So you’ve got The Cowabunga Collection and have no idea where to start or what to do?

No problem, we’ve got some helpful hints and tips that will help you get the most out of the collection and some strategies that might help you in a pinch.

If you want to know what we thought of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection, check out our impressions here

What are my choices?

It’s probably worth knowing what games are on offer before you dive in head-first as well as the regional variations as there are some differences. Here’s the full selection

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade) (NA)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles~Super Turtle Ninja (Arcade) (JP)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (Arcade) (NA)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (Arcade) (JP)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (Super Nintendo) (NA)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (Super Nintendo) (JP)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (Super Nintendo) (NA)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Warriors (Super Nintendo) (JP)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (Sega Genesis) (NA)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Return of the Shredder (Sega Genesis) (JP)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (Sega Genesis) (NA)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (Sega Genesis) (JP)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES) (NA)
Legend of the Extreme Ninja Turtles (NES) (JP)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (NES) (NA)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES) (JP)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project (NES) (NA)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Manhattan Project (NES) (JP)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (NES) (NA)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (NES) (JP)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of The Foot Clan (Game Boy) (NA)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Game Boy) (JP)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back From The Sewers (Game Boy) (NA)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (Game Boy) (JP)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue (Game Boy) (NA)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Turtles’ Close Call! (Game Boy) (JP)

Where should I start?

Starting at the top and working your way down won’t serve you far wrong. The draw of this collection is undoubtedly the original Arcade game as well as the SNES classic Turtles in Time.

Once you’re done with those, it might be good to spend a bit of time looking at the NES and Game Boy releases as they’re all quite different. The NES original, in particular, is often considered one of the toughest games on the platform – for good reason – and the Game Boy games don’t play half as badly as you think they might.

But once you’re out of those, The Hyperstone Heist is the closest to the top two games, though not quite as well done, and Tournament Fighters will really appeal if you’re into Streetfighter.

Most of these are too tough for me

Yeah, some of these games really show their age in terms of enemy positioning and the damage you’re dealt. There’s a few times when I entered a boss fight and the enemy was already charging at me before I could start, so I was inevitably going to lose some health. Fortunately, there’s a few things you can do to help with that.

First up, every game has a watch mode so you can see it played through from beginning to end. This can help give you some hints on approach, but also you can jump in at any point and continue from where the video leaves off. Super helpful to get needed practice in!

There’s also Enhancements for every game to make the experience easier. From the menu screen, press the necessary button and you can tweak particular features, like popping on a God Mode, adding Turbo, removing penalties.

In some cases, you can even make the experience harder for yourself by turning on Nightmare Mode. Some games even have secret endings if you beat them on higher difficulties. Depending on how brave you’re feeling.

Finally, you can save the state on every game and there’s even a rewind button if you’ve messed up a little bit on a certain section. Use them to your advantage.

Any General Strategies to bare in mind?

First thing I’d say for Tournament Fighters is visit the Turtles Lair and study the Strategy Guide as it breaks down all the moves for your characters. Tournament Fighters is rough and ridiculously hard to even beat the first opponent, so make sure to lean as many moves as you can. I had best success with Michaelangelo but the Turtles in general are the most well-rounded to take into battle. There’s also a bunch of secret codes you can use to make things a little bit easier.

Speaking of strategy guides, they all contain some useful hints for the games, so are worth a quick study before each play session. But some basics, only collect pizza if you’re low on health, where possible play with a buddy as it makes the experience a lot easier to manage, and Donatello is often the best to go with due to the range of his staff.

For the NES original, the strategy guides also show full maps of the layout of zones, which are mega helpful as the conditions are brutal and enclosed at times.

Was this helpful? The games are very individual experiences, so some you may connect with more than others, but as long as you bare some of the above tips in mind, you’ll be kicking shell in no time.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection is now available on Xbox, PC, PlayStation and Switch.

Code Kindly Provided by Konami