Ultra, the company creator of the game, designed it basing mostly on the original comic books instead the cartoon series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987). It explains why a lot of the storyline and enemies are not what many fans expected, resulting in a lot of negative reviews due to the confusion. Some late additions and changes where made to colorize the Turtles' headbands based on the toy line idea for giving each Turtle an unique identity, instead that all them use a red bandanna like on the cover art of the game, which is how the Turtles where originally shown in the comics. Only parts of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987)'s music where added into the game at a later stage, but the main theme song was not included due to the TV show wasn't being the basis of the game.