Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a side-scrolling beat 'em up developed and published by Konami, released in arcades in 1989 and based on the hugely popular animated series and toy line. Up to four players at once take the roles of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael, each with slightly different reach and speed, brawling through the streets, sewers, and rooftops of New York City to rescue April O'Neil and defeat the Foot Clan, Krang, and the Shredder. Built around a dedicated four-player cabinet, it turned cooperative play into a social event and became a fixture of arcades, pizza parlours, and other American gathering spots at the height of the franchise's popularity. Its bright presentation, faithful character designs, and accessible combat made it one of the most recognisable licensed games of its time, and it was ported to the NES and home computers, though the four-player arcade version remained the definitive experience. A celebrated sequel, Turtles in Time, followed in 1991. The Turtles began as an American comic book, became an American cartoon, and sold an ocean of American merchandise, yet the game that best captured that phenomenon was assembled in Japan by Konami, a neat encapsulation of the era's habit of outsourcing its own pop mythology.