Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cowabunga Collection: 5 Hidden Gems to Play

Konami and Digital Eclipse serve up a delicious retro collection pizza cake Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collectionnow available for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X. Featuring dozens of pizza maker titles from three consoles, one handheld and some arcade originals – plus the Japanese versions where applicable and tons of concept art – it’s a retro festival.

Since the collection has so many titles to choose from, we’re going to take a look at which raw pizza toppings are worth checking out. In addition to the popular arcade beat ’em up classics, here are five games included in the Cowunga Collection worth checking out.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Raid (Sega Genesis)

The Sega Genesis got a bad rap for its more limited color palette and crispier sound chip compared to the SNES, but its faster processor often excelled at fast-paced arcade action (thanks Blast Processing!). Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Raid mixes levels and enemies from both acclaimed beat ’em up arcade games with a few original touches into its own unique experience.

The Hyperstone Raid is also the only TMNT video game to star Tatsu, Shredder’s bald henchman, played by Toshishiro Obata from the original Ninja Turtles live-action films, as the boss.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Back from the Sewers (Game Boy)

Similar to its predecessor Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Back from the Sewers is a side-scrolling beat-em-up modeled on bad guys. You move your turtle from left to right, beating foot soldiers until you reach a boss at the end of each stage.

Back from the sewers ups the ante of the original with larger, clearer graphics. In fact, the sprites are so large that it can be difficult to dodge projects like Krang’s rockets or flying ninja stars. It’s not a long game by any means, but it’s fun as a quick distraction with great graphics for the system.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: The Manhattan Project (NES)

The sequel to a best-selling port of the famous arcade game, a not dissimilar beat ’em up final fight, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: The Manhattan Project takes the heroes from the beach to Krang’s spaceship in a half shell.

A late release for the NES, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: The Manhattan Project is a graphic marvel with a powerful soundtrack. A slowdown occurs when too many enemies appear on screen, but it’s well worth playing through this overlooked classic.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: The Radical Rescue (Game Boy)

Far better than it should be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 begins players as Michelangelo on a valiant quest to rescue his turtle brothers from a great fortress. An early example of the Metroidvania genre, players explore from room to room, acquire skills, battle bosses, and ultimately play as the other ninja turtles.

Though the game forces players to be Michelangelo right away, the game’s groovy cover art features a pissy Leonardo full of ’90s rage like a mutated rat in a cage. It’s an impressive scope with a high level of in-game challenge. It’s not just salvation that’s radical here.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (NES)

Fighting games saw an arcade revival in the mid to late ’90s with the double whammy of street fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. While 16-bit systems were crammed with fighting games, the aging NES hardly got any.

One of the last games released for the system is the NES version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighter is a new interpretation of a well-worn genre. For reasons, the turtles fight without weapons and have different colors to make it easier to distinguish who is playing against whom in each match.

Aside from each character having a special move (frustratingly, the story mode is only geared towards turtles, although you can play with multiple characters in the multiplayer modes), a random fireball falls on the playfield. Similar to a Proto Poké Ball, when players pick it up they can perform a special move. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighter is better than you might expect on NES.