Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade)

A 4-player TMNT beat 'em up? Come on, kids were all over this.

Unused Music
A short track that never plays anywhere. Might have been an early title screen piece from before Konami obtained the rights for the TMNT theme song, or from a removed cutscene.

Level List
A level list in the game appears in memory at. Note that Stages 9, A, and B are levels that were cut from the game!

Unused Dialogue
All of the dialogue balloons in the game are stored as tiles, making it easy to find unused bits.

Turtle Dialogue


The Turtles were supposed to be a lot chattier. Some of this text appears to be related to multiplayer.

Boss Dialogue


Unused boss (and Turtle) dialogue. The first balloon would come from Granitor The Stone Warrior, as he's the only boss that can scorch the Turtles. The second set could be from either Granitor or General Traag.

Other


While this line of dialogue is said by Splinter at the end of Stage 4, it doesn't appear in the standard dialogue balloon.

Removed Power-Ups


There are three unused pizza box sub-types that would give different power-ups. These boxes are color-coded to a Turtle: Leonardo would get Speedy, Raphael would get the used Energy pizza, Michelangelo would get Whirly, and Donatello would get Zappy. There's no code in the game to actually give the player these bonuses, though, so each pizza gives the energy bonus, regardless of pizza box type.

To change the first object on screen to an unused pizza box type, change the following memory addresses:
 * to
 * to for Speedy,  for Whirly, and  for Zappy.
 * to
 * to



Dialogue balloons for these bonuses. These are probably placeholders, and would presumably be replaced with dialogue more in line with what the Turtles would actually say.



Zappy seems to be the most complete out of all of the power-ups. The player would be able to pick up a laser gun and fire lasers at enemies.

It would have been interesting to have a projectile weapon in this game, but the possibility for that is gone now.

Change memory address to  to set Player 1's weapon to the laser gun. It seems that the coding for this weapon was never finished; it doesn't actually fire a projectile, and the laser gun emits no sound effects.



A frame of the Turtles drop-kicking with the laser gun in hand is in the graphics ROM, but it's not implemented. The developers might have run out of time before finishing this power-up.

A sound clip for Speedy is in the game, but that seems to be the extent of that power-up's presence in the ROM. Whirly doesn't even get that much.

Unused Foreground Graphics
A superabundance of sequestered scenery.

Scene 1


A smoldering apartment room with what appears to be a model plane, a small table, and a box of toys.

Scene 2


Large windows appear in the game, though they are never in a broken state like this. It's feasible that Foot Soldiers would have appeared out of the windows, breaking them in the process.



This is a bit more curious. These tiles show a broken version of the streets and sidewalks in the Downtown section, which seem to lead down into an abyss.



Some graffiti tiles that were abandoned from an earlier version of the stage.

Scene 3


Two different building designs that should have appeared in the hoverboard portion of the stage.

Scene 4


These graphics would have appeared on Background Layer 2, meaning that these tiles would appear in front of the object graphics. There's a crane, an assembly line machine, and steel supports.



There are a good number of unused tiles in the style of the rust-colored metal walls in the latter part of stage 4.

It's possible that the rusty metal tiles would have been used in their own stage -- possibly the cut Elevator stage -- and were shuffled into stage 4 when that level was eliminated.

Other


There are three versions of the Konami logo in the game's data. The smallest version of the logo is not used.



An old font and dialogue balloon are present early in the first Graphics ROM. Note that this is stored in a different place than Splinter's dialogue in Stage 4, which uses a different copy of the dialogue balloon and is not font-based.

Unfortunately, only half of the old font remains in the ROM. The other half was replaced by a small Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles logo.



Even more unfortunately, that small logo isn't used either! Way to go, jerks.



A sad version of the Turtle player icon with a single tear on his cheek. Presumably replaced by the animated crying Turtle graphic.



Character Designer "Moriyama 25" and Animation Designer "K. Yamashita" put their names in the middle of the downtown tileset.



These filler tiles saying "Down Town 改造" ("Down Town kaizō"), or "Down Town Remodelling", are also found in the downtown tileset.

Unused Object Graphics
An exuberance of esoteric entities.

Some of these objects have been coded and have object IDs. Follow these instructions to alter the first on-screen object to the unused object:
 * Set to XX, where XX is the given Object ID.
 * Set, , and to

Turtles


An odd animation of the Turtles trying to regain balance.



A frame with the Turtles tied up and sitting on the floor. In the game, the Turtles are always on their feet when they're tied up.

Scene 1


Object ID:

It's a lamp. This would have been used in April's apartment.



Object ID:

A flipped chair that would be placed near April's desk.

Scene 2


No Object ID

Early (and very much off-model) graphics of April O'Neil's appearance in the Downtown level.



Object ID:

An alligator (It's not a crocodile; its teeth aren't visible when its mouth is closed) that would have appeared in the sewers. It slowly moves to the left, occasionally opening its mouth. It can't harm the Turtles in any way; like the mice that appear in the sewers, it was most likely designed to liven the place up a bit.

The palette is probably incorrect, but it's the closest matching palette found in the sewer area.



A parking lot ticket machine. CHELONIAN CHALLENGE: Where in the stage would this object appear?

Hint: Not in the sewers.



No Object ID

An older, smaller version of the heart graphic used when April kisses one of the Turtles.

Scene 3
No Object ID

The tires that the Foot Soldiers throw in this stage were supposed to either bounce along the ground or just roll. In the actual game they simply fly through the air.



No Object ID

The back of a trailer truck. Foot Soldiers could have come out of this object during the hoverboard sequence. In the final game, the Foot Soldiers spawn off-screen.

Other


No Object ID

This small angel might have circled around the turtle's head when a life was lost.



Some unknown spinning object. This might be related to the Whirly or Speedy power-ups, or it might be something completely unrelated.

Hidden Graphics
These graphics are used, but they're not visible during play.

Scene 1


The Statue of Liberty picture, mirror, vent, and upper bookshelf are obscured by a layer of smoke in the game.

Scene 2


The "CHECKS CASHED" text, orange "Electoric" sign, and skyline are hidden above the top of the screen.

Scene 4


The Max Headroom text at the top of the elevator entrance are out of view in normal play.

Scene 5


Long hexagonal lights and a computer are present in Shredder's room, but are never seen.

Title Screen
Keeping with the standard franchise name change, the European arcade game's title is Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. The title screen music wasn't changed, nor were the weapons that the Turtles use, making this change rather pointless.

The Japanese version has a subtitle (Super Turtle Ninja) not seen in other versions.

Scoring Change
The Japanese versions fix an exploit in the scoring system. In all other versions of the game, the throwing weapons used by the Foot Soldiers give a point when destroyed. The player can rack up a lot of points by standing a short distance away from a Foot Soldier and destroying every projectile that comes their way. In the Japanese versions of the game, projectiles no longer give points.