Game:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989)

Duration: 51:27

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94

Game: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Platform: NES
Completed: November 7, 2022
Rules: Beat the game with only Raphael. No subweapons are allowed, including that invincibility item. If you accidentally pick one up, you have to restart.

In a previous video I wanted to play using only the "worst" turtle but I actually wasn't sure if that would be Mike or Raph since Mike has better range but Raph deals more damage. I initially chose Mike but after doing both I realize that a Raph solo run is harder. He does a tiny bit more damage than Mike overall but it isn't enough to kill the important enemies any quicker. To make this challenge more interesting, no subweapons are allowed at all. 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 the hours of practice beforehand.

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.

1 minute, 45 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, 5 seconds - If you can keep all of these flying enemies on the screen then none of the other enemies will spawn. Some horrible lag occurs right after, messing up my jump.

3 minutes, 50 seconds - There is a wonderful solitary red pixel to the right of Raph here.

4 minutes, 20 seconds - If you jump above these foes then they will crouch back down, making life easier for you. Be sure to notice this one red pixel that is near the ladder near the top of the screen. Do you see it? Why is it there? What an amazing pixel.

7 minutes, 40 seconds - If you hold right while disarming this bomb, you will swim safely away from the coral.

10 minutes, 35 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.

11 minutes, 15 seconds - Here's a useful trick to glitch this Fire Freak through the floor.

14 minutes, 20 seconds - 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 - That guy just fell through the floor!

21 minutes, 10 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.

27 minutes - For whatever reason there's a full pizza here that is invisible until you jump close to it.

27 minutes, 30 seconds - Nice glitch on the left side of the screen.

28 minutes - If you step on spikes, you take damage, but you can crouch and be fine until you get up. This helps no one.

29 minutes, 20 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 once. This is all pointless.

32 minutes, 50 seconds - I wanted to demonstrate how to handle the porcupines if you have to walk out of here.

37 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.

42 minutes, 55 seconds - Sometimes if you drop and go right you can despawn enemies here.

48 minutes, 30 seconds - This subweapon drop was insane and would have ended the run had I picked it up!

51 minutes, 30 seconds - This gold hallway is absurd and success is based on scrolling the screen and spawning the enemies in the right spots. I planned these moves very carefully. Watch the "guide" version of this video for commentary.

55 minutes, 40 seconds - Against Shredder, stand in this exact spot and you're always safe!

Final thoughts:
This was definitely harder than the Mike only, no subweapons challenge but was totally worth the ride. Cowabunga!

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Raph Only, No Subweapons, No Death 110722"

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