Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters, or Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles: Tournament Fighters in Europe, is the title of three different fighting games based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, produced by Konami for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Mega Drive/Genesis, and Super NES and released during a period between 1993 and 1994. Konami produced a different fighting game based on the series for each platform, featuring a differing cast of characters.
The Mega Drive/Genesis version of Tournament Fighters was released in North America, the PAL region, and Japan around the same time as its SNES counterpart.
The Mega Drive/Genesis version uses the standard three-button controller, with only two buttons for attacking (punch and kick). To perform stronger punches or kicks, the player must hold the directional pad towards the opponent while pressing either attack buttons. The third button is used for taunting. Some of the stages in the game feature destroyable scenery that gives the player and their opponent access to new areas in the stage. As well as their special moves, each character has a 'killer' attack which is only accessible when they are close to death and the red part of the characters' life gauge at the top starts flashing. This is done by pressing the Taunt button in conjunction with a specific D-Pad motion. These moves nearly take out the other characters life gauge completely.
The game has eight playable characters, which includes the four Turtles and Casey Jones, as well as April O'Neil (whose active role differs from the versions of the character featured in other games), Ray Fillet (a character from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comics), and Sisyphus (an original character, named Musha Beetle in the Japanese version). The player can adjust their power and speed after selecting their character. The music in this version was tailored for each character's personality and is considered the best soundtrack of the three ports. It was composed by renowned videogame composer Miki Higashino in collaboration with DJ Ada-San.
The main single player mode features the turtles and their allies traveling to various planets in Dimension X, fighting against clones of themselves, as they seek to rescue Splinter from Krang. After defeating the eight clones, the player travel to the final three stages to fight against a Triceraton, Krang's Android, and Karai (in that order). The game has a two player mode, as well as a practice mode in which the player faces the computer in a 1-round match, and a "Tournament" where the player must defeat 88 opponents with one life gauge.
