PrinceWatercress plays TMNT: Fall of the Foot Clan - Part 1 of 4

I covered the sequel before I covered this one. That was a long time ago by the blog's standards.

This time around, Shredder has kidnapped April O'Neil. Obviously, the Turtles have to save her.

Unlike the sequel, you can choose where you want to start in any of the five stages. You'll have to do the rest of them in sequence to beat the game, and if you play from the first stage to the last, you'll get the longest (and best) ending.

Stage 1

Just like in the NES game, try not to die. If you do, you'll lose the turtle you were playing as and you'll have to select another one. The only way to get them back is through bonus games.

Speaking of bonus games, you can find one by striking the right barrel in the first pair of barrels you see twice. Here, I play a number-guessing game, where you have to guess a three-digit number within ten tries. Select the digits with the Control Pad and confirm with A. "Smaller" and "Bigger" mean "This is smaller than the actual number" or "This is bigger than the actual number," respectively. If it says "Smaller," you need to go up. If it says "Bigger," you need to go down.

The Foot Clan soldiers just move toward you and attack you. The lighter ones will jump, while the darker ones just plod ahead. The bugs on helicopter rotors fly from the left side of the screen to the right, wait a few seconds, then swoop down at you.

I love how we're in the first stage, and we already see parallax scrolling at the top of the stage. It's 1990, and Konami has performed parallax scrolling on a game already. Same to say that Konami got the hang of programming for Game Boy a little bit at this point, and that they'd make more games for it in the future.

When you drop down into the sewers, you'll meet the Mousers and the bats. The bats will move towards you, while the Mousers are more like the Foot Clan soldiers. Jump over the large barrels when they roll towards you.

Sometimes enemies will drop pizza when you defeat them, which you can pick up to restore your health. This is good, as you don't always have to trek through one part of the stage and hope to live long enough to get a pizza. It's still random, but keep your eyes peeled. One slice refills two units, a whole pie refills everything.

When you're back in town, jump over the motorcycle whenever you see it.

In the second sewer section, there will be platforms on the walls that will be above you. They will fall when you get near them, but you can destroy them with a jump attack. You won't be able to see all of them, so move ahead with caution. When you reach the end, strike the oil drums and you'll be able to take on the first boss, Rocksteady.

Rocksteady is really, really easy. Jump over his bullets and hit him. Sometimes he'll move to the other side of the screen, but you can still easily hit him.

The Turtles can hear April's screaming, and the trail is still warm.