WTF poorly made? Short?
It's longer than your average NES game (it's a lot longer than, say, Contra or Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden - look up speed runs on youtube and I guarantee it takes longer), and has very good graphics and music for the time and good variety with multiple play styles.
It has rough edges for sure and is often a bit weird. But it's solid, innovative, and definitely not poorly made.
It's really strange you call it a 'flickering mess' when the TMNT2 has much, much more sprite flicker.
Um, you can beat the game in 30 some minutes if you know exactly where to go and not lose a turtle, not easy to do but has been done. The game is not longer than Ninja Gaiden 1 if you don't skip the cutscenes in that game, and I just did a no death run of that game with no cutscenes skipped which took me 40 some minutes.
For multiple playthroughs, Donatello and Leonardo are the main ones you can beat without having to switch a turtle due to their long range. Mikey and Raphael have awful short range and in a game where you don't want to be too close to the enemies or else your health drain really fast they aren't worth using unless you use sub weapons.
As for the game design, it's a joke. The level design when it comes to platforming forces you to make awful little or leap of faith jumps that if you are off by even a hair it doesn't count. It's as if the game designers intentionally made it that way to frustrate the gamer. There's no telling how many times I had to jump over a gap that when I miss I would have to run back to that same spot after falling while the enemies respawn as well. How about some items that aren't even attainable, like that pizza box in a trap that you have to avoid in time before dying. I wonder if they tested it when it comes to stuff like that. I seriously do hate the platforming in this game, it's nowhere near great or anything.
Lets not forget the underwater level, which is not that easy despite getting through it. It's not impossible as I get through it often now, but it's still BS when it comes to trying to avoid contact with the seaweeds as much as possible. That level is definitely not designed well at all. Don't even get me started on the air base and the Technodrome, holy crap the game designers were crazy when it came to those levels. The amount of crap coming at you during the Technodrome is ridiculous, Donatello is the main turtle for that fight.
Death is not an option in this game, lose that turtle and he's not coming back until you use a continue, which there are 2 and of course requires the other turtles to die as well. For other games I wouldn't had mind, but considering the design choices for this game, it's a horrible thing, might as well start over if you want to 1CC it unless you only use Donatello and Leonardo.
Also, why does the Turtle Van have the same health as your currently selected turtle? They seriously couldn't give it it's own life bar? Lol, that's awful.
The game may have some good ideas, I do like the exploring aspect and sense of discovery, the music, the long range attack turtles and sub weapons but when the game is more frustrating than fun and full of odd design choices, it ruins the game for me. It's not the worst NES game as I played far, far worse, but to me, this isn't the good kind of hard, it's the bad kind that I'm not a fan of.
Going back to Ninja Gaiden, is it hard? Yes, but it's fun and designed well for what it is(except for dying to the final bosses for the 1st time), this is the complete opposite. From the moment you get to the underwater level, it goes downhill, and gets worse once you reach the Technodrome. Out of all the TMNT games I played on the 2D consoles, it's one of my least favs by far, but far from abysmal still.
