"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Ninja Tribunal" mobile game playthrough
14Head's up for flashing imagery.
A playthrough of "TMNT: Ninja Tribunal", a game by Nostromo ICT released for J2ME mobile phones in January 2009.
A tie-in to the 2003 cartoon and a loose adaptation of the first five episodes of season 5 (or "The Lost Episodes", this is a JRPG if you'd believe it! I have @spacetwinks to blame for enlightening me to this game's existence. Featuring some lush pixel art and a somewhat decent battle system, with not just a robust selection of area-of-effect spells, but also the ability to defend specific members of your party, a mechanic that truly emphasises the supportive nature of the Turtles -- you can't all go in weapons swinging, you gotta have each others' backs!
Unfortunately, it's also a bit of a drag. It takes a long time before you build up an interesting selection of moves, and a good chunk of the early game is spent fighting enemies that are vulnerable only to physical attacks or magic exclusively. The difficulty balance is totally screwball, with some enemies inexplicably stronger or harder to hit than others, with no indicator to suggest they're *meant* to be that tough. All that on top of maps that are drawn-out and exist to put as many enemies in your path as possible...!
On the bright side, it is somewhat forgiving. You refill health just by idling on the overworld, so losing health from running away isn't too much of a punishment. Losing a fight only resets you at the start of the current screen with full health, and you can exit to the main menu at any point to escape a battle without penalty. Stepping on holes will often trigger surprise attacks from tough enemies that get a whole turn to wallop on you, so you can save yourself the bother and reload from the instant before that happened!
KEmulator would refuse to play the battle music in full for some reason, so I had to splice it in. The unedited footage clocked in at nearly 6 hours, so all you're missing are some extremely drawn-out battles where nothing exciting happens. I don't know if that's what people want from their RPG longplays. Answer in the comments so I know what to do when I play the sequel...!