Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist

By Pirate_Higemaru

Overall Grade: B-

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were a staple of the late 80s and the the early 90s so  it's only natural that they had tons of games in that period of time. One such game is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist for the Genesis. This title is often compared to Turtles in Time for the Super Nintendo because they came out around the same time and they were both beat em ups.  Sometimes Hyperstone is even mistaken for a port! Be warned however, these games are fairly different. Underwhelming, I know.

Plot:

      Plots for Beat Em Ups rarely matter so I'll not to be too critical here. New York City starts shrinking (or something) by Shredder and Krang who have possession of the Hyperstone. So, the TMNT take action by going into the sewers to beat up Foot Ninjas and kick some shell! Along the way you fight fan favorites like Baxter Stockman, Leatherhead, Rocksteady and.... Tatsu. Yeah, they put an obscure movie-only character in the game which is actually pretty cool. In the last level you fight Krang (in his suit-thingy) and then you move onto Super Shredder. Afterwards, New York City returns to normal and the day is saved. It's a pretty bare-bones plot but beat em ups aren't known for their gripping and intense plots so I can't really criticize it. All I ask is that the words are spelled correctly and the sentences are coherent and this game delivers. My only complaint about this is, no Bebop. How can you have Rocksteady and no Bebop? That's like having bread and nothing to compliment it! 

Graphics:

 Compared to Turtles in Time, I would have to say the graphics here are somewhat lacking. They're darker and less colorful. It also doesn't do that cool zooming effect that Turtles in Time does. You also can't throw enemies at the screen which is lame but aside from those quirks the graphics are great. The animation is much smoother than Turtles in Time and the game feels slightly faster than its SNES brethren. The backgrounds are also fairly detailed which is a nice touch. I know I'm making it sound like Turtles in Time but it's different, they just appear to use the same sprites as Turtles in Time which is lazy but is something that's commonly employed in video games, so once again, it's forgivable. I think the smoother animation helps me let that one slide a bit though.

Music:

 The music in this game is really good but once again, it's all from Turtles in Time! That's not to say it isn't good, after all Turtles in Time had a great soundtrack. This game has an exclusive track or two but it doesn't change that most of the music is recycled. Something that surprised me were the voices. The music is also sort of sped-up but it doesn't really do much in my eyes (or ears). Unlike Turtles in Time, these voices are clearer and much more defined (albeit scratchy). They actually sound somewhat like the cartoon voices which really surprised me. I'm not saying they sound perfect but they sound pretty good regardless. 

Gameplay:

 This is where the games really start to differ, I'm not talking about minor gimmicks such as throwing the enemies at the screen or things like that. This is a completely different game. It has different levels and bosses than the previous games. There are only about 5 levels in the game and each are about 6 minutes long or so. Some of these levels include New York Sewers, A Ghost Ship and The Technodrome itself. Much like every other beat em' up there is a level where you fight all the previous bosses, however unlike a lot of beat em ups,this is its own level which I find to be a lot more forgiving and significantly more fair. You can customize the difficulty with an Easy, Medium or Hard mode and set how many continues you want (max 5). You can also use all four turtles although they aren't all that different. I prefer Leonardo but you may prefer Donatello or any of the others. 

The levels are a decent length and the right difficulty to boot. They provide a decent number of enemies that never gets overwhelming. The enemies aren't all that hard to deal with either. I mean you have your normal Foot Ninjas but then you start fighting nunchaku-wielding white ninjas, Shuriken-throwing orange ninjas and Krang's rock monsters that are armed with guns. The only enemy that I had a problem with were the cleaning robot things that stretched their arm out and electrocuted you. The bosses aren't as overpowered as most bosses in beat em ups. In fact, once you know what their attacks are, they're quite easy to beat. Even the souped-up versions of the bosses. Heck, even Shredder is a fair fight, I can honestly say I wasn't expecting that and I was pleasantly surprised when the fight rolled around. The Pizzas (health up items) are spaced a fair distance and overall it just makes for a balanced game.

You can also dash in this game and although this sounds like a great idea...it really isn't much help. I figured it out by accident and I never really used it afterwards. You can string into combos and do more moves with this dash button but aside from that, it's kind of pointless. It would be nicer if the "C" button wasn't in such an out of the way place. I just think it's too out of the way. 

The items are something I've been meaning to mention. There are only two and one is the Pizza which is a health up item which is always useful. My next thing is a "Bomb" Pizza that allows you to execute a special move. The only thing is, it has a bomb on the COVER! How are you supposed to know, that the pizza won't hurt you? Aren't you supposed to stay away from explosives? Why didn't Konami put an exclamation mark on the pizzas or something. ANYTHING BUT A BOMB! Bombs are negative, not positive, get it right Konami! It's a minor gripe, I know but it's still a negative.

I know I've been saying mostly postive things about the game and that's because it is a good game....it just suffers from the same thing all beat em ups suffer from. It gets really repetitive after a while. This would be less problomatic if they the game switched up the enemies from time to time but they generally just keep the same few waves of Purple, Orange and White ninjas coming at you. I'd like to see some variety there. Sometimes they'll throw in some Blue weapon wielding ones but that doesn't excuse how monotonous the game can be at times. Maybe my opinion would change if the scenery changed a little more but it never really does. Most of the levels have the same backdrop for most of the level, only changing once you get to the boss or a midway point. That being said, the game is still fun but it may get on people's nerves if they're looking for something with a bit more variety. 

Ending Statements:

I'll restate that I do think this game is good, it just needs some originality. It's perfectly playable and it's comparable to Turtles in Time, it just needs to be more original. It reused the same soundtrack which was really lame, most of the backdrops were reused aswell. It's a solid game, it just felt that they rushed it out of the door and they didn't really try too much with the music or the visuals. The game is pretty but many of its sprites are reused and Konami just cleaned them up a bit which is really lame. The music is also fine but once again, it's all reused stuff. This game is the perfect game for someone looking to smash a few heads. If you see this game for cheap, pick it up. Unfortunatly, it can be expensive and most won't want to shell (pun intended) out 20 dollars for this game. I like the game and all but most people will certainly just see it as an inferior Turtles in Time. If you're a beat em up fan or a Turtles fan, pick it up. You won't be disappointed.