What's in the collection
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection gathers thirteen classic Konami TMNT games in one package, spanning arcade cabinets, home consoles and handhelds. The lineup includes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (Arcade), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (N), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (N), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project (N), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (N), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (SN), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (SN), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (SG), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (SG), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of The Foot Clan (GB), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back From The Sewers (GB) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue (GB). The games draw on the characters and themes of the 80s cartoon and comic book series, and send the turtles through a fictionalized New York City, the sewers, futuristic enemy bases and across time itself. The mix covers beat 'em up, 2D fighting and platformer styles.
Playing together
Six of the titles carry online play: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (Arcade), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (SN), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters. Those are the ones to reach for when your group wants to team up or face off over a distance. The Tournament Fighters entries are the fighting-game side of the collection, built for versus play, while the arcade-style entries are the co-op beat 'em ups. Local couch play is supported as well, and Remote Play Together lets friends join in from their own machines. The remaining titles are singleplayer.
Before you start
The collection adds quality-of-life features on top of the originals: save anytime, rewind, and button mapping, so you can tune the controls and undo a bad moment instead of starting over. Eleven Japanese regional version releases are included alongside the standard versions. There is also bonus material to dig through, including unique development art and sketches plus historic TMNT media content. Since the package spans several decades of hardware, expect the games to feel different from one another: some are side-scrolling brawlers, some are one-on-one fighters, some are handheld platformers. Pick the titles with online play if your group is playing apart, and the local options if you are all on the same couch.