- Uses FCEU Ultra 0.98.15
- Takes damage to save time
- Uses death as a shortcut
- Manipulates luck
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project
My second speedrun. I played the heck out of this game when it was out, and it is probably my favorite beat-'em-up Ninja Turtles game. Unfortunately, unlike TMNT2, there are not many programming bugs that can be exploited for quicker speed, and the Foot soldiers are harder to hit (they have ridiculous invulnerability frames, particularly during their jumpkicks). However, it's still a fairly quick playthrough, and entertaining to watch.
There's certainly room for improvement, as I sometimes delay my movement and attacks intentionally to get the Foot to come out in better locations. I also use Raphael for the majority of the run, who has both the quickest and weakest special attack. The speed of his drill makes it quick to get from place to place during the enemy waves, but certainly slows down the boss fights.
When possible, I try to throw Foot soldiers instead of drilling them. Drilling bounces the body very high, and results in a slower death. However, sometimes the recovery time and mobility of the drill makes it worth it to use where a throw would also be possible.
When obstacles are destroyable, I usually opt not to destroy them as the death animation delays level scrolling. The exceptions are the first few mines and the leaping Foot in the water level.
If you damage an enemy in this game without killing them, they have ~15 frames of invulnerability time after their reel animation; so, with enemy waves, you generally want to kill them in one hit if you can. This rule applies to bosses as well; however, if they don't go into their reel animation, you can hit them again quicker.
Also, Raphael is on a diet. So no pizza for him. ^_^
Level notes
Level 1 (Beach)
The yellow Foot that come out from underneath the sand are supposed to be invulnerable until they touch the ground; however, during the second wave, one of them can be hit for some reason, which helps me avoid backtracking. Not sure why.
Rocksteady is a simple boss. I delay my attacks on occasion to manipulate him into not doing his autoguard shoulder charge, which wastes a lot of time; the obvious exception is the last hit, since he's going to die anyway.
Level 2 (Sea/Submarine)
I tried my best, but even if I had two turtles, it is impossible to kill all the leaping Foot because the turtles move very slow vertically. But since dodging them looked unimpressive, I chose to kill the ones I could.
By drilling close to the wall, you can use the invulnerability of the special move to pass through destroyable objects without hitting them, which I use during the mine obstacle course.
Groundchuck is also straightforward; however, when he walks to where the pipe is, he is completely immune to damage until he swings the pipe once; although you can hit him, he simply won't be hurt. Also, unlike Rocksteady, Groundchuck is programmed to shoulder charge when you first hit him, so I can't avoid that.
Level 3 (Bridge of Death)
The Stone Warriors have an annoying spawn pattern which makes it trickier to kill them. Sometimes it's best to wait until all three of them appear, and then drill them all at once.
Slash is a crappy boss. I couldn't figure out a way to get him to not jump at the beginning of the match. The whiffed drill is an artifact of my attempt, although it actually doesn't waste time since I just drill backwards immediately after.
Bebop's an unusual design; he has a swinging ball on top of his head. While it makes it hard to jumpkick him, I land one for positioning. I also do a drill that doesn't hit at the beginning for better position. Other than that, nothing much to write about.
Level 4 (Floating City)
The foot that come out of the manholes were quite irritating. I do not have a consistent way of killing them as quickly as possible since my position on the screen when they pop out varies. I guess it makes it more entertaining to see the variety of ways they die, though.
The foot with the electric drills have a "walk away" pattern when you kill one of them; so, I let them reach the other end of the screen so I can corner them without having to backtrack.
Dirtbag is a cakewalk; however, keeping him away from the corner is important because if he gets there and you drill him, he'll respond with the pickaxe attack and the only way to avoid that is to drill away from him; I whiff some jump kicks during his invulnerability periods to get better positioning.
Level 5 (Sewers)
The vertically-scrolling sections of the sewer were painful to complete because of (a) the turtles' slow walking speed up and down, and (b) the screwed up elevation properties (drilling from the water to the sidewalk pushes your vertical position up substantially). The second section was especially irritating because of the two Foot waves who jump kick/slide, as they are invulnerable until they stop doing that.
The sub-boss (Mother Mouser) is nothing to write home about. Raphael just does his best M.Bison impression.
Leatherhead is another story, however. During his spin move, he can't be hit, except on the first frame, which cancels it. However, he's more than happy to begin the spin just after you hit him, which makes him invulnerable for the whole thing anyway. In the last part of the fight, I'm forced to jump kick away, wait and drill since he goes tailspin happy when he's almost dead.
Level 6 (Technodrome)
The flying bugzappers from TMNT2 are back in this level. It's very satisfying to kill all of them in two attacks.
The eye spider packets that drop down can be hit, but it does nothing but make them separate into individual eye spiders later, so I just wait for that to happen.
The autoscrolling part with the conveyor belt has electric beams that zap you if you cross them; I do some visually impressive dodging here, however it's less impressive than it looks. Raphael is actually very far away from the beams at all times because the beams' hit boxes are huge. Oh well, looks cool.
Rahzer was not a fun boss to fight. He has autoguard on two attacks; his "run-up-and-slash-you", which is great since he leaves the corner, and his ice breath attack, which is awful because he goes into the corner. He likes the ice breath attack more, so I chase him vertically a lot, which is not fun.
Shredder is another story. He's easy as pie, and his autoguard attack (the wall jump) repositions him for easier back-and-forth drill madness. He goes down quick, but he'll be back.
Level 7 (Building)
The elevator part is simple, although it took a little tweaking to get one drill to kill all the Mousers in the delivery packages. Also, enjoy Raphael's dry heave set to music during the anvil dodge.
Tokka was a fun boss to fight, although a little tricky because of his autoguard jumping bite attack. You can't drill in the same direction as Tokka if he's doing that because when you recover from the drill, he'll bite you. Other than that, not much to write about, although I use one normal attack on him which is somewhat unusual.
Level 8 (Spaceship)
I somehow drill through the rolling Foot without hitting any of them, which is good because destroying them slows down the screen scroll. The same thing is true for the Foot rolling on the cannonballs.
The scenes with the bouncing laser balls and blue Foot were very tough to do. The balls are irritatingly non-cooperative with my attempts to destroy them quickly.
The second Mother Mouser can shoot fire, but who cares. He just gets drilled like a cavity.
Before fighting the last bosses, I intentionally run into the electric lasers so I can switch to Michelangelo, who has the most powerful special attack. Because most bosses don't give me a convenient way to die before the fight and dying takes so long, I can only do this in a timely fashion on Krang, who takes forever to come out.
Krang was an interesting boss to fight. There are two notable things about him. When he separates into two different parts, only his top part is vulnerable to damage, and when they recombine, Krang is invulnerable until he stops flexing. Also, Krang has a shock attack that he can use to negate damage, which sometimes keeps me from double-hitting with Mike's kangaroo kick. (On a side note, I hit Krang three times with one kangaroo kick once, something I couldn't replicate with the next boss.)
The Super Shredder fight is where I'm really glad I didn't stick with Raphael the whole time. He often gets hit twice by the kangaroo kick, and I gun to do this every time, although there are times when I have to let it hit once, or he'll be able to attack me when I land. I also intentionally miss a jump kick once to get him to teleport away from the corner. The fight's also notable because he never once does his lightning attack, which is kind of a shame since he has autoguard for days on that.
And that's that. Manhattan and April are saved, and Raph lost some weight. Yay.
Special thanks
A lot of thanks go out to the people who supported me during my first speed run (for "Super Dodge Ball"); I felt pretty inadequate compared to the other TASers, and your encouragement really helped me pull through. Thanks!
For the TMNT3 run, it was Baxter who helped me loads by providing RAM addresses for the turtles' location and the boss's HP, which was a real boon for precise drilling and for boss fights, particularly Groundchuck (who otherwise gives no indication that he's immune to damage). He also helped with lots of other handy hints and tips and encouragement.
Lots of other people gave moral support as I completed this run: AngerFist, chewan, Dromiceius, Maza, Themattman, Shadow Byrn, shallow, and OmegaFlareX. Thanks a heap, you guys. :)
Suggested description
Not satisfied with kidnapping April O'Neil, Shredder kidnaps the entire dang city of Manhattan, and it's up to the Turtles to stop him. This one-player run completes the game with Raphael due to his quick special attack. Since that attack is also very weak, he is exchanged for Michelangelo during the last two battles.
Suggested freeze-frame: 78600
Truncated: Accepting because of good viewer feedback.