TMNT: Turtles in Time (Arcade / ADA) - Donatello 1CC

I finally got around to learning the arcade version of Turtles in Time! I loved this game as a kid, but I knew I'd have to commit a decent chunk of time to it if I wanted to get the clear. It's a hard game, and honestly, it's full of bad and unfair design, but the presentation made us all love it regardless. And despite all of its faults, the difficulty still makes it fun and interesting to play - for me, at least. I'd totally understand why anyone would think this game is crap, lol.

First things first, this is the Asian version of the game. There's also the European version and the North American version, which is the one most of us are more familiar with, presumably. The Asian and European versions are almost identical, as far as I know, and they're quite a bit easier than the American version. There are several differences, but the most notable one is the additional pizzas on stages 4, 5, and 8. There are also less enemies in some of the early stages, but maybe that's due to rank (ie. the game's internal scaling difficulty)? I'm not sure.

In the American version, you have to play a lot more carefully on stages 4 and 5, spawning enemies bit by bit, because you don't get a recovery item until the bosses. The Asian version lets you play more aggressively, at least until you get that mid-stage pizza. I'd consider that a big plus. The pizza power also lasts a little bit longer in this version - it basically lets you wipe out an extra wave of enemies. Not a big deal, but every bit helps.

This game is pretty unconventional with how it needs to be played, so I'll go into some of the specifics.
Firstly, your basic attacks are random. When you press the button, sometimes you'll do a long range attack, other times you'll get a short range kick, and the hitboxes on them might not hit short enemies like the little turtle robots, or Krang when he's floating, etc. You can't control it, and it can get you killed if you're unlucky. So you're better off relying on the special attack (attack+jump) for a number of reasons. It kills all Foot ninjas in one hit, heavier enemies (eg. rock soldiers) in two hits, it's consistently the same attack every time, and the neutral version has invincibility, like a shoryuken in Street Fighter. This applies to all of the turtles, but each turtle has a unique forward+attack+jump special as well. Don plants his staff in the ground and kicks forward, for example. It's a great move, and overall, probably the best one in the game. Michelangelo's is arguably better, since it doesn't have nearly as much delay on start-up as Don's, but it sends him a lot further and can scroll the screen if you're not careful about it. Whichever one you prefer, they're definitely the two best turtles in the game.

The other things you should be aware of are the rank and bomb timer. For those who don't know, rank is basically scaling difficulty, depending on how you play. There's a big difference between max and minimum rank in this game, but you can't really do anything about it besides die. And as soon as you die, the rank basically resets to nothing, and the rest of the stage gets a lot easier. So for me, getting to Starbase without dying is practically a guaranteed clear. There's not much you need to worry about at low rank.
Then there's the bomb timer. Five minutes after the stage starts, a bomb drops that was probably meant to instantly kill you. But you can avoid dying by using your special attack's invincibility (which lasts through its entire ascent - just like a shoryuken). It's typically not that hard to dodge when you're expecting it, and the one way to get a consistent feel for it is to use the game's music. It'll drop on the same 'beat' of the song every single time, so just get an idea of where you'll be around the 5 minute mark, find a safe-ish spot, and wait it out. Staying at the bottom of the screen also gives you more time to react to it, but you don't have as much room to work with on the train car stage.

Those are the major points I suppose. There's more detail to get into with the strategies and hard areas, but I think that's a good primer to get started if anyone is keen to learn this.

This is my first clear of the game. I'm kinda disappointed I died so early in Starbase, but at least I didn't have to inch my way through the rest of the stage. I practiced it a lot at max rank, and normally I'd have to do two bomb dodges. In this run, I didn't even need one lol.

0:00 Intro
0:49 Stage 1
2:43 Stage 2
5:25 Stage 3
8:50 Stage 4
13:13 Stage 5
21:53 Stage 6
31:28 Stage 7
36:04 Stage 8
43:12 Shredder

TMNT Playlist:    • TMNT Shredder's Revenge  
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Beat 'em Ups (e.g. Final Fight):    • Beat 'em Ups  
2D Action (e.g. Metal Slug):    • 2D Action  
STG/Shmups (e.g. Dodonpachi):    • STG Replays