Even beyond that, TMNT NES was merely a two player game, while TMNT Arcade could support all four ninja turtles simultaneously. See the difference? It’s subtle, but I think you might be able to notice a slight graphical shift between the two versions. I could puke out another seventeen paragraphs about this, but let’s take a quick look at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the arcade…Īnd then we’ve got the NES game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game. Point is, practically from birth, I had been spoiled with a complete lack of reasons to leave the house.īut the arcades were something different. We didn’t have Netflix, but we did have the video rental joint (heck, even the local supermarket rented movies), so any film I’d ever want to see (Back to the Future, over and over again) was available with like a buck and dad’s membership card. What’s important was I didn’t have to wear shoes. If there was something on TV I wanted to watch, I didn’t have to watch it through a store window like some Dickensian urchin, I watched it on the couch, or maybe a beanbag chair. As such, there was never a time in my memory that I did not possess a color television, VCR, and all the modern appliances of today (man, was the washing machine interesting to a ten year old). To put all my cards on the table, I’m a child of the 80’s.

Whatever the case, arcades have ceased to become a destination, and are now nothing more than charming reminders of a time when tokens could be more valuable than gold. You wouldn’t spend a dollar to fill a clown’s mouth with liquid at home, and you wouldn’t blow 50¢ a pop to play a round of a video game either, but you might in the happy, shiny environment of a Six Flags. Similarly, actual arcades are now relegated to theme parks and tourist attractions, just as much a piece of entertainment fluff as Guess Your Weight Booths or Strong Man Contests. How quaint! I can play a video game here in this alcove while I wait for my table… as if my phone can’t already do that. Look, you’re in a diner lobby, and there’s a copy of Ms. Nowadays, arcade cabinets are something of a novelty. It’s hard to describe today, but it seems like the arcades of yore are destined to be a singular, unique creature in the history of video games. On the other hand, to me, XvSF will always represent the end of an era. Street Fighter was the start of, without question, one of my favorite Fighting Game franchises.

Snes xmen vs street fighter