A history of Ninja Turtles fighting games and their love the obscured and unwanted characters.

Alot of Ninja Turtles material been out lately with the Mutant Mayhem game that's based on the IDW comics and the new Out of the Shadows movie that finally stars the fan favorites from the classic cartoon.

Over the years, Ninja Turtles had video games over the years. Most of them are classic beat' em ups. There were several fighting games over the years. I have notice that these games have a weird love for obscured or unwanted characters.

In 1993, Konami released three different fighting Turtles games on three different consoles. I going to start on the best game, the SNES version.

The game has the four Turtles, Shredder, and Ratking.

Yeah, they now have the ability to throw fireballs. Oh and Ratking is a heavy-weight wrestler.

Now here's the other characters.

This is Armaggon, a time traveling shark from the Archie comics. Your average fan wouldn't know this guy unless they had the certain set of comics that he starred in. He didn't make an appearance on TV/Movies till 20 years later in the recent show.

The alien bat, Wingnut. He's usually seen with Screwloose but his sidekick isn't in the game. Wingnut was a villain of the week in one episode. In the Archie comics, he was a recurring character that causes mischief. He is somewhat little more known than Armaggon.

The robot warrior, Chrome Dome.

He only appeared in two episodes. One was a night time special.

The evil demon, War.

He only appeared in a three issue crossover between TMNT and the Mutanimals. He was one of the four horseman. It's bad enough your obscured due to being a comic-only character but being part of a spinoff raises your obscureness.

The female ninja, Aska. Unlike the others, she's an original character. Well actually, she was meant to be an existing character.

Originally, she was Mitsu. The girl that Mikey had a crush on in the 3rd movie. A very odd choice to make a playable character. She wasn't a fan favorite like Tatsu, Tokka, or Razhar from the movie series.  The game changed it and Aska was made. She is way different than this movie character.

The final boss is Karai. Unless your only familiar with the original cartoon and movies, she isn't quite obscure in today's world. She appeared both the 2003 and 2012 shows as well as the 2007 film and recent movies as the Shredder's 2nd in command or his adopted daughter.

However, back in 1993. She wasn't in the cartoon or any of the Archie comics. She was in the Mirage comics. This was a comic made for grown ups and most kids wouldn't see this comics on the usual shelves they are looking for.

She was different from her other incarnations. She was more like Shredder's equal or superior and she was old enough to have a daughter. Doesn't sound like a young woman who serves under the Shredder. The fact the video game made a big deal out of her as the final boss shows it was more based on the Mirage comics at the time.

Now on to the NES version of Tournament Fighters.

 It's not as fun as the SNES version. The characters are the four Turtles, Casey Jones, Shredder, and Hothead.

The character on the left is Hothead, also known as Dragon Warrior. He appeared in several comics as the Turtles ally. He was a fireman that got a dragon spirit that helps him transform.

If you were in charge of making a TMNT fighting game and only had seven character slots, who would you use in the final slot? A lesser known character or and more well known one? 

Now on to the Genesis version. This game is a broken mess and you can't beat single player unless you cheat.

 Characters are the four Turtles, Casey, April(who now somehow piledrives people), Man Ray, and Sisyphus.

Man Ray was one of the turtles mutant allies in the comics who later got part of a team that had it's own spinoff.

Sisyphus is an original character. He is..umm..He's the Turtles ally and that's it. Aska at lease has a story that she wants to help her dojo.

That's it on the Tournament Fighters Trilogy. On on to Mutant Melee, a 3D fighting game based on the 1st two seasons of the 2003 series..

The characters are the Turtles, April, Casey, Shredder, Hun(Shredder's muscle man), and Traximus(a gladiator Triceraton). Those are the characters that would be excepted.

There is also a generic Foot Ninja. That be like playing an generic Stormtrooper and no, TR-8R don't count.

Here's more entries. Winter Outfit April, Winter Outfit Casey, Summer Outfit April (Quit Drooling Guys), Summer Outfit Casey (Quit Drooling Girls), Oroku Saki (Shredder unmasked), Teen Hun, Foot Tech Ninja (Foot with stealth tech), and Large Foot Ninja (Basically a ninja with a bouncer-like body).

These are not alternate costumes, they're character slots.

Oh and there's Gold Armor Shredder. However there was never a time in the 1st 2 seasons Shredder had Gold Armor. Basically this game is reminding me of the recent Mario Kart games. The closest we ever got to a gold armor Shredder was a member of the Ninja Tribunal that wore similar armor but they weren't seen till season 5.

There are two more characters and they are really really obscure. One guy is Sleeg, he was a alien that gave a tour of Triceraton prison's cafeteria for a few minutes in one episode. He's very forgettable and the only reason I remember him is the odd inclusion of him in the game.

The other obscure character is Monster. He was a from a horror movie Mikey was watching at a beginning of a episode for a few seconds. Weird choice to have a character from a fictional show within TMNT that you barely saw a little more than Baxter in the 2014 movie.

Now let's talk about TMNT Smash Up. The gameplay is based on Smash Bros. The game was made to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the franchise. Like SNES Tournament Fighters, it's not based on one particular version of Ninja Turtles but a mix.

The characters are the Turtles, Splinter, Casey, April, Karai, and *sigh* generic Foot Ninja. They have their 2007 movie designs but have their 2003 series voices.

Unlike Mutant Melee, this game knows the difference between alternate costumes and selectable characters. Leo got a ninja outfit from that one episode he help Usagi in his homeworld. Don got his cyber outfit from the Back to the Sewers season. Mikey got a hip hop costume. Raph got a music punk outfit which is based on some cancelled Music Turtles toyline. Splinter got blue robes. Casey got his Back to the Sewers season appearance. April got her 2003 series appearance. Karai got a Gold Amazon Karai Bot from season 3. Foot Ninja got the Cyber Foot from Back to the Sewers season.

Shredder from the 2003 series is also in the game with his digital clone, Cyber Shredder from Back to the Sewers as an alternate costume.

Other playable characters is The Fugitoid, the Turtles' helpful peaceful cyborg friend.  Nightwatcher, Raph's alter ego from the 2007 movie who has a completely different moveset.

Now here is the characters no one really really wanted. 1st is the Utrominator. The developers say he is the game's version of Krang. Are you kidding me? Nobody wants to play a lame knockoff of Krang.

Well the Utrominator is sort of exist in TMNT. He was one of the utroms severing under the Shredder in the alternate timeline episode, Same As It Never Was. However, even he technically exists in TMNT, they made this character to be a knockoff of Krang.

Here's three others characters, Raving Rabbid, Splinter Rabbid(Dressed as the character from Splinter Cell), and Ninja Rabbid(Dressed like a Ninja Turtle). They are the mascots from gaming company's known as Ubisoft.

No Ninja Turtle fan wanted these guys.

That's all the characters, all 16 of them. Super Smash Bros Brawl had close to 40 which came out a few years before. Smash Up's gameplay got praised but what fans were greatly disappointed with the choice of characters. Nearly all the characters were from either the 2003 series or the 2007 movie with Back of the Sewers alternate costumes which was the most reason season at the time. Don't be looking for fan favorites from the old classic cartoon. The only connection to that series is a level with the Technodrome in the background, but that needs a cheat code to unlock.

The game is suppose to be a celebration of the 25 years of Ninja Turtles, yet it ignores the most popular version of them all. Even the title of the game was based on the classic cartoon's logo.

 If it wanted to be an 2003 series only game, that be find but I would be complaining why those Rabbids took over spots for Hun, Bishop, or Baxter. If the SNES game was an anniversary special, did a better job of picking characters from different parts of the TMNT franchise.

Will we see anymore TMNT fighting games in the future? Who knows but it wouldn't surprise me on the odd choice of characters.