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Originally recorded: January 30, 2025
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Okay, the title for this one is an inside joke... so I'm not going to bother explaining it. If you know, you know. If you don't, don't feel bad -- it's essentially gibberish.

Going into this one, I knew things probably weren't going to go well with the American version. KI actually did a run out of the blue right after I finished Hyperstone Heist... and they literally only managed to beat it with a single hitpoint remaining on their final continue. If anything, I'm impressed that I got as far as I did on that botched run. I literally got to see everything that was translated into Japanese for that version play out in English and all of the other content I saw was identical. KI even assured me that the director's name was displayed in Kanji in the American release for some reason. Weird decision, but I'm not going to complain.

Fortunately, I always had a back-up plan in mind. I do have to admit that it does feel a bit like cheating to switch over to the Japanese version. But on the other hand, I guess it's Konami's fault for sabotaging the Western release out of fear of the rental market. What I find really amazing is that the collection still ended up giving me the achievement for beating the game even after switching to the Japanese version. Really makes me wish Konami would put out an update for the Castlevania Anniversary Collection that would offer the same benefit for playing through the international versions of games they included as a bonus. But let's face it: that's a pipe dream of the highest caliber.

Still think it's weird that only the American version had the option to mitigate slowdown. All of the other options were shared between both versions -- even the option to play the game in "Easy Mode". That last one just feels weird, considering that the major difference between both versions is that the Japanese one is the inclusion of a standard options menu, as opposed to being forced to use a cheat code to access it. Also, the fact that there's an infinite lives toggle should tell you everything you need to know about this game. Still, it's probably among the best beat-'em-ups on the NES.

That just leaves one last game on the docket for this little series. And from what I've heard, it might actually be one of the hardest games based on the TMNT ever developed. Even KI hasn't managed to beat it legitimately yet. So I'm curious to see just how well I do with it.