Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III - Radical Rescue is the final Turtles game released for the GameBoy. Unlike the other GameBoy Turtles games, it isn't a sidescrolling Beat 'em up game, but is actually a Metroidvania by Konami released years before Symphony of the Night. Each Turtle has a unique ability that they can perform and the goal is to "rescue" the 3 other turtles (you start out as Michaelangelo), Splinter, and April. To do this you must fight several D-List Turtles villains like Scratch and Dirtbag before fighting the big bad (cyber) Shredder who is guarding April.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Bizhawk 1.12.0
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes damage to save time
- Genre: Action
- Genre: Platform
The general route I follow is similar to that of sprocket2005's TAS on youtube. I skip rescuing Donatello (who lets you climb walls) and Splinter through a trick where you land on a platform that is supposed to be slightly out of reach. By turning around in midair you can clip the edge of the platform and it will push you ontop of it.
I take a lower route leading to Scratch instead of the upper route sprocket's TAS takes, I timed it to be about 8 seconds faster.
Attacking on the ground freezes you in place for a while making it less than ideal for attacking most regular enemies, but it does have a longer range than the jump kick so I sometimes use it to attack bosses or grab items from a slight distance.
Michaelangelo's ability to hover by pressing the A-Button in midair will push you up a pixel if done at the peak of the jump and then set you to start falling instantly. I abuse this to land on platforms faster and start my next jump sooner. You could also use this to do Donatello skip instead of the turning around but I timed it to be slightly slower.
You can also start to descend after using a jump kick if you tap the direction opposite to which you're facing. This will cancel the jump kick and can cancel upwards momentum. I think I used this twice throughout the TAS, maybe more. Generally speaking changing when you jump kick such that it occurs near the start of a jump to allow hovering onto a platform is better, but you don't always get that luxury.
Jumping will prevent you from moving left or right for 1 frame and landing will also prevent your from moving left or right 1 frame.
Some enemies can be manipulated by when or how long you jump. This is important for lag reduction.
I'd like to thank sprocket2005 for his 19:55 TAS on youtube. It helped with a lot of the general routing. I'd also like to thank Cristiano for suggesting the lower route to Scratch in a youtube comment on sprocket's TAS. Finally I'd like to thank arkiandruski for his WIPs on TASVideos that were helpful to compare against and finally I'd like to thank YOU for watching <3.
GoddessMaria: I have gotten around to looking at this submission and it looks very well made in both entertainment & optimization! Especially given this game's.. unique nature with the way it handles enemies. So congratulations!
Accepting to Moons.