10 Terrible Video Games You Didn't Realise Were Wildly Successful

10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES falls under the "Action" genre, which amazes us because we thought falling into sewers over and over again constituted "Things We Can't Believe We Bought" genre. It was a good idea, NES, as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles couldn't have been more popular at the beginning of 1990, but you had us fooled. We were expecting a great game and what we got was sloppy controls and game mechanics - especially for the computer: you literally couldn't get past one level; you had to use cheat codes to skip it. It wasn't like Battletoads. Battletoads was difficult, but the mechanics were okay and the levels, though not probable to beat on the first time (or second or thousandth), could actually be beaten. Battletoads was awesome. Go Battletoads. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was so damn frustrating at times you wanted to set your Nintendo on fire and punch your Donatello action figure in the face. How many copies did Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sell? Brace yourselves... Over four million. And though most critics found it too difficult and most fans found it to be one of the most frustrating NES games of all time, it still made millions for Nintendo. You have to hand it to Nintendo: they capitalised on a rising cartoon/comic knowing no matter what they thew together, it would make a whole bunch of money for them.
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