Released in December 1990, TMNT 2 was based on the successful four player arcade beat 'em up. However, due to the limitations of the NES, the game is only 2 players and there are no voices. Like usual, the Turtles set out to rescue April and Splinter, then give Shredder and Krang a well-deserved beating.
Best time: 0:35:53 by Freddy 'Frezy_man' Andersson on 2007-10-21.
Author's comments:
It sure was intresting to play the NTSC version of this game. couldn't find any differences except speed. I don't know the speed differences either. But the difference should be something like 15-17 %. That means this run is much faster than my good old PAL run and Elliot's earlier 39:20. It was a surprise that the improvements were this good though. But I got better on the game in general through all attempts and there are lots of new strategies and tricks used. So I pretty much gained time during almost the entire game. Seems like I even improved on killing all foot soldiers. Even though you won't see it. Because these are small improvements, like better positions on the screen and avoiding different moves. There are lots of foot soldiers to kill after all.
Some of the hits I take from foot soldier were bad. When I got some lack of concentration or missed a jump slash (happens a few times during the run)
Some of the damage I took were because of bad luck during riskier positions or moves from my side that, in the end saves me some time ( as I can tell ).
Some damage were taken just because the timing of my attacks or moves were a little bit late or early. I guess that's a normal syndrom. Always trying to do everything a little bit faster.
After a research on Gamefaqs I found that there was a scheme on damage points from your attacks.
It was of some help at least.
Heres a list of some of the noticeable time savers:
- Wheelers that appear in the end of the first level (etc.) were killed faster.
"getter77" told me that it was possible to draw and kill all three at once. I could get them together with some luck. But the attempts mostly failed because some wheelers stopped to shoot the laser lasso, or normal lasers. The result was really bad. But I got a better view about how to kill them anyways. So the fights were in general faster than before.
- Baxter Stockman first Fight. I jump slashed him now.
- Next big time saver should be the large pillar twins that appears a few times in the later levels. Mike Uyama mentioned it for me after my PAL run were posted on SDA. It's an easy way to save important seconds. I never thought about that.
- The big blue ninjas in the dojo were taken down with jump slashes this time. The key was to have a small distance to those enemies so they jumped instead of cutting me with their knifes.
- The gas pillars in the technodrome were passed faster. It wasnt harder to keep jumping then slash them down with the sword.
- Red stone warrior before krang, take damage to save time.
- Kill Shredder and his clone faster. Because I did concentrate on the real Shredder.
Crappy moments:
- Baxter Stockman, second fight. My new strategy here wasn`t that good this time.
- Helicopter battle
- Dojo boss fight was not beautiful (Randomness involved).
- Do I have to mention 4 deaths!?? I'm ashamed.
Seriously, take as much damage and dont bother avoid being hit in some boss fights saves you a great amount of time. Specially the Krang fight. I was disapointed on getting hit so many times and get killed by shredder. It was a bit of bad luck there too. I couldnt have done much about it without loosing time.
Stage by Stage comments:
My choice where Leonardo. Not because he is my favorite. Its because it goes faster to choose him and there is no difference between them in this game other then the coulors of their bandanas.
Crappy level. Im to lazy for reset and got hit doesnt matter much time-wise.
Takes some damage but the wheelers were killed quickly.
I changed my strategy on Rocksteady and Tried with some Jump slashes. This time it was not a big difference time-wise, but mostly I could save a little time because of jump slashes. It's all about luck. Depends on if Rocksteady will back off or not during the slash series.
The Dynamite dudes is troublesome. Sometimes I got them down very quickly. Sometimes very slow. This time I think I did a good job. But no real screw ups during the rest of the level. Its tasty to slap that bitch. But I can't because you actually lose time on it.
A new strategy on Bebop saves me some time. Not much but at least something. ( Yep, because of the jump slashes and the damage taken )
The sewers were good aswell. It doesn't matter how you kill the mousers. The only important detail is that everyone has to be dead when you kill the last one. And I was bored and probably lost my count.
First fight with Baxter Stockman were one of the biggest time savers. I have killed him even faster before. Jump slashes are definately the way to go and it's done better than the PAL run. BUT I got hit during this fight.
Not the smoothest level in the run. But I managed to get through afterall. Yea, the big ice ball/blocks are random. At least I dont have enough reflex to dodge them if those appears right above me. Belive me, I did my best.
The Cool Boss Tora was taken down as fast as in my PAL run. This strategy is faster than Jump slashes (Because Tora retreat in the wrong direction). Also faster strategy than Elliotts strategy. (Jump kick Tora in a corner)
Car garage:
The garage part goes well all the way to the very end. I save a few seconds using signs and gas tubes. *sigh* All those foot soldiers. I screwed up the new strategy against Baxter though. that normally gives me ten seconds. So it's similar to the earlier run (time-wise). The timing is more important now. I normally don't screw up here!
These two parts goes well except for the dynamite dudes on that part where I am walking on the highway. Jump slashes instead of Jump kicks give me one hit animation for each helicopter. But because of two screw ups the result was similar this time. Those helicopters are not easy to kill with jump slashes.
The helicopters have to fly enough long into the screen because otherwise I will get hit by the missiles. I can't jump slash them either if I not wait for them.
The mouser almost ate my turtle finger, gets owned by a few blue and red guys, though, The Laser part is actually a Challenge. But I managed to avoid big mistakes all the way to the boss which was simply beaten with lots of damage taken :P This grey/silver stone warrior dude is a hell of a boss.
The big blue ninjas goes pretty well. screwed up a little against the tigers but not very bad because I always have problems take them down quickly. I tried to save some time killing them before they could do a third "visit" on the screen. I also got a few jump slashes. Thats not an easy task either. jump slashes seems to be harder then normal slash. I dont know why, thats Why I didnt jump slashed the first tiger just as he appears. I just have the chance to jump slash them at the first time when they appear on the screen. Then I have to do the basic slash to keep them inside the screen for as long as possible. I slashed a bit late a few times anyways or didnt walked enough close to the tigers.
The scorpions is like the tigers, a pain in the ass. The bad thing about scorpions is that there is no good strategy against them. I figured ten years ago that normal slashes were the only good strategy. But when you finally get them in to the wall you can hit them with carefully done jump slashes. Even if it may look like shit I'm happy about how fast I actually could kill them this time. Sometimes the scorpions also disappear from the screen when I hit them. They seems to do it more often when I jump slash them. It is also harder to jump slash them. And If I miss I will loose a lots of time too. They should definately swing their tales if I miss.
The boss fight looks like crap. I have done it much faster. Is wasn't a big loss of time when I died. Even if it was a mistake to miss the pizza. The funny thing is. sometimes this battle goes really fast. Sometimes even worse than this. safety jump kicks take lots of time too. Yes, I hate randomness like this.
I didn't really screw up a lot during these corridors or elevator and I did a hell of a boss fight. Don't you think? Probably one of the greatest time saver in this new run. Though. Elliotts Boss fight here last time sure was uber impressive! The jump slash technique looks very poor. Specially because I had to use one more life. But it is way faster.
Later I take down Krang too. It looks like it use too. losing a life or two. But what to do?
Shredder is more interesting. I got a new strategy for this one. Taking down the helmet from the Clone before the real shredder. I found it to be the best strategy. Bacause when the helmet is off he can't do that turtle-killer-shot. And mostly he shoots a lot of that one when the two Shredders are on opposite sides of the screen. And I dont want Leonardo to be an Aquarium Turtle again. Killing the clone also screw up time because of the animation when the real shredder have to split. And then again, you dont know which one is the real Shredder.
This run is almost 3.5 minutes faster then the previous time. Most of it because of new tricks and strategies. Im sure that you can actually beat the game at least two minutes faster with more luck and better gaming and strategies. I probably not improve this run anymore by my own. 20 serious attempts where enough for me. It wasnt that fun. But I am happy over the results. Every attempt ended between 36 & 39 minutes except for this one.
THANKS to:
Well well. Spank you so much to the whole SDA crew for all the time they spend doing boring things to keep making this site even more awesome. Specially Dj Grenola. I don't really know or understand exactly what he was doing. But he was awesome anyways!
And to Elliott Feiertag for the obsoleted speedrun. ( still available on Archive.org as usual ). It was nice to see that there are other skilled Turtles 2 players. And it was more fun to have a time to beat.
And also special thanks to Mikwuyma for pointing out some errors from my PAL run. Like Taking more damage and do more jump slashes on bosses. Also passing the lasers and discussed some other things.
And always thanks to you. Who is the one taking time to watch what I love to do.
This is probably the motivation for me to keep doing speedruns. Hopefully some more in the future.
See ya next mission.