Game:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989)

Duration: 48:41

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23

Game: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Platform: NES
Completed: December 12, 2022
Rules: Beat the game with only Donatello. No subweapons are allowed, including that invincibility item. If you accidentally pick one up, you have to restart.

After finishing a Mike, Raph, and Leo version of this challenge I decided to give Don a try. All you have to do is beat the game only playing as Donatello, without using subweapons. This includes the invincibility item that makes your turtle spin around. In fact, don't even pick anything up. Subweapons are lava. If you pick one up at all then the challenge is failed. Because using a continue revives the other turtles, don't do that either. I'm also going to upload a version of this with some commentary that may be helpful (or at least entertaining) to people who might want to try this themselves. This recording was only of the successful attempt, not practice beforehand.

Oh and yes...I TECHNICALLY play as the other three turtles just long enough to get them killed within the first minute and I guess that TECHNICALLY counts as a "three death" run :)

Here are some highlights:

Right at the beginning, steamroll the other three turtles so that they cannot be used. This also makes for a good effect during the blimp scene since only one turtle will get into the blimp instead of multiple.

2 minutes, 20 seconds - If you stand at the left side of the screen when it is able to scroll again, you can walk through this enemy. This changes nothing.

2 minutes, 40 seconds - If you can keep all of these flying enemies on the screen then none of the other enemies will spawn.

3 minutes - This is the safest way to beat this boss as Don.

3 minutes, 50 seconds - There is a wonderful solitary red pixel to the right of Don here. There will be two others.

8 minutes - If you hold right while disarming this bomb, you will swim safely away from the coral.

10 minutes, 55 seconds - The buildings here can randomly contain different enemy types. I prefer the Fire Freaks (that's their name according to the manual). If you want to change the enemies you can try leaving and re-entering the area.

10 minutes, 40 seconds - Here's a useful trick to glitch this Fire Freak through the floor.

15 minutes - In this building the Fire Freaks at the bottom spawn so many little dudes that the ones up top can't do much. This is quite beneficial. Just be careful that you don't accidentally pick up any dropped subweapons from the little guys.

20 minutes, 20 seconds - You actually can't walk off once the rope is in place but if you lure an enemy here and get hit then you can fall through the rope and have to restart the area. Also the very end of the last rope can be fallen through on the right side. Don't do that. There's also a fun trick where if you press jump at the apex of the automatic jump here, you can do a useless double jump!

27 minutes, 30 seconds - For whatever reason there's a full pizza here that is invisible until you jump close to it. Before I grab it, check out how if you crouch on spikes they do not hurt you until you get up. This is pointless.

29 minutes, 50 seconds - Room 17 is odd. The conveyor belts only "convey" on the left side, and why is there that spike area up there? Also if you walk into the spikes and hold right, you only take damage when you initially touch them and when you walk off of them. This is all pointless.

31 minutes, 30 seconds - Check out this Mouser trick! Pause at the right time and it will always be vulnerable.

32 minutes, 50 seconds - If you pause at the top of the screen near this pizza then the top of the menu screen will glitch.

34 minutes, 15 seconds - Here's a cool trick. If you climb down the ladder with the leftmost wall off of the screen then the rolling enemy will be able to fly off of the screen and vanish.

36 minutes, 30 seconds - Check out this glitch where I take damage after the battle is over. You can actually die from this and it either locks you at the turtle select screen or starts you in the Technodrome with 0 health (one hit kills you). If you manage to beat Shredder with 0 health, the game never plays the ending sequence.

37 minutes, 30 seconds - I should have ducked and attacked or swung upwards here.

42 minutes, 20 seconds - This gold hallway is absurd and success is based on scrolling the screen and spawning enemies in the right spots. I planned these moves carefully. The "Guide" version of the Mike, Raph, or Leo videos explain this in more detail since they can't kill the whirly enemies in one hit.

46 minutes - Here's a screen scroll glitch! Against Shredder, stand in this exact spot and you're always safe! Also why does your bandana color change when he appears?

Final thoughts:
This was fun! Don is powerful and has great range but his delayed attack and lack of a "swinging" weapon makes some areas a bit tougher. Cowabunga!

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Don Only, No Subweapons, No Death 121222"

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