I remember having Mutant Melee on the GameCube. I honestly don't remember much about it. As you said it wasn't great and maybe it's just not one I played much as a kid. In fact, I didn't remember I owned it until you talked about it. I might have played the vs mode with my friends a few times and kinda left it in the dust. Great video man! Love some '03 Turtle nostalgia.
Yeah I also got a lot of games like that from my childhood that kinda just didn't stick with me or ended up not being so memorable. I'm not surprised to hear Mutant Melee was one of those for you because, like, it's not terrible but it's really not that interesting. But yeah, appreciate the comment, always fun to share the love for such a great show.
I think all three of the mainline games are worth playing personally, there's lots of little details in each of them that i'd love to go in depth about but regardless this was a nice overview, Mutant Nightmare I think got done a little dirty tbh, you actually can dash in that game, it's a ninja scroll you can equip if you find it, I don't know if it's because I always played these games on hard growing up, but Mutant Nightmare was more of a dungeon crawler in structure, so you run around big areas generally with some kind of purpose, whether that involves the mission objective or finding all the secret scrolls and bonus content, there was a tension to that game that does not fully exist in the others because your partners can die and do not come back until the mission is over, it felt like you had to pay attention to how you crafted your turtles to survive and it incentivized exploration because the more scrolls you have and the more crystals you gain the more options and resources become available to you, there's a bit of a blend between 1 and 2 whereas in TMNT 1 the enemy encounters were always mandatory, in 2, 9 times out of 10 they aren't, and in 3 it just depends on where you are, i think the enemy variety and AI are also probably at their best here, and they're a little more telegraphed than they are in 2. I also like the bonus stages, I think they're more varied than 2's, and they are also no longer mandatory to unlock your full moveset, yeah becoming perfect at the bonus stages in 2 is an actual requirement to unlock your full moveset because the highest reward you can get is a crystal, and 10 of those form a new upgrade, I'm not a fan of all the shooting gallery minigames but I do actually like the ones where you're on foot because there's nuances to how to speed them such as attacking certain enemies first or even hitting them in specific places to do more damage, also lasers can be parried and deflected if you time your block with the impact, I found myself getting into grooves playing those, don't really have much of a problem personally with the other two. That Turtles in Time port was all we had in 05 and ngl I played the crap outta it, I thought it was a billion times better to still have voice clips at all than none and it had actual music, the soundtrack is different but imo it felt thoughtful a lot of it is just stuff from the DS Mutant Nightmare arranged for consoles but like thematically they vibe with the stage environments and I like them a lot to a point where sometimes I wouldn't mind a Turtles in Time with an alternative OST option to use this one, if the frame-rate wasn't halved I'd probably still go back to it from time to time to this day, there's no reason for me to play it anymore with modern alternatives we have now, still appreciate it being in there though. there's a lot of stuff about Mutant Nightmare I would like to mention, you have technically more moves than you do in the prior games and player expression feels accentuated by the new scrolls and upgrade system, and you actually have another team attack i thought was badass, that is basically a group kamehameha wave, everyone just needs to sacrifice 10 or so shuriken stock to activate it, I think the game would be worth another go especially with friends but if it's not your cup of tea that's fine, just wanted to drop some thoughts from someone who grew up with this trilogy, I think 3 is the most polished entry overall even if I never quite could pick a favorite. fun fact these games were made by a lot of the same exact devs that made the classic Turtles games I don't think enough people acknowledge that, I don't just mean Konami i mean the same individuals, I always thought the first game felt like a natural translation of the SNES and Genesis era TMNT games to 3D, and the sequels just kinda branch off from there, you can actually dash cancel your attacks in these games btw very useful for combo extensions and in TMNT 1 you can straight up OTG people, I learned a lot about fighting games unironically from this licensed beat em up lol. It was cool seeing someone discuss them at length though, Battle Nexus gets a lot of heat for it's controls/combat but I've always thought they really just require a bit of an adjustment for timing is all, each character has a different rhythm when they attack btw, and yeah the combat opens up the further you get in it, people never acknowledge that so it was nice to see someone do it, it definitely is the most content packed of the three games too this game blew my mind as a kid with it's scope, btw the first game also has cutscenes that are exclusive to it and not ripped from the show, a surprising amount of them are original to the game as with 2, I spent countless hours on this trilogy when I was younger so it's pretty special to me. One last thing is that Mutant Melee was not developed by the same team, rather Konami's Hawaiian branch if it felt off that probably should explain things it was not even made by the same crew, hits don't have the weight or impact they should and the turtles just look strange in a way that they don't in the actual trilogy, animations and everything aren't as good like idk maybe the budget wasn't there?
Hey I really appreciate the comment. I'm glad to see you're so passionate about these games, I love hearing peoples thoughts on them. And yeah, TMNT 3 was just not for me, but I totally get your point, I mean, you mentioned some stuff I didn't really know. So I could have spent some more time delving into the depths of the game, but I just was not enjoying it. Regardless I'm really happy to hear you like it and appreciate the feedback.
I remember having Mutant Melee on the GameCube. I honestly don't remember much about it. As you said it wasn't great and maybe it's just not one I played much as a kid. In fact, I didn't remember I owned it until you talked about it. I might have played the vs mode with my friends a few times and kinda left it in the dust. Great video man! Love some '03 Turtle nostalgia.
Yeah I also got a lot of games like that from my childhood that kinda just didn't stick with me or ended up not being so memorable. I'm not surprised to hear Mutant Melee was one of those for you because, like, it's not terrible but it's really not that interesting. But yeah, appreciate the comment, always fun to share the love for such a great show.
i like turtles
I think all three of the mainline games are worth playing personally, there's lots of little details in each of them that i'd love to go in depth about but regardless this was a nice overview, Mutant Nightmare I think got done a little dirty tbh, you actually can dash in that game, it's a ninja scroll you can equip if you find it, I don't know if it's because I always played these games on hard growing up, but Mutant Nightmare was more of a dungeon crawler in structure, so you run around big areas generally with some kind of purpose, whether that involves the mission objective or finding all the secret scrolls and bonus content, there was a tension to that game that does not fully exist in the others because your partners can die and do not come back until the mission is over, it felt like you had to pay attention to how you crafted your turtles to survive and it incentivized exploration because the more scrolls you have and the more crystals you gain the more options and resources become available to you, there's a bit of a blend between 1 and 2 whereas in TMNT 1 the enemy encounters were always mandatory, in 2, 9 times out of 10 they aren't, and in 3 it just depends on where you are, i think the enemy variety and AI are also probably at their best here, and they're a little more telegraphed than they are in 2.
I also like the bonus stages, I think they're more varied than 2's, and they are also no longer mandatory to unlock your full moveset, yeah becoming perfect at the bonus stages in 2 is an actual requirement to unlock your full moveset because the highest reward you can get is a crystal, and 10 of those form a new upgrade, I'm not a fan of all the shooting gallery minigames but I do actually like the ones where you're on foot because there's nuances to how to speed them such as attacking certain enemies first or even hitting them in specific places to do more damage, also lasers can be parried and deflected if you time your block with the impact, I found myself getting into grooves playing those, don't really have much of a problem personally with the other two.
That Turtles in Time port was all we had in 05 and ngl I played the crap outta it, I thought it was a billion times better to still have voice clips at all than none and it had actual music, the soundtrack is different but imo it felt thoughtful a lot of it is just stuff from the DS Mutant Nightmare arranged for consoles but like thematically they vibe with the stage environments and I like them a lot to a point where sometimes I wouldn't mind a Turtles in Time with an alternative OST option to use this one, if the frame-rate wasn't halved I'd probably still go back to it from time to time to this day, there's no reason for me to play it anymore with modern alternatives we have now, still appreciate it being in there though.
there's a lot of stuff about Mutant Nightmare I would like to mention, you have technically more moves than you do in the prior games and player expression feels accentuated by the new scrolls and upgrade system, and you actually have another team attack i thought was badass, that is basically a group kamehameha wave, everyone just needs to sacrifice 10 or so shuriken stock to activate it, I think the game would be worth another go especially with friends but if it's not your cup of tea that's fine, just wanted to drop some thoughts from someone who grew up with this trilogy, I think 3 is the most polished entry overall even if I never quite could pick a favorite.
fun fact these games were made by a lot of the same exact devs that made the classic Turtles games I don't think enough people acknowledge that, I don't just mean Konami i mean the same individuals, I always thought the first game felt like a natural translation of the SNES and Genesis era TMNT games to 3D, and the sequels just kinda branch off from there, you can actually dash cancel your attacks in these games btw very useful for combo extensions and in TMNT 1 you can straight up OTG people, I learned a lot about fighting games unironically from this licensed beat em up lol.
It was cool seeing someone discuss them at length though, Battle Nexus gets a lot of heat for it's controls/combat but I've always thought they really just require a bit of an adjustment for timing is all, each character has a different rhythm when they attack btw, and yeah the combat opens up the further you get in it, people never acknowledge that so it was nice to see someone do it, it definitely is the most content packed of the three games too this game blew my mind as a kid with it's scope, btw the first game also has cutscenes that are exclusive to it and not ripped from the show, a surprising amount of them are original to the game as with 2, I spent countless hours on this trilogy when I was younger so it's pretty special to me.
One last thing is that Mutant Melee was not developed by the same team, rather Konami's Hawaiian branch if it felt off that probably should explain things it was not even made by the same crew, hits don't have the weight or impact they should and the turtles just look strange in a way that they don't in the actual trilogy, animations and everything aren't as good like idk maybe the budget wasn't there?
Hey I really appreciate the comment. I'm glad to see you're so passionate about these games, I love hearing peoples thoughts on them. And yeah, TMNT 3 was just not for me, but I totally get your point, I mean, you mentioned some stuff I didn't really know. So I could have spent some more time delving into the depths of the game, but I just was not enjoying it. Regardless I'm really happy to hear you like it and appreciate the feedback.
I like red turtle best
Always considered 2003 version very boring and uncreative, compared to any other TMNT series that came before or after.