Proton Jon plays Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Part 1 of 10

About time I covered this one.

The game is known as Gekikame Ninja Den in Japan, and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles in Europe.

Stage 1

Map (by StarFighters76)

The game starts in an overworld map. If you pause, you can select between the four Ninja Turtles, which have a different weapon (that of course, works differently).

From what I understand, the first level is supposed to be Fifth Avenue and Greenwich Village.

The map shows red and white squares. The red squares are all the places you can access, while the white squares are an entrance to an area. The flashing dot signifies where you are. You'll be able to get hints from Splinter and/or April O'Neil (when you rescue her) in the message box below.

You'll start near a manhole. Go into it.

You'll take on what look like Mousers and Foot Clan Ninjas. As you progress, some of them will have mini-boss status. Take them down to empty their life bars and continue on with the game.

Whenever you finish off a mini-boss, move left past the center of the screen and continue. That way, you'll be able to see what's ahead and deal with it more easily.

You'll find a pizza at the end. The more slices there are on the icon, the more health you'll refill. One slice refills two squares on the life bar, and you'll see anywhere from one to four slices on a pizza icon.

From here, enter the manhole to the right of where you've come out. Go to the right and you'll face Bebop. Stay away from him and hit him from medium range. If you're using Donatello and his Bo, this is a lot easier. If you touch Rocksteady, you also take damage (I found this out by screwing around, don't ask).

When you beat Bebop, Rocksteady runs off with April through the nearby door. Enter it, and you'll come out across from where you entered. If you need health, go into the nearby house and beat up all the bats and stone guys. The stone guys can only be damaged if they're moving. You'll find a slice of pizza midway, followed by a whole pie at the end, and if one of your Turtles somehow need energy at this point, switch to that Turtle, get the Pizza, then switch back. That way, that whole pizza pie won't be wasted. Also, that chainsaw guy is totally violent for a NES game from 1987. Just saying.

Leave the house the same way you came in, then go to the manholes northwest of that house. Watch out for the steamrollers, as they're almost instant death if you touch them.

Before entering the one that blocks your path, enter the one south of it. You'll find some throwing stars, which you can select with the Select button if you want to go back to your default weapon.

The Turtle logo is invincibility. With this, your current Ninja Turtle spins around and hits everything that he touches for a few seconds. This will take down the frog mini-boss at the end without taking damage. Since this is a dead end, go back and climb up the ladder at the start.

Now you can go into the manhole that blocks your path. There's a pizza at the beginning in case somebody needs some health rations. Continue to the left, take care of the frog mini-boss, then climb up the ladder at the end and you'll come across this isolated blue building.

There are three sets of enemies in a stage, and if you don't like the one that's in the current area, you can leave where you came in from and immediately re-enter to spawn a different set. Nice.

Anyway, you'll be dealing with laser-shooting robots and guys that want to jump around all the time. When you climb the ladders, you'll be able to find boomerangs. As long as you catch them on the way back, you'll never run out of boomerangs, which is really useful if you're playing as a Turtle with ridiculously short range (ahem, Raphael).

You'll face Rocksteady at the end, and if you jump up to the top of the boxes at the right-hand side and keep striking downwards, you'll be able to beat him without taking damage. This works especially well if you're using Donatello, as it's pretty hard to miss while doing this with him. Just wait for him to jump (horribly) and then hit him. You just saved April O'Neil! Congrats!

Controls

Control Pad: Move (Up enters doors)
A button: Jump (side-scrolling only)
B button: Attack (use Up and Down to strike upward and downward, respectively)
Start: Pause (lets you see the map and switch Turtles)

Select: Switch weapons (side-scrolling), leave the Turtle Van (overworld)