Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection

TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection is a treasure trove of Turtle games, but our online experience was barely functional when matchmaking. Couch co-op fares a lot better, but some may notice an increased input delay over the originals. All said this is still a great collection for fans.

The 11 games bundled together here offer a glorious return trip to a lost age of gaming

Impressive efforts with a few noticeable problems holding them back. Won't astound everyone, but is worth your time and cash.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection is a great package. While not every game is a winner - and a lot of them are variants of other games in the collection - there's still lots here to love. It brings two of the most beloved beat-'em-ups in history to modern platforms, and is host to some hidden gems like Radical Rescue. This is all polished up with a host of great enhancements and the fantastic Turtle Lair gallery, which - for any TMNT fan - may be worth the price of admission alone.

TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection is indisputably the best thing Konami has released in a long while, meeting all expectations and then some. Bar absent difficulty settings for the arcade games, it's an anthology that finally gets it totally right. Digital Eclipse and Konami have done the fans justice, offering a comprehensive library that doesn't hide content behind a paywall, while going above and beyond in terms of features and bonuses. With online functionality and rollback netcode being the icing on the cake, this is now the gold standard for retro collections. Capcom, pay close attention.

If you're a fan of the Turtles, this is the collection for you. If you're a fan of arcade brawlers, this is the collection for you. If you're simply curious about this specific time in gaming history, the Cowabunga Collection is still worth owning. It's a phenomenal piece of work and a reminder of why the Turtles remain such a relevant franchise in video games to this day.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection is a Turtle treasure trove, including every TMNT game released for arcade and console between 1989 and 1993.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection is an excellent snapshot of gaming in the early 90s, but varies in quality from title to title.

Now THIS is how you do a classic collection.

As something of a scrub myself, I found that just a short time with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters for NES helped enormously with both my own sense of confidence and my understanding of some of the genre fundamentals. And while I’m under no illusions that I’m now in a suitable position to jump online in one of today’s fighting games and come anywhere even remotely close to participating on a competitive level, I feel like I’ve definitely improved. And that’s got to be worth something.