Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project

Not content with just porting the first Turtles arcade game to the NES, Konami brings us this exclusive 8-bit sequel titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project, featuring the same beat-'em-up action as its predecessor, but with all new stages and foes, some that were later used in both versions of Turtles in Time (including the appearance of Super Shredder).

Debug mode
At the very end of PRG ROM (address ) is the string, where refers to the "master" or final build status of the ROM, and  is the build date ( in the JP version). Changing the letter "M" (use the Game Genie code ) to any other value enables a few simple debugging features:


 * Press any button to skip the copyright text.
 * US version only: On the title screen, hold any direction and press Start to activate the hidden options menu (normally activated with a button code).
 * Lives can be set to "infinite" in the options menu.

At the same version string program performing another check for number "9" presence, if any other value is found (use the Game Genie code ), then some more debugging features are enabled. To activate it, during game press Start to pause the game, then press Up / Down to cycle between debug modes. The letter at the bottom left corner will display the current debug mode:


 * " " - means normal operation.
 * "S" - means Level View mode. Press A then use the direction buttons to scroll the current level. Press Start to return back to the game at the selected position.
 * "P" - means Object View mode. Press A then use Up / Down to select any sprite instead of the main character. Press B to reset the sprite index to . Press Start to return back to the game.
 * "F" - means the Tile Viewer. Press A then press Up / Down to change current CHR bank, press A to draw on the screen the full CHR bank and change between two drawing modes: linear tiles mode and combined 16x16 meta-tiles mode. Press B to switch the CHR swap flag. Press Start to return back to the game.

Tilemap Placeholder
Game packed tilemaps contains at least one unused screen with placeholder graphics from early development stage. This picture should be displayed instead of unfinished cutscenes.

Title
Due to the way Konami localized the first two Turtles games for the Famicom in Japan, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III was released in Japan as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, a number behind its American counterpart. The NES version is based on a slightly earlier build (a day older to be precise) than the Famicom one, despite the later release and copyright date.

Strangely enough, there was no European release of Manhattan Project, even though the SNES Turtles in Time was later released as Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles IV in Europe.

Option menu
The Option menu in the NES version was only accessible by entering a variant of the Konami Code: at the title screen, press Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A, B and Start. The Option menu gives the player the choice to start at any stage, adjust the difficulty and the number of lives, as well as listen to the game's soundtrack.

In the Famicom version, the Option screen is accessible on the title menu, replacing the second "2 Turtles" mode. Since it wouldn't have made much sense to make a stage select feature available by default (a cheat code is still required to access it in any case), the Famicom version replaces the "scene" setting with "game type", which determines whether friendly fire is allowed (B) or not (A). This gives players the added benefit of removing friendly fire even in a single-player game (in case another player joins in the middle of a game), which was not possible in the NES version.

Japanese-exclusive Cheat Codes
The Famicom version has a unique set of cheat codes that are all based on variations of the Konami Code. Simply input any of the following codes at the title screen and then press Start.

Region Switch
There is a game region switch inside both the Famicom and NES versions of the game. The address is, if it $00, then the region and language is US/English, if it $01, then the region and language is JP/Japanese.

To enable the English mode in the Famicom version, use the Game Genie code, to enable the Japanese mode in the NES version, use the code.

There are some glitches in each mode. The Japanese mode of the NES version doesn't have Japanese fonts, so all the messages become gibberish instead. The title screen remains the same as the US one, but a number "2" appears on the center of the screen, and the palette changes to the one used in the Famicom version. On the other hand, the English mode of the Famicom version doesn't have the number "2" on the logo, but has a very glitched palette on the Japanese logo. However, all English messages and cutscenes are readable and seem to be the same as in the released NES version.

Anti-Piracy
The game checks to see if the "&copy;" character and the "&copy; Konami" text have been modified. If they have, the game silently reduces the damage the player deals out, doubles the damage they take, disables cheats and makes Shredder immortal.