I do not replay games. Dont see the point. I dont reread books either, and I rarely rewatch movies or TV shows. Theres too much new, bigger and better stuff coming out every day, and too little time to consume it. However, I made an exception with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Because the original was so special.It came along towards the end of my ZX Spectrum playing days. I was at university and was previously only interested in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle if it came in a tall glass and was at happy hour prices in the Mandela Bar. But the game hooked me one summer back home and became the hardest video game that I ever completed. And thats what worried me when I started the rerelease on the PS4 that comes as part of the TMNT Cowabunga Collection. (Playstation Plus Essentials March)It was the first time Id thrown a controller at a wall since I stopped playing FifaI worried that my gaming brain had got lazy playing modern games, where you are spoiled by power-ups vomiting up all over the place and collision detection so forgiving it could be a priest, and as a result that this golden gaming memory would be tarnished.I was right!The collision detection is at Manic Miner/Mega Man levels of unforgiving, but through trial and error I rediscovered things that make the game easier. The level structures are soft so you can kill an enemy from above or below platforms and even through walls, which brings into play the Turtles different weapon ranges. I remember also that you can hot swap the Turtles. This means using Donatello with his long pole for everything, switching to Michelangelo with his nunchucks then Leonardo with his swords when Donatellos energy gets low and finally using Raphael with his puny twin sai as a last resort. Sai are tiny metal daggers that resemble whatever cutlery it was that Elon Musk balanced on his fingers at Mar-a-Lago. Only more useless. To kill an enemy with Raphael in this game you have to get close enough to smell what toppings they had on their pizza.Indecipherable Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection. Photograph: KonamiI hate-played this for two hours, death after death it was the first time Id thrown a controller at a wall since I stopped playing Fifa.Night one ends, as it did for so many of us back in the day, with that bloody underwater level where you have to defuse bombs under a dam within a time limit so unforgiving it reminds me of A-level exams. You cannot get through that level without hitting multiple radioactive weeds. I cant believe I completed it back in the day, and worry it may have been one of those 90s things I imagined, like that time I said hi to Sarah Michelle Gellar at Comic-Con and was sure she smiled back at me.Horrible clunky gameplay like this serves no purpose in 2025.Or does it?I persevered on day two. I remembered the way to get through that damned dam level is to crash through every enemy and hot swap the turtles when the energy gets low. (And by remembered I mean searched Reddit.)Most importantly I discovered that there is a flipping rewind button in this rerelease! You can go back 30 seconds every time you fail a pixel perfect jump! I wish I read gaming manuals, but I am a man in his 50s. I no more read instructions than I ask for directions when I am lost.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionI completed the level and was treated to the sweetest sentence ever written in video games history. April saying: Its OK the dam is safe lets go home.Buoyed by this I beat the next couple of levels over the next couple of days. Its hard, even with the rewind button, but I recalibrate my whole gaming attitude. I cant charge through levels like you can with games today, for this was the era when you literally had to inch forward, then wait, see what enemies appear, learn their patterns, then move. You have to slow down your whole way of playing. And that isnt a bad thing. In 2025, life moves at 10bn miles an hour. I wake up three times a night checking who is about to invade who.With my heart and mind reopened I re-notice the greatness of this game. The scroll and boomerang weapons are immense, I would put them up there with the BFG from Doom, the Golden Gun from Goldeneye and the Holy Hand Grenade in Worms in terms of sheer fun.I even learn to love the indecipherable nature of the blocky graphics. The Mutant Toad looked recognisable, as were Shredder and his Foot Soldiers. So were the Cheeky Space Monkeys, until I discovered they were actually Giant Fleas. Mostly the enemies are like an 8-bit Rorschach test, their identity the results of projections from my subconsciousness. So that might be a feral butterfly I am trying to kill, but it may also be my feelings of male inadequacy.I am so glad I didnt give up on this game. Because we never did as kids. You had one game a month. You played it. You kept at it. We are gaming dilettantes now, flitting from one subscription service to another, sometimes not even getting past the list of games to actually play one.I am still only halfway through. But I will soldier on through every hard-earned inch. And it will be utterly cowabunga.