Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (Co-op) -- Scene 10: The Final Shell-Shock

Well, the unlabeled and unfathomable new portal through a different set of special effects produced through a futuristic television screen that once contained the Shredder's masked mug laughing at us seems like a good place to pick up our quest to go back in time to where we started from. Somehow. One of the boys seemed certain, but neither of them was Donatello, so... the findings might not necessarily be all that scientific. I mean, it's at least an improvement from "randomly, when the stage ended, we went somewhere else for some reason"... yes, I know, I'm negating the very premise of the game. "Turtles in Time"... we have turtles: probably mutant, possibly teenage, and definitely ninja. They need to go through time somehow. How? I don't care! Turtles IN TIME! (IN SPACE! ...wait, no, that was last time. Sorry, my bad.) --- A.D. 1992 Technodrome The Final Shell-Shock Oh no! We hit a wrong warp somewhere, we've been sent back to the ancient era known only vaguely as "the nineties"! ...oh... right... yes, this game is from then. They actually set the final destination year to the year this game was made. Specifically this version, since the arcade game was from one year prior. Y'know what ELSE happened, the very SAME month the original arcade game was released? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze. Armed with this new, deep lore, the team developing this game could go back, as if... in time... to up the ante further with a super mega ultra chocolatey fudge-coated ultra super boss! --- BOSS: Super Shredder Yeah! Remember that really anticlimactic and totally random final twist to the sequel to that film that's almost 30 years old now that has absolutely nothing to do with most of what this game has been about? Shush, you! They also put Tokka and Rahzar in here! Completely canon! Cross-continuity canonicity! Canon immigrant refugees of an interstellar war, but now they're at your local grocery store!) Uh wait, what? No, I'm losing focus here! Yeah! Final boss! SUPER Shredder! Wait, didn't Krang also call himself "Super" Krang a couple stages ago? What is this, some kind of SUPER Nintendo game?! Anyway, all nonsense aside, this is it. The final shred-shock. No shells will be shocked here! (Some shells might be shocked. Try not to be to sh--surprised?) Hey, man... you can't steal your own joke and use it again in a different form! That's plagiarism! ...self-plagiarism! ... ... ...also really unoriginal. (Then again, HOW many times did he say the phrase "turtle soup" in the 80s and 90s?) Like (non-super) Krang immediately before him, Super Shredder dispenses entirely with melee combat in favor of projectiles. Unlike Krang's lame plan, Shred-Head's really using his head-shreds: move around really fast, shoot wild and crazy fast energy blasts, and even make sure you blast out a power aura that will prevent would-be heroes from rushing you. Brilliant! It's like he's playing a whole different genre from everybody else! Hard to beat 'em up on a shoot 'em up boss! He really actually only has three attacks: toe-oriented fire carpets, aerial-angled freeze blasts, and insta-kill anti-mutation energy balls. No, I have no idea how he does that last one. I have no idea how another quarter was supposed to undo that. Somehow the de-mutated, not-ninja, still-probably-teenage turtles retain their awareness that they've been royally boned, so I guess somehow their mutant intelligence remains... that'd... create some unfortunate and deeply disconcerting implications that neither the game nor I am willing to explore at the moment... ... ... Oh sweet, no, he still had a one-man left over, he's good. De-mutate away, we got some more in reserve, too! There's a rather generous window of Super Shredder being open to either ground or aerial assault at any given time based on the attack he's using. The problem becomes... he's so fast that you can't really know WHICH attack he'll be using until you're going to need to begin your assault, or else wait for another opening to go whizzing past. The ice beam does the most actual damage... but the green aura ball has the most problematic consequence, obviously... so... probably best to hedge your bets on an aerial assault and hope you can hit him rather than getting hit. On the upside, there's a huge flinch window provided by any of these attacks, leaving you safe from eating any other attacks until the comical reaction to being hit by one expires... so you don't have to worry about being locked into a ranged combo that just needs the right attack to finish you off. If this all sounds daunting and distinctly not-fair... don't worry, it is! But none of this obvious cheating is powerful enough to overcome a good ninja thrashing! You needed to cheat BETTER, dude! C'mon! --- As reward for your hard work... you get... to watch the news! ...wait, is that a giant humanoid rat?! (Standing next to Master Splinter?!)