Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: The Manhattan Missions (not to be confused with the similar release for the NES subtitled 'The Manhattan Project') was the only ninja turtles release for PC, and one of many of Konami's licensing ventures in the early 90s.
Similarly to other teenage mutant ninja turtles games, this one takes the form of a scrolling beat 'em up. There are a few occasional additions to this title which separate it from its brethren, such as the addition of separate walk and fight modes, with different move sets available in each.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: The Manhattan Missions (not to be confused with the similar release for the NES subtitled 'The Manhattan Project') was the only ninja turtles release for PC, and one of many of Konami's licensing ventures in the early 90s.
Similarly to other teenage mutant ninja turtles games, this one takes the form of a scrolling beat 'em up. There are a few occasional additions to this title which separate it from its brethren, such as the addition of separate walk and fight modes, with different move sets available in each. In my opinion, this is one of the slightly detracting features of this game - with a bit more thought into design it probably would not have been necessary to make these separate
modes.
Despite this, the game is still very fun, and is an enjoyable homage to the original series like many of the other scrolling beat 'em ups. In a relatively tried and true formula, you progress from area to area, beating up many members of the foot clan (which, like in the other games, form the staple type of enemy). At the end of each level, you encounter some of the major bad guy characters from the series, such as Bebop and Rocksteady, Leatherhead and Baxter Stockman. However, the games have a tradition of including a few new enemies that can't be accounted for in the cartoon, and so here we see a new cast of droids, robots, and even several mafia characters.
At the end of these 5 levels, the final boss is unsurprisingly shredder, who is reached in a tower after fighting four ninjas beneath him. This section forms a nice build up to the conclusion of the game, and the structural feature of fighting several sub bosses before the main last boss in a game is also seen in many similar beat ‘em ups of this period. After this, you are treated to a pleasant ending with Shredder being arrested.
I found this game and enjoyable step back in time to the mores of PC gaming in its infancy, when such arcade style games still popped up often. It is well produced with the care and integrity that made Konami famous in the early 1990s. It is interesting also to see a turtles game where influence of real life crime is taken as an enemy that the turtles must stop: there is no connection directly made between the foot clan and the rise of mob activities in Manhattan. I suggest downloading this and giving it a try as a piece of gaming history.
