Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan was released for Game Boy in 1990, the same year that the live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie was released to theatres. So while the Heroes in a Half Shell were still riding high in the cultural zeitgeist, this is right around the time that Turtle-Mania was reaching critical mass. In comics, the original series conceived of by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird was in the midst of its “Guest Era“. The principal creators had become so overwhelmed with managing The Turtle Phenomenon, they handed creative control of the comics over to a rotating cast of guest artists and writers, which basically shifted TMNT into a disjointed comic anthology rather than anything resembling a cohesive story arc. It’s not a well-regarded period for the comics and since that time, Peter Laird has declared the entire Guest Era as being non-canon, save for a small handful of issues. The 1987 kid-friendly cartoon series that had catapulted the Turtles into superstardom would limp along for a few more seasons under a new CBS exclusivity deal, but the best years of the show were pretty clearly behind it. And the movies? Woof. Admittedly I was slightly too old to fully enjoy the movies at time of release, but … yeeesh, they’re not great (or if we’re being particularly charitable, we find ourselves deep within ‘so bad, it’s good’ territory). Meanwhile in the world of video games … hey the Turtle Boys were still kickin’ shell on video game consoles! The NES port of the Arcade Game also released in 1990, and several other highly regarded TMNT games would be released within the next few years. Fall of the Foot Clan was the first TMNT game released in 1990 though, so without further ado let’s kick off the review! Lean, green, and on the (small) screen (which coincidentally is also green), let’s fire up this Game Boy machine!
Fall of the Foot Clan was the Turtles’ debut on a proper handheld console, and the first entry in a trilogy of Game Boy games that would follow. It doesn’t necessarily push the handheld system in new and interesting directions, but in playing to the Game Boy’s strengths, it’s a fairly solid little title. Essentially what we have is a side-scrolling beat’em up with platforming elements. Naturally, all principal members of the turtle team are present on the roster. You can’t switch out members on the fly as in the earlier NES title, but you can select which turtle to use at the beginning of each level. Functionally all the Turtles play more-or-less the same, which basically makes this the most evenly balanced Turtle game at the time of its release. Most notably this means that Donatello’s bo staff doesn’t grant any special reach advantage over the other turtles, as it had in all the earlier Turtle games. Sorry Donatello fans. That said, it’s doubtful that you’ll need any special advantages in this one, being as it’s also likely the easiest Turtle game up to this point. If you rush forward too quickly, it’s easy to get caught up in an enemy blitz, but if you edge forward cautiously, the difficulty is more than manageable.
Typically this is the point in the review where I might delve into story elements. In this case Konami was kind enough to encapsulate the entire plot of the game into a single screenshot:
Boom. There you go, there’s your story, which if I’m not mistaken, is the exact same plot featured in several other TMNT games. I’m neither a fan of the phrase nor concept of a ‘Peril Monkey’, but … you really have to hand it to April O’Neil as one of the best in the business. Maybe Splinter should have instructed her in the arts of ninjutsu? It certainly would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.
One interesting feature in Fall of the Foot Clan are the hidden bonus games which come in three flavors. You can find these bonus games within the levels, but the entrances are completely invisible, so you’d be forgiven if you miss them entirely. In fact, it’s not wholly inaccurate to call the bonus games ‘missable’ altogether, because, well … they’re pretty mediocre at best. Here’s how they rank. The best one is a shooter game in which you’re in control of crosshairs and you shoot balls as they’re launched onto the screen from various directions and speeds. At number two, we have a game resembling Dots and Boxes which you play against none other than Krang. This one is fine, but you can apply one singular strategy and win every time. By far the worst bonus game is a guessing game you play against Splinter in which he is thinking of a number between 1 and 1000, and you have to guess what it is. It’s hard to view this one as anything beyond aggressively lazy design. At best, it adds an unexpected element of tedium to the game, at worst it’s literally, “RNG: The Game”. Thankfully it’s over quickly, and you’re back to beating down the Foot Clan before you know it, but yeah … I’d just as soon skip that ‘bonus’ in the future.
Elements of presentation in Fall of the Foot Clan are pretty great though! As opposed to the NES release, here our rogue’s gallery is filled out with recognizable villains from the show, and they’re fantastically depicted in monochrome 8-bit glory. That might sound like I’m being snarky, but I assure you that I’m not. This is truly a really nice looking Game Boy game. This graphical fidelity is helped out by the fact that we’re dealing with fairly large sprites here. Therein we hit a little bit of a snag though. In terms of gameplay, large sprites can be a pain to deal with on the tiny Game Boy screen. When the sprites take up a large portion of the available screen real estate, it can make the action itself feel cumbersome and/or claustrophobic. That issue is apparent in this game, but only just. For the most part they’ve balanced the available screen size against the onscreen action in a way that works. In terms of sound we’re on pretty solid footing. I’ve sometimes joked that the sound quality of any TMNT game should be measured solely against how well its version of the TV theme is arranged. And in Fall of the Foot Clan it’s as ear-wormy as ever! Admittedly I do have a soft spot for the Game Boy’s sound chip which is used to good effect here; so thumb’s up as far as all of that goes.
In spite of the fact that the cultural phenomenon of the Ninja Turtles was on the verge of decline in 1990, we were entering a Golden Age (of sorts) in terms of TMNT video games. TMNT: Fall of the Foot Clan was one of the early heralds of that age, and serves to lay the groundwork for the quality Turtle titles that would follow. I’m not sure it can stand in equal stead with some of the more well-regarded 16-bit titles, but as the franchise debut on a handheld console, it can certainly go toe-to-toe with other Game Boy beat’em ups. In the end Fall of the Foot Clan is an enjoyable, though simplified take on the Turtles which winds up being on the short side. Recommended for all Turtle fans and Game Boy enthusiasts.
Final Verdict: 7 April O’Neals out of 10 kidnappings
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