estimated* 1 million incidents involving thrown controllers smacking into television screens, furniture, and little sisters’ heads, the arcades conversely received a fun, breezy brawler that allowed four players to collectively create mayhem at the same time.
* Estimated by me.
Take a wild guess how that was received.
Now, in fairness, many gamers’ opinions of the NES classic have improved over time, with or without the nostalgia. And when the folks at Konami tried to listen to fan complaints and follow up that game with two arcade-style brawlers on the Nintendo, those games were commercially popular, but shallow. The games had no depth, and their graphical limitations kept a ceiling on the fun.
The arcade sequel to the original arcade game was “Turtles in Time,” which a year later earned a port to the fresh-faced Super Nintendo, a system much better equipped to handle such a thing in the first place.
But what’s a little wacky is that the SNES version of the game offered several changes from the arcade version, and for many gamers, became the superior take.
Crazy, eh?
We went from a home console being completely unable to handle the style of game players wanted to the home console offering a better overall experience in the span of like two years.
So there’s your background on how the game came into being, but why should this game be considered one of the best brawlers of all time?
Let’s run it down quickly:
1. Variety and impact in the gameplay.
2. Stellar sound and looks.
A lot of games get that second one down pat. And I can’t stress the importance of that enough when you’re dealing with a relatively straightforward game like this. It’s not complex. It runs the danger of losing your interest. So make it pretty (and tying it in with a colorful license only helps in this regard), and make it sound great with jamming tunes that make you want to come back and rock out to them over and over again.
Sweet, you’re halfway there.
Now we circle back to No. 1 and everything’s all fine and dandy and … OH NO!
This is where most brawlers fall into the pit of despair.
Impact is a part of it. It’s what I mentioned when I wrote about Doom. You want to be able to “feel” as though you’re actually damaging folks. If the dudes around you are floating around like feathers, it lessons the experience. You want it to feel like they’re getting their faces crushed in.
What makes Turtles in Time particularly brilliant in this regard is its variety in the combat — another critical component in staving off boredom — lends itself into being impactful. One of the animations involves grabbing an enemy, and then slamming them into the ground over and over again until they dissolve into nothingness.
Impact.
Another innovation, designed to show off the system hardware, has you literally throwing enemies at the “camera” or screen. It takes the game into a more three-dimensional space, but you also “feel” these foot soldiers flying into the screen.
Again, impact.
Give the gamer different ways to dispose of enemies so that things don’t get repetitive, and let the whole experience feel impactful.
It all sounds very simple. And in theory, it is.
In practice, it’s not very easy to pull off at all (or else everyone would do it).
Turtles in Time pulls off the rare feat of nailing the presentation AND offering a deeper, more satisfying play experience.
And it does that as a licensed game.
This game is proof that miracles exist.
So what makes it worth playing today?
As stated in my intro, the main appeal of a good brawler is in the community aspects of it. Making new friends, keeping old ones, or even in some cases, losing them (friendly fire!) is the point, more so than the game itself.
The real treasure was the friends we made along the way!
In this case, maybe?
Regardless, so far as these kinds of games go, “Turtles in Time” achieves what it sets out to do as well as any developer could hope for. It’s fun, communal, not overly long or taxing, it looks and sounds great, and it doesn’t get boring.
It’s an all-timer within the genre and my first recommended foray for anyone curious to branch out into it.
Turtle power!
Dave’s Score: 10/10
Check out the whole Retro Gaming Essentials list here!
How to play
- Original hardware (Super Nintendo)
- Arcade (slightly different)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Mutant Nightmare (arcade version is unlockable; on PS2, GameCube, Xbox Nintendo DS)
- “Turtles in Time: Re-Shelled,” a remake of the arcade version (PS3, Xbox 360)