The strangest feeling I had replaying the original Turtles Arcade game was that no one was watching me.

That may sound odd to most of you, but back in the 90s, when I was doing local holidays and storming the arcades, that’s the one machine that got all the attention.

There was almost always a queue and when you finally got on there, you could feel the eyes of a dozen kids over your shoulder, either waiting patiently for you to finish so they could take their turn, or to see if you would make more progress than they did.

What I’ve learned since playing and beating it for the first time in The Cowabunga Collection, if they’d just joined in, I wouldn’t have had to wait almost thirty years to see those credits roll.

Because this game was never designed to be beaten solo, stood in the middle of an amusement arcade, pouring pound after pound into the coin slot. Its final moments are ludicrous, three consecutive bosses, one that can wipe out a life in a hit. Prior to that, you’re contending against infuriating obstacles that make it nigh on impossible to get there. You’d have been bankrupt long before then.

Of course, you could use The Cowabunga Collection’s cool Watch mode to disprove that theory. You can sit back and watch in amazement as the developer playing uses one life, without dropping a bit of health, fighting through all the foot and bosses. It’s borderline ridiculous, if not wholly inspiring.

The other neat thing about Watch Mode is that if you’re really struggling on a particular section of any of the packaged in 13 Games (26 if you consider Regional Changes) you can literally stop the video and play it yourself from any point, even up to the final boss if you like. You don’t get the Trophy for doing that, of course, but it at least lets you play whenever and wherever you feel like.

But yes, The Cowabunga Collection is bursting at the seams with content, crossing generations as well with titles from the NES, Gameboy, SNES, Megadrive and Arcade era. It includes all the Turtles games you’d expect to find, like the aforementioned Arcade original, as well as the Iconic Turtles in Time (both SNES and Arcade variants) but also less known titles like The Manhattan Project and Radical Rescue.

There’s also titles people might want to forget, such as the NES Original, often regarded as one of the toughest games on the system and Tournament Fighters, a controversial, divisive game that seems to split opinion depending where you played it (Fortunately, Cowabunga has all three versions to choose from).

Tournament Fighters also has the distinction of being Konami’s last Turtles game, and arguably the last good title for the license, well, at least until we got the brilliant Shredder’s Revenge earlier this year!

I also mentioned regional changes and in most cases this does also affect the game you’re playing, whether you get to see new sprites, bosses and backgrounds, so there’s plenty of replayability here.

For the most part, all games are handled with real respect, quality and care. I was actually surprised how good it felt playing Gameboy games on my 4K TV. Each game lets you add in borders with the key art, along with a condensed or full-screen size and a variety of filters. I’d recommend playing with the filters for each game to get a real feel of retro quality, although HDR does help some of the more vibrant Arcade games to pop and dazzle.

And yet, despite how well Digital Eclipse have handled the playability of the games (as long as you opt to play with the D-Pad rather than the Joystick in most cases) the thing that really brought a lump to my throat was the Turtle’s Lair section. I spent a good hour, thumbing through everything, from the original Game Design Documentation for each title, to listening to the soundtrack.

Mostly, though, I looked at all the old Magazine adverts and the beautiful box art for each game. As a kid, I was completely sucked into Konami’s marketing for all Turtles games and even looking back on it now, it’s clear to see why. They clearly adored working on this license, it was an absolute labour of love and it resonated in almost everything they did.

They built their reputation around these games, and in many ways played a massive part in the phenomenon the license became. It led them to being the first to work on new formats and start building their own roster of IP. Yes, there’s even some cameos from small games like Metal Gear.

If nothing else, Cowabunga Collection shows how good Konami were, how much respect they showed this license, and that it’s so impressive they kept up quality levels for well over a decade in a slew of different ways.

The Cowabunga Collection even lets you play the original Arcade games, as well as the mainline 16 bit console games online so if you don’t have a local buddy to team up with, you’ll always be able to find someone else to join in. We didn’t get to test this too much ahead of release, but from what we did sample, it seems to hold up quite well.

You’ll smirk at some of the ludicrous lines like ‘The Enemy Must Be Near, April is Screaming.” and “You’re not mature enough to hang around with me.” but also feel pangs of nostalgia for that infamous ‘Fire’ line and ‘Who Turned Out The Lights.’.

Considering it all, this is a collection that offers great fan service for those who were there from the beginning and will have you reminiscing time after time with the stunning key arts and epic soundtracks. Though perhaps there’s some question marks around whether all of these games will appeal to those on a first time play as they’re not all easily approachable.

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Summary

The Cowabunga Collection truly is one of the best compilations of retro quality I’ve seen in a long time. Not every title is a hit and particularly enjoyable, but the way each game has been lovingly presented and masterfully recreated for modern formats deserves infinite praise. It’s also a fantastic reminder of how important this license was for Konami and the love, respect and care they showed it can teach publishers important lessons for years to come. 

Pros

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection is out August 30 on all major formats

Played on PS5

Code Kindly Provided by Konami