Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan (Game Boy)

Fall of the Foot Clan

Developer(s) – Konami

Publisher(s) – Nintendo

Designer – Naoki Matsui

PEGI – 12

Based on the hit cartoon TV series of 1987, of which I and my brother were pretty big fans, Fall of the Foot Clan focuses on another one of the Turtle’s efforts to save their damsel in distress April O’Neil from Krang, Shredder, and their lackeys and Foot Soldiers. And in my opinion, this game makes for quite possibly their most exciting adventure yet.

Graphics – 10/10

To me, Fall of the Foot Clan represents the very pinnacle of what the Game Boy was capable of producing in terms of both conceptual and graphical design. There’s diversity in not only level design but that of the enemies and bosses. There’s also a very stable balance of both sprite size and level size; an issue seen in other Game Boy games such as Metroid II: Return of Samus.

Not to mention, Fall of the Foot Clan easily has one of the most stellar 8-bit soundtracks I have ever heard; if not, the most stellar. Besides all this, I’ve yet to encounter a single glitch in the game, playing it on and off for almost 20 years. To achieve all this on a monochromatic system, in particular, was a fairly hard feat to achieve, but with this title, I think Konami hit the nail on the head in terms of visual presentation.

Gameplay – 9.5/10

I also believe Konami hit the nail on the head in terms of gameplay. To play this game is to feel excited and exhilarated, as well as feeling challenged. Another thing I like about Fall of the Foot Clan is that it is a challenging game, but without being too hard, like many other 2D side-scrollers around at the time. Although there aren’t many side quests, having only two bonus stages to undertake throughout the game, there is still a great deal of satisfaction to be had whilst playing this game for a game of its kind; as much as the likes of Super Mario Land or Duck Tales.

Controls – 10/10

I’m also happy to be able to say that there are no issues with the control scheme at all, which I believe has a lot to do with why it plays out better than most other challenging 2D side-scrollers, such as Castlevania or Mega Man. A lot of the time with games like that, the controls tend to be pretty sketchy, and it takes away a great portion of any legitimate challenge the way I see it. But in Fall of the Foot Clan, I think Konami got the balance between challenge and controls right.

Lifespan – 3/10

The game’s lifespan, to me, is where it drastically falls short of what it could have potentially been. It’s the same reason why I was partially disappointed with Super Mario Land when I played it for the first time. Though there is enough in the game to make players want to play it on multiple occasions, I have always wished that the level structure could have been a bit more attuned to resemble a Mario game, whereby there are multiple levels making up multiple worlds. I think adopting an idea like that would have brought much more to the table.

Storyline – 6.5/10

As I outlined before, Fall of the Foot Clan follows the four turtles, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Donatello in another attempt to save April O’Neil from Krang and Shredder from captivity. I think it’s about as imaginative as most games were at that time in regards to the story, and there’s nothing overwhelmingly special about it. Although some developers tried to put more emphasis on the story at around that time, like what Nintendo tried with EarthBound, this was a time before video games were accepted in the mainstream as a viable art form. And consequently, all Fall of the Foot Clan’s story does is do a half-decent enough job of adding to the overall atmosphere of the game.

Originality – 7/10

Although the game plays out like most games of that era, indeed the 2D side-scrolling genre was the dominant of the third, fourth, and fifth generations of gaming, this game me stands out as being one of the best for a few reasons; because of how exciting, challenging and intense it is, and since it also does a very good job of presenting a pre-existing license through the medium of video games. Especially in a time closer to the video game crash of 1983, that was inevitably going to be a much harder feat to accomplish, and since then, there have been few games to do this.

Happii

Overall, I think anyone who owns a Game Boy should own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan. It’s a very entertaining title, and although it does have its flaws, it is certainly worth far more than merely one playthrough. This game came out back in 1990, and it still very much holds up to this very day, in my opinion.

Score

46/60

7.5/10 (Good)

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