Dendy Memories #1: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Hello, comrades!
Today I'll try to start a new video series
that will be running in parallel with Dendy Chronicles.
Unlike the Chronicles, here I'll tell about the games that are...
too good for it.
The Chronicles are mostly focused on... you know, absurdity in the games,
bugs or funny problems introduced by the pirates,
low quality of copying, or the Steepler stuff, things like this.
In this new series I'll be telling about the things we value so much.
About our most beloved games, and memorably moments that are connected to them.
I think that everyone remember how they played Dendy and a game for first time,
but these memories are similar more or less,
because circumstances of this were the same -
it has been started with involvement of the Steepler, or other pirates.
I hope that you'll be able to relate to my memories,
see something similar, remember things from your own experience.
Remember a special, funny moments connected to your favorite games.
The games that you and I were playing, they has priority for us.
So, I hope this series could be interesting enough,
that my memories could remind you yourself, and help to recall the unforgettable moments of the past.
Now please sit back and relax, Dendy Memories series is starting.
These are my memories about Dendy.
So, speaking of memories about Dendy, the first thing that comes to mind
is of course the unforgettable day when I played it for first time.
It was 1994, I have already told about this once.
I played Super Mario that day, and was incredibly impressed.
A year later I begged my parents to buy me my own console.
It was Lifa, and here is the only thing that remained from my first console, a piece of the packaging box.
The console was bundled with the infamous 9999-in-1 cartridge, you surely know it.
I had no choice, so I played it for about two months.
When I fed to the teeth with this cartridge,
I started to think where to get more games.
My friends were getting their own consoles slowly, everyone valued their only cartridge a lot, not giving it to anybody.
So we had to beg parents for money and go buy something new. So did I.
My older brother went to the downtown area and bought my first 'serious' cartridge,
the 7-in-1 multi game that I mentioned already.
Probably the most famous 7-in-1 cartridge in Russia,
it had Darkwing Duck, Tale Spin, Robocop 3, Snake Rattle'n'Roll, etc.
It was the first cartridge I played really a lot.
It was enough, but anyway, when you visit a friend and see that he has another game,
you forget your games immediately, start to play that game on his console, and it is all you want now.
My friends had different games.
They were showing or lending me games like Chip & Dale 2, it was among the first,
Contra, Ninja Ryukenden (Gaiden) 3.
Everyone in my surroundings played these games in 1995.
I rarely was able to borrow one, and when it happened, I was going crazy.
That especially true for Ninja Turtles 2 game that was owned by another friend.
Back then, it was 1995-96,
everyone including me were obsessed with the TMNT animated series.
That's because it was not only animated series, but also comics and albums with stickers that everyone collected.
We were begging parents for money to get all this,
but they only were giving an amount enough to buy a gum in a day or two.
Or course it was the TMNT bubble gum.
Yeah.
The first TMNT game on Dendy I seen was TMNT 2,
some time later I played the first TMNT game.
I was surprised that is very different from the second game.
I first got it on this 4-in-1 multi game cartridge.
It was given to me by a good friend.
Besides the TMNT, it has Darkwing Duck, Chip & Dale 2, and Karnov.
I had no clue who is the Karnov, seemingly he is some Russian guy.
After about three attempts to play Karnov that all ended with dying on the first level for no reason, I gave up on this game.
Darkwing Duck was on my 7-in-1, so I didn't play it much.
I knew Chip & Dale 2 too, since I borrowed it previously.
So the only new game for me on this cartridge was TMNT. I knew Chip & Dale 2 too, since I borrowed it previously.
So the only new game for me on this cartridge was TMNT.
The first thing that surprised me, check this...
Every turtle on the sticker wears red mask, like Raphael.
We were wondering why,
as we have seen in the series and comics that only Raphael has red mask, other turtles has different colors.
The answer was found much later.
The first game was released in... 1989, if I remember correctly,
at the time when the third season started in US,
Perhaps the game developers, although being influenced by the series,
didn't wanted to take risks and base the game on the series.
So the game is based on the comics rather than the series for the most part.
And in the comics Turtles had masks of the same color.
You can see it here, this picture is taken from a comic.
If I'm not mistaken, it is from the fourth volume of the original US TMNT comic book.
The game actually has many references both to the series and the comics,
in the animation for the most part.
The turtles has plain white eyes without eyeballs,
there is no Krang in the game, because he was created for the series,
most of enemies are pretty weird.
In the series it mostly were the Foot soldiers,
but here are some mechanical bugs, flying creatures, and so on.
I don't know where they came from, not from the series for sure.
An unpleasant feature of the game was the Japanese language.
The second game was in English, without Japanese text in the cutscenes,
but when we were starting the first one, we get a logo with five strange glyphs.
Instead of the expected TMNT logo there are five glyphs, what the heck?
The same is for the cutscenes, they all were in Japanese, so we didn't understand a damn thing.
The mission briefings made no sense whatsoever.
In the first mission it is obvious that you have to kill the boss to accomplish it,
but in the second mission, the dam, we weren't able to read what to do.
It only was clear that the bombs should be defused somehow.
The language was one of reasons that made the game seem to be insanely difficult compared to TMNT 2.
In the best case we were able to get to the third level, with the turtle van, my favorite level.
I was dying on the dam level all the time.
Only one of my friends was able to beat it, we all beg him to do that for us.
He was getting to the third level and lose there.
Uh.
Unfortunately, at the time I only got this cartridge for a couple of weeks,
and wasn't able to find it for long time since.
That's strange, the first TMNT game was very rare here.
Way less common than TMNT 2 and TMNT 3.
We didn't even know about TMNT 4, the Tournament Fighters, at the time.
So I played the first TMNT game in the autumn 1995, and was then searching for it for long time.
I found it again in the middle of 1996, can't recall which cartridge it was.
It was lent to me for longer this time.
That's when I finally managed to get to the third level on my own and ride the van around.
It didn't helped much, simply because I was losing my way in this maze.
So I gave up on this game.
I played TMNT 2 and TMNT 3 instead,
although I had difficulties with TMNT 2 too, so I was playing TMNT 3 with infinite lives, I'll tell about it some other time.
It lasted like this up to the 1999.
I barely played the first TMNT game before, because I returned the borrowed cartridge, and haven't seen the game since.
In 1999 I got it once again.
Can't recall, I think I got it as a gift, or maybe traded it for something.
Anyway, it became mine.
This time, four years later, we were seriously trying to beat it,
but still didn't managed to get past the fourth level.
Because, uh...
In my opinion, the fourth level is the most difficult of all.
I beat it the last of all.
Now I should mention that the first TMNT game had a select level cheat.
And... When I learned about it, I switched right to the last level, of course.
The cheat was done by pressing Select on the title screen a number of times, then Start.
For example, you press Select five times, and get to the Technodrome.
I tried to beat the Technodrome, and the fifth level too, but still wasn't able to get from the beginning past the fourth level.
Another problem was that we didn't know at the time that turtles could be revived.
The pirate version had two continues. I don't know how many the original have, probably the same.
Even with the continues I wasn't able to beat the fourth level.
And it turned out that you can revive turtles on the level.
If you lost one of turtles, you can find a room with a tied turtle.
But even this could not help much.
We were mostly trying to beat the sixth level, and finally I managed to get to the Shredder and defeat him.
I was surprised that Shredder in this game is a real loser.
A great difference with Shredder from TMNT 2.
In TMNT 2 he was able to kill with a single attack,
but here, once you have some weapon and caught him in a corner, it will be an easy victory.
Uh... What else...
Speaking of weapons, there was an interesting trick that allowed to transfer your weapon to another turtle.
It works for the boomerangs only.
I was told about it by one of my friends.
It was on the last level, with only one turtle left,
and another turtle with HP being critical had boomerangs.
Then the friend suddenly said - 'you know, you can transfer boomerangs to another turtle'.
I asked 'how is that?'
He choose the turtle with boomerangs, throws three, pauses the game, change turtle, and that turtle catches the boomerangs.
So that the turtle got all the boomerangs, and that was enough to beat the boss.
What can be said about the fifth level. I did beat it...
...after the sixth, I think, as we were playing with the cheat.
So the last level I beat was fourth.
I managed to beat the whole game, from the beginning to the end, only in early 2000s.
About the time when the Internet became available.
It was difficult to develop a tactics for every level.
Especially for the fourth level, it had more places where you could die just by a single mistake than any other level.
Once you beat the fourth level, remaining levels will be piece of cake.
On the fifth level you only need to know where is the Technodrome.
It appeared in the bottom left corner of the map in the most cases.
You would went there, stocked up on weapons first,
get to the very bottom, Technodrome appears there,
you blow it up - strange that it is so small, by the way, -
jump in, and the fifth level is done.
Like I said, I beat the sixth level much earlier, so I was well prepared.
What could be said about TMNT games,
many people don't really like the first game.
Maybe it is because it has another style, two subsequent games are beat em'ups,
fourth game is a fighting, and the first one is more like an arcade platformer.
Some don't really like it because of the graphics, which is more like the comic than the series.
Many consider the game the most difficult of all TMNT games.
Combination of the difficulty and the game being not based on the series lead to low popularity of the game here.
For me TMNT 2 is the best, because in my childhood I played it the most,
so it always will be my favorite.
However, the first TMNT game attracted me with its unlikeness.
In other words...
Such an arcade platformer, it was...
...how to say it...
It was very different, and this created desire to play it.
Everyone were playing TMNT 2 and 3, not the first, but I wanted to beat the first game.
Unfortunately, I beat it the last of all the four TMNT games for Dendy,
but I don't regret much.
So...
Despite being disliked by many people, it is one of my favorite games,
one of my first games,
also very desired game, because I had opportunity to play it not as often as I wanted.
Even so.
Today's episode came to the end.
I hope it was interesting.
Next time we remember another equally great and loved game,
we'll try to get back to the past again,
and it going to be cool.
Thank you for your attention, it was Kinaman, see you next time.
Forgot to say.
Finally, so many years later,
I managed to found a copy of the cartridge where I played TMNT for first time.
Sadly, only the case survived through the time.
The circuit board got lost.
I got it as is, and searching for the board since.
So, if you have such cartridge,
and would not mind to share,
please mail me, I would really appreciate that.
Thank you again. Play Dendy.