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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pinball: My First Impression

Cary Hardy·video·15m 43s·analyzed·May 31, 2020
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.021

TL;DR

Hardy: TMNT is pinball's answer to family fun with great flow, art; video needs work.

Summary

Cary Hardy provides a detailed first-impression analysis of Stern's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pinball, comparing Pro and Premium trim levels and evaluating gameplay, art, sound, and video quality. He expresses strong enthusiasm for the game's design and flow, positioning it as exactly what the pinball industry needs—a fun, nostalgic title with co-op play that appeals to both longtime fans and younger audiences. While praising the playfield design and artwork, he identifies video/animation quality as a weakness that could be improved through code updates, and expresses cautious optimism about coder Dwight Sullivan's ability to deliver complete code unlike past issues.

Key Claims

  • Premium model features an interactive turtle van with mechanical door opening to release four balls; Pro model has a static up-post holding one ball for four-ball multiball instead

    high confidence · Detailed trim-level breakdown comparing mechanical differences

  • TMNT has generated more hype than Jurassic Park and will likely outsell it

    medium confidence · Hardy's poll data and prediction based on community response tracking

  • Dwight Sullivan demonstrated genuine passion and excitement during the stream showing he's engaged with the project

    medium confidence · Hardy's observation of Sullivan's on-stream behavior; subjective interpretation

  • Video/animation quality on the display is the weakest element of the game; character animations don't match playfield art quality

    high confidence · Hardy's critical analysis of screen graphics compared to cabinet artwork

  • The game will feature co-op play and tournament modes including 2v2, 3v1, and potentially 4v4 options

    high confidence · Information confirmed by Dwight Sullivan on stream according to Hardy

Notable Quotes

  • “I have not been this entertained by watching pinball gameplay since Jurassic Park was first streamed.”

    Cary Hardy@ 1:26 — Hardy's strongest endorsement comparing TMNT favorably to Stern's previous blockbuster title

  • “This game is exactly what pinball needs right now. Something fun, something nostalgic that feeds those of us that grew up watching it and also encourages the younger and next generation to play pinball.”

    Cary Hardy@ 11:57 — Core thesis statement about TMNT's market positioning and cultural relevance

  • “You could genuinely see how excited he was to show off what he's been working on all this time... I believe he's going to be able to pull this one out.”

    Cary Hardy@ 11:13 — Hardy's conditional confidence in Dwight Sullivan's ability to deliver complete code, contrasting with Ghostbusters concerns

  • “I'm not a TMNT fan, but... I would be pretty happy right now. If I had a dollar for every time I read a comment on Facebook or Pinside.”

    Cary Hardy@ 2:44 — Evidence of strong community sentiment shift among non-fans being won over by the game

  • “I think that there would have been easier and better if they just would have had Zombie Yeti slash Jeremy basically draw out the characters and then they just animate them with using like a flash sort of thing.”

    Cary Hardy@ 8:36 — Specific design criticism suggesting alternative approach to video/animation quality

Entities

Cary HardypersonTeenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesgameStern PinballcompanyDwight SullivanpersonJeremy PackerpersonJurassic ParkgameGhostbustersgameJack Butlerperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Co-op mode seen as essential feature meeting community expectations; strong positive response to multiplayer tournament mode planning

    high · Hardy: 'If this game would not have had co-op you would have had so much rage from everybody because it only makes sense. You have four turtles why not have the ability to play with you and three of your friends'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: TMNT positioned to outsell Jurassic Park based on hype metrics and family appeal; direct commercial competition implied

    medium · Hardy: 'I really do think that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is going to sell more than Jurassic Park.' Poll data showing TMNT overtaking JP in hype ranking.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Large target design choice driven by cost optimization; enables more ramp/mech placement elsewhere on playfield

    medium · Hardy: 'I know that they've had to have their reasons for doing this, and I'm pretty sure one of those main reasons is obviously going to be cost. But, for me, I feel it's fine. I do not have a major issue with these big targets.'

  • $

    market_signal: Home market positioned as primary TMNT driver due to post-pandemic location cash flow constraints; location market still recovering

    medium · Hardy: 'we're still recovering from this pandemic. And there are a lot of locations that do not have the cash flow to purchase brand new games... but I feel that the home market is going to basically thrive on this'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Dwight Sullivan demonstrated passionate engagement with TMNT code project during public stream; enthusiastically overexplaining features, suggesting deep involvement and confidence

Topics

Trim level differentiation (Pro vs Premium vs LE)primaryPlayfield design and shot flowprimaryVideo/animation quality and screen implementationprimaryCode maturity and coder track record (Dwight Sullivan)primaryCo-op and tournament mode possibilitiesprimaryCommunity sentiment and hype comparison to Jurassic ParkprimaryArt direction and visual theme executionsecondarySound design and voice acting qualitysecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.82)— Hardy expresses strong enthusiasm for TMNT's overall design, gameplay flow, and cultural positioning. His criticism is constructive and focused on improvable elements (video quality via code updates) rather than fundamental design flaws. He frames the game as a market success and industry necessity. Confidence in coder's ability slightly tempered by Ghostbusters precedent but ultimately optimistic.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.047

Can Stern's newest game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, take on their last biggest seller, Jurassic Park? What are the trim level differences and what model should you go for? And why I feel like this game is exactly what Pinball needs right now. Coming up. Cowabunga dudes and welcome back to my channel where I talk and do everything pinball. So if that sounds good to you then ninja kick that subscribe button down below. I must apologize for not doing this video a little bit sooner but this week has been a little bit busy for me. Not to mention I really wanted to see how both trim levels that LE and the Pro model actually shot. And now that we've got all that information, let's dive into it. I have to admit that I was hyping this game up a little bit in my inner self whenever I first got the rumors from Kaneda months ago. And I'm honestly not even a huge fan of TMNT, but definitely in my youth I for sure was. Now I had many ideas on what this game was going to have or what it should have rather and a few of my hopes actually came true and I'll put a link in the description down below or I'll put a card right up here to let you guys watch that video if you so wish to see what I got right. But putting the past and rumors aside, I honestly have not been this entertained by watching pinball gameplay since Jurassic Park was first streamed. The flow, the shot, the geometry, the art, this game almost has it all. Almost? I'll get to that. Whenever I first saw the leaked images of this game, I was honestly a little disappointed. And that's because, obviously, I hyped it up a little bit too much inside, but also I was looking at very poor quality pictures, so it definitely did not look as pretty as I found out mere hours later. So when I looked at these leaked images for the first time, I was like... And then the next day, whenever Stern officially released their high-res images, including a little bit of gameplay, I was like... Now I was hoping for a comic book style art form for this particular game, but taking it back to the 80s cartoon and seeing it now... I'm kind of glad they went the way they did. I think it turned out very good. It started to grow on me and I think it's starting to grow on everyone else too. If I had a dollar for every time I read a comment on Facebook or Pinside and it starts out with, I'm not a TMNT fan, but then I would be pretty happy right now. So let's jump right into the trim levels and what you will not be getting if you settle for the pro. The Premium model comes standard with an interactive turtle van where the mechanical door does open up and four balls will come out for a four ball multiball. If you settle for the Pro, instead there is a horizontal up post that holds one ball behind the van for your four ball multiball. So you're still going to get your four ball multiball, but you're just not going to get that cool effect of the turtle van opening up and all the balls coming out of it. The second item that's going to be on your premium but not on your pro is the sculpted hang glider for the turtle that is a diverter that is player controlled on your wire forms. Instead on the pro you will be getting a stop and score solenoid for basically collecting rewards The next item that is completely missing from the pro but is on the premium is the sculpted little model of crane above the pop bumpers Now this will be bouncing up and down and taunting you throughout the game with your pop bumpers. You will not have a crane in your pro model. The next item is that the spinning magnetic pizza on your play field will only be spinning one direction for the pro model whereas the premium can spin left and right or clockwise or counterclockwise, however you want to look at it. So one direction versus five directional on your premium. That is not a big deal at all. I mean, that's very negligible. So I mean, I almost don't even want to count it because I don't see that being such a like, oh my goodness, it's only going to be spinning one direction. Either way, you're still implementing randomness into your game. And the final portion that is located on their matrix that deters from the pro and premium is that the premium can have up to an eight ball multiball that collects behind the x-ramp whereas the pro will only be able to do a six ball multiball and I'm sort of okay with that. Six ball multiball is already chaotic enough as it is. Eight ball multiball is overkill. I already know this from plenty of other games that have a six ball plus it trust me six ball is going to be plenty for you guys out there so which model should you go for honestly pro is definitely worth the purchase i'd say it's an awesome buy the premium in the le you get all those extra perks if you want to actually have those but i'd feel like the pro is not going to be something that you're going to be like oh man i really wish i would have gone with the premium because now i'm really missing out what this game has to offer for a majority of you that is i know there's a lot of people out there that really love the ability for controlling where your ball goes on the wire forms i'm one of those people i still lean towards going for a pro so what do i think about this game let's start with gameplay now keep in mind that these next thoughts are solely only going by gameplay footage of me watching it on the stream nothing more i have not played this game yet the gameplay looks fun fast it flows and it's very entertaining to watch. Art. Amazing. Completely does justice to what the cartoon was to a visually impressive color. It's great. Looking down at it, I think it would even be more impressive than just pictures. Sound and music. Now, I'm going to go for just basically good at this point, but this is, see, now that we've already knocked out the two main factors that cannot be changed. You cannot change the design of the play field now. It's already done. You can't just do that over time. You can't change the art. That's already done. You can't change that over time. Everything else can be fixed. And I'm not saying that everything else is broken. I'm just saying that at least the two ones that cannot be fixed are good. But sound and music are good. I don't have any major complaints right now. This is something that I believe by playing it on a location or getting more time by watching someone else stream it to figure out if certain things will get annoying or repetitive. I do have a little bit of concerns about that theme song if it's going to get tiresome over time. Voices and callouts. Overall good. I mean, I think Splinter sounds really good. Shredder, he sounds very close to what the cartoon sounds like. and I really would like to just out of curiosity hear Steve Ritchie's take on what Shredder would sound like. But I fear that that might be a little too Sheo-Con. You'll never get away with this, Shredder! I rule this world You will die mortal But the person that did the voice acting for Shredder was very close to James Avery Rest in peace. But I will say, whoever did the voice for Krang is freaking on point. That sounds like Krang, if not maybe even a little better. I would love for his voice to be throughout the game just talking crap to you. I think that would be great if they could implement a lot of different variable callouts throughout the game. That would be awesome. Video and animations. Now, this is where things kind of go a little south for me. At this point in time, in my opinion, this is where the machine is lacking. Now, luckily, this can be fixed down the road if they choose to do so. I feel that things would have been easier and better if they just would have had Zombie Yeti slash Jeremy basically draw out the characters and then they just animate them with using like a flash sort of thing. I think that would have given the better visual effects of the screen matching what we see on the plate building cabinet. I mean, I would love to see April looking how she does on the game. I think that would look a lot better than this horrendous point right here. When I first saw this, I literally was like, what the hell is that? So I'm hoping that this gets improved and cranked up a few notches down the road. Now, some of the complaints from a lot of you out there that I've been able to scroll through and read just out of curiosity is that there's a lot of you that do not like the big targets on the left and right. One for Lair and one for April. Some of you would prefer drop targets. Others would just prefer stand-ups. I guess it's more of a challenging situation for a more accurate shot that a lot of you would want compared to just hitting a large target and having it count. But, I mean, I know that they've had to have their reasons for doing this, and I'm pretty sure one of those main reasons is obviously going to be cost. But, for me, I feel it's fine. I do not have a major issue with these big targets, And if having these big targets gives the designer the ability to put more materials up around the other point of the play field, whether it be more ramps and other mechs, then definitely I'm all up for it. The other big shadow that is hanging over this game from a lot of people is the coder Dwight Sullivan. Now, this is where people are just worried. They're more worried than anything else because I think there are those of you out there that do have a passion and they want this game, but they don't want to be in another Ghostbusters position where you have an unfinished code for a very long time. And I get that, I hear you, but I'm thinking this is going to be different, guys. From my perspective, at least, when I was watching the stream with the LE and Dwight was on there, you could genuinely see how excited he was to show off what he's been working on all this time. and how he wouldn't shut up, essentially, because he kept on talking over the game, and we really couldn't hear anything because he was wanting Jack to keep showing everybody all the different things that you can do and like, do this right here, do this, show him this, show him that. This is what we're going to be doing. This is something that we're working on. This is things that we're looking into. I think that there's definitely a passion behind this project for Dwight, and I believe he's going to be able to pull this one out. And for what he's done so far, even with the code not being complete, what we've got so far is still looking to be pretty damn entertaining. Now one thing for me I feel like the game is probably lacking a little bit, I think would have given it more of a wow factor, is the fact that there's not a subway slash sewer system on here somewhere where the manhole opens up or a ball comes out of the manholes down I don know I felt like that would definitely go good with the title but that you know like I said that just another thing that they could have put in there as a good wow factor, but like I said, I think what we got so far is pretty damn good. This game is exactly what pinball needs right now. Something fun, something nostalgic that feeds those of us that grew up watching it and also encourages the younger and next generation to play pinball. Something else that is giving this game the major hype train and especially by me is that it's gonna have co-op which was a must. If this game would not have had co-op you would have had so much rage from everybody because it only makes sense. You have four turtles why not have the ability to play with you and three of your friends or family members to all cooperatively take on a game. This is a major selling point to a lot of people, specifically me, because I enjoy playing TNA's co-op. It makes it much more funner to work with people when you're playing pinball. But as Dwight was saying, he's got a lot of ideas and plans for tournament modes with this game, with 2v2s, maybe even 4v4s, 3v1s. The possibilities for the code and for this particular title, I don't want to say are limitless, But there's a lot of possibilities. Now, something that's going to hurt this title a little bit is the fact that we're still recovering from this pandemic. And there are a lot of locations that do not have the cash flow to purchase brand new games to bring them in because a lot of those locations are still closed. But I feel that the home market is going to basically thrive on this because a lot of people are stuck home and want a new title. And it's going to be majorly family-oriented entertainment. Maybe your distributor should look into contacting some local pizza parlors to see if they're looking to put a pin on location. As of right now, I want this game. But I'm gonna have to sell off one of these bad babies back here in order to make that happen. But before I go doing that, I want to be sure about something and I'm sure a lot of you out there want to know too. Is What are the playfields gonna be like? Are they gonna be better? Are they gonna be worse? Will they remain the same? We are hoping that with the fact that there has been more time in between titles, maybe that will give the clear coat more time to cure. But who knows. That's why I'm looking forward to getting feedback from you first buyers out there to let the rest of us know what you think about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That's going to wrap up this video guys. Thanks for sticking around and watching. So what are your thoughts on Stern's next title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? You planning on getting this game? I know plenty of you are. I had a poll going for which one was hyped up more, and I want to say that Jurassic Park was in the lead for a little while, but I think in the end, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has taken the lead on how much hype is behind the game in comparison to the other. I really do think that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is going to sell more than Jurassic Park, and I hope it does. Let me know what you think about this game in the comments down below. If you like what you've seen here, give me the thumbs up. And if you haven't already, do not forget to ninja kick that subscribe button down below. That way you can be notified of whenever I upload something for your viewing pleasure. Until next time, guys. Peace out. Thank you.
Kanedaperson
TNAgame

high · Hardy observation: 'you could genuinely see how excited he was to show off what he's been working on all this time and how he wouldn't shut up, essentially'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pro model positioned as excellent entry-point with minimal real-world gameplay compromise; mechanical door/spinner features differentiate Premium but not essential to experience

    high · Detailed mechanical trim comparisons; Hardy concludes Pro 'is definitely worth the purchase' and 'not going to be something that you're going to be like oh man I really wish I would have gone with the premium'

  • ?

    product_concern: Screen animation quality inconsistent with cabinet artwork quality; character animations appear amateur compared to Zombie Yeti playfield art

    high · Hardy: 'Video and animations... this is where the machine is lacking... I feel that things would have been easier and better if they just would have had Zombie Yeti slash Jeremy basically draw out the characters and then animate them'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Non-TMNT fans reporting positive sentiment shift after seeing game reveal; community consensus moving from skepticism to enthusiasm

    high · Hardy: 'If I had a dollar for every time I read a comment on Facebook or Pinside and it starts out with, I'm not a TMNT fan, but... I would be pretty happy right now.'