Play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Tournament Fighters Online

Summary

The NES version of Tournament Fighters feels like a hidden gem from the mid‑90s fighting boom, even though it never saw a Japanese release. It packs four distinct battle modes – a single‑player story, a CPU‑versus, a two‑player versus, and a chaotic four‑player tournament – plus an options screen where you can tweak difficulty, continues and match speed. Each bout follows the classic three‑round, best‑of‑two‑wins formula, with every turtle and guest character (Casey Jones, April O'Neil, Ray Fillet, Sisyphus) offering a mix of basic punches, kicks and command‑triggered specials like rocket punches or somersault throws.

A quirky touch is the floating monitor bearing Splinter’s face; it occasionally drops a red ball that grants a temporary power‑up to whoever snatches it. The game even lets you face a clone of your own fighter, though Hothead normally resists duplication – a hidden trick in the CPU‑versus mode bypasses this, albeit with a flickering screen caused by the oversized sprites.

The roster also includes oddball bosses such as Triceraton, Krang’s Android and Karai, and the stages range from a Magma Ocean Planet to a Jungle Planet, all set in the bizarre corners of Dimension X. Recent re‑releases in the Cowabunga Collection smooth out the original’s slowdown and sprite flicker, and finally allow multiple players to pick Hothead without the visual glitches, making the retro brawl feel fresher than ever.

Storyline

In the single‑player Story mode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Tournament Fighters (often just called TMNT Tournament Fighters), you pick one of the four turtles—Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo or Donatello—and enter a self‑imposed contest to prove who’s worthy of taking on Shredder’s challenge. The first three battles are against the other turtles, each fight testing a different skill set.

After besting the brothers, the next opponents are the street‑wise ally Casey Jones and the quirky Hothead, a character lifted straight from the Warrior Dragon figure and the TMNT Adventures comics. Defeating them clears the way for the ultimate showdown with the Shredder himself, ending the tournament.