Download Episode 79: “Talkin’ TMNT with Cygnus Destroyer” here!
Let’s kick shell! Today’s theme revolves around the Heroes on the Half Shell — The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Joining Mike and Ed is fellow TMNT and video game fanatic Matt Ezero, from the YouTube channel Cygnus Destroyer 20XX. It’s an episode filled with fantastic TMNT tunes, nostalgic TMNT memories, and lots and lots of TMNT lore. Cowabunga!
Thanks to Pernell, Brendan Wilson, and John Wedgeworth for submitting PixelChat questions. Send YOUR questions for us to answer at pixeltunesradio@gmail.com!
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The Tracklist:
Format: Game Title (System, Year) – Track Title – Composer(s)
1 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES, 1989) “Area 2-1: Underwater” – Jun Funahashi
2 – TMNT3 Radical Rescue (GB, 1993) – “Stage Warehouse” – Akihiro Juuichiya, Minako Matsuhira
3- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan (GB, 1990) – “Epilogue” – Tomoko Nishikawa, Michiru Yamane
4 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game (NES, 1990) “Scene 2-1: Streets of New York” – Mutsuhiko Izumi, Miki Yanagisawa, arranged by Kōzō Nakamura
5 – TMNT: Hyperstone Heist (Genesis, 1992) “Boss Theme” – Mutsuhiko Izumi, arranged by Masahiro Ikariko, You Takamine, Kaori Kinouchi, Hideto Inoue
6 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade, 1991) – “Boss Battle” – Mutsuhiko Izumi, Miki Yanagisawa
7 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (SNES, 1992) – “Bury My Shell at Wounded Knee” – Mutsuhiko Izumi, arranged by Kazuhiko Uehara, Harumi Uekō
8 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003, GBA) “Kite Flight/Donatello Act 3” – Junichirō Kaneda, Yasuhiro Ichihashi
9 – Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles: The Coin-Op (C64, 1991) – “Medley” – Jeroen Tel
10 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (PC, Xbox 360, PS3, 2012) – “Explore 7” – GL33K Studios, Tyler Piersall
11 – TMNT Danger of the Ooze (PS3, Xbox 360, 3DS, 2014) – “TCRI Building” – Jake Kaufman
12 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: The Manhattan Project (NES, 1992) – “Scene 3: Brooklyn Bridge is Falling Down” – Kozo Nakamura, Tomoya Tomita, Yuichi Sakakura
PixelTunes Radio VGM Podcast 
Hey guys, loved the episode. My experience with TMNT was limited to the original cartoon and the earlier games(8-16 bit and arcades). I loved the cartoon initially, but there was a substantial qualitative difference between the first few episodes and everything that came later….the earliest episodes had a high-dollar Japanese anime house quality, and it got slowly worse after that. Still, I enjoyed most of that original series.
Didn’t care much for the toys; I had been spoiled with Transformers and GI Joe, and by the time the TMNT toys came out, I was old enough to see that I wasn’t the target market. But I did play a lot of the arcade game; we had a fair amount of nickel arcades and free-play arcades in Portland back in the day, which is the perfect way to play games like this.
I was a die-hard Sega boy, and my buddy down the street was die-hard Nintendo, so I got a chance to play all the versions(didn’t care much for the original NES version, so I didn’t play it much). I was always jealous of the fact that the SNES version let you throw the foot soldiers into the screen. That said, the Genesis game was a very good rendition, and I generally prefer its music. The NES sequels were fine for what they were. Incidentally, I was surprised nobody picked a Tournament fighters track….but I didn’t much care for those OST’s, so I’m not really disappointed.
As to why the Genesis and SNES versions were slightly different, the whole reason comes down to Nintendo’s release restrictions. At that point, developers were still prohibited from releasing the same titles on different platforms simultaneously, so they’d give them different titles and change them slightly. Konami tended to make games more unique for each platform, which is what we have with TMNT(and Rocket Knight, Castlevania, Contra, Tiny Toons, etc.)
Lastly, I’m sure you know I totally missed the deadline for the listener suggestions episode. I was so intent on picking a really good track that I lost track of time(for a week!). My pick this time around will eventually turn into a VGM Karaoke, but I’m all over it for next year, so look out! 😉
(Ed here) Hmm, that’s really interesting about Hyperstone Heist. Forgive my skepticism, but I know that Flashback was released for both the SNES and Genesis on the same day right around that time, so that exclusivity arrangement doesn’t make much sense to me.
I’m glad you enjoyed the show, and happy we could bring back some good memories for you! We were going to mention that our lack of Tournament Fighters was due to Pixelated Audio’s focus on the series a while back, but it must’ve slipped our minds while recording. Oh well!
Looking forward to that Karaoke track! 😉
-Ed
Frankly, there are things about the exclusivity deal that don’t make sense to me either; I can think of a lot of simultaneous or near simultaneous releases from that time period as well. But that was the reason magazines always gave as to why games were either exclusive to Nintendo or released much later on different systems.
Based on books like Console Wars and Service Games: The Rise and Fall Of Sega, my theory is that as Nintendo’s stranglehold on the industry waned, more companies decided to publish cross platform and violate Nintendo’s policies. I also remember that at some point, Nintendo specifically relaxed their policies to make them more amenable to a third-party publishers, although that was a long time ago so the years all tend to run together.
The other thing I notice is that most of those companies that cross released games early on were either European or American, such as Accolade, US Gold, Acclaim, Shiny, and Electronic Arts. It may be that Japanese companies, which tended to be much more concerned about business relationships, shied away from cross platform releases until it wasn’t relationally problematic.
Right, I also think that Nintendo realized that the whole “It’s a privilege to publish games on the SNES” mentality was deeply flawed, in the sense that the publishers knew just as well as they did that Nintendo would be hurt if they cut off their own AAA developers. So anyways, I guess Hyperstone mystery may never be truly solved, but that it’s probably a combination of most of the sane theories bandied about on the web.