Well, here is my improved version of TMNT. This one is 876 frames (14.6 sec) faster than my previous run.
Most of the improvements come from cleaning up mistakes such as optimizing some jumps, handling falling off ledges better, redoing some oversights, minimizing lag, and manipulating luck more skillfully.
1 new trick was added (discovered by Spider-Waffle). Apparently using up+down+attack with raphael allows him to pick up items well over his head. I use this trick to get missles and ropes earlier. Most of the saving was negated by the 2 turtle switches necessary each time. The total savings in these two areas was about 100 frames for missles and about 15 frames for rope.
I figured out how item drops work. You must kill 23 enemies in a zone. The 24th enemy then has a random (quite likely actually) chance of dropping an item. This proves that shurikens can not be used any sooner than when they were obtained in my previous run. I use this knowledge to get shurikens more optimally and to agressively use them since I can manipulate more of them along the way. Extra shuriken use accounts for several seconds of improvement.
Summary:
All categories same as before
I hope you enjoy.
Truncated: Accepting this improvement.