As in all great beat-em-ups, each of the 4 selectable characters has their own variety of strength and speed variables. Fans of then Turtles won't even need to look at an instruction book as they'll instantly know who can pull of what type of moves based on their specific weapons. These 4 will take on the Shredder, not only in present day New York, but way back in time as well. While the main ingredient of the game, the basic "walk left, beat up some enemies" has been done to death in the gaming arena, very games have ever done it better than TMNT IV.

You're not limited to simply hacking away at the Foot Clan, as you can toss 'em side to side and even right into the screen thanks to a nifty scaling effect. Special moves are of course done by pressing two simultaneous buttons at once, ramming is done after a quick dash, and the usual assortment of jumping maneuvers can take out a crowd quite quickly. Amazingly, no matter how crowded things get, you'll never deal with the annoying slowdown that plagues so many SNES games. Considering the amount of color being pumped out by the cart, this is an even more amazing achievement. Mousers, multi-colored robotic foot soldiers, Rocksteady, BeBop, Metal Head, Baxter Stockman, a MASSIVE iteration of Krang, Taka, Razar, and of course the Shredder have all been replicated with the in-game engine. It's hard to discern between this and the cartoon at any given time.

The only major noticeable change from the arcade version is the deletion of the lava boss at the end of the prehistoric age. He has been replaced by the cool (but not quite AS cool) Slash, an evil version of the heroes. To makeup for the loss, there's a spectacular bonus stage late in the game with some of the best mode-7 and parallax scrolling ever seen on any console. Even the addictive soundtrack has been replicated full force as have the voices that spout out all the stage names. Even the most jaded gamer will find tons to love about this one. It's an outstanding brawler featuring some highly original characters, not to mention the gameplay that makes this one is an instant classic. It's probably a bit too easy for anyone 12 years or older, but beating up tons of worthless robots will keep anyone compelled for a few hours. This is one shell of a game....ok, ok..that was bad.