Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game: TMNT2 - Bugfix & Polish

This hack fixes quite a lot of graphical glitches in the game, as well as a few other bugs, and adds some polish when needed.

For instance:
- A lot of enemies had sprites issues, wrong tiles being used, sprites being offset, etc
- Most Footsoldier used beta tiles, even though final version tiles were used for other variants of that enemy in the game
- The turtle face used as a cursor in menus actually had an un-used variant... with a smile!
- Even cutscenes had issues!
- Etc... See the readme file for a full list of fixes and improvements!

Updated to v1.2: More fixes!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game


Bugfix & Polish


v1.2, 28th of Feburary 2021


1) General Info
2) Changelog and v1.1 additions
3) List of Fixes and Improvements
a) Turtles
b) Bosses
c) Enemies
d) Menus
e) Cutscenes
f) Other
4) Patching & Compatibility with other hacks
5) Credits & Thanks




1) General Info

This is a romhack of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game.
It is made for the NES NTSC-U version of the game.

It fixes a variety of glitches and graphical errors, and adds some polish when needed.




2) Changelog and v1.1 additions

The list of new fixes given in the chanlegog was not added in the next section. I suggest you check that
section first, and then this changelog.

v1.0:
- release

v1.1:
- Intro cutscene: Fixed Raphael's leg. Added Donatello's missing hand. Fixed the X position of Leonardo's
head. Added Splinter's missing whisker. Fixed the position of the speech bubbles.
- One of the sprites used for the legs of Footsoldiers was missing a feet, which was obvious by the fact
that a few pixels for the outline of the missing feet were present, and by the position of the other feet.
I added it in. That sprite is used in the walk animation of all Footsoldiers, as well as in the punching
animations of those who can punch.
- For the Footsoldier that kicks door in Scene 1: for the kicking frame, some pixel work to make his leg look
better. After this frame, there was a completely glitched frame that would appear for a split second, I fixed it.
- Blade: drew in and added the missing hand during the Kunai throw animation. Also gave the Kunais a complete
outline so that they become more visible against the white background.
- Venom: some pixel work to make the outline of his tail parts look a bit better in the last frame of his tail
stab attack. I also improved the outline of the sting.
- Added a couple of missing pixels (there was a hole) in the arm of the Kanata soldier for the last frame of his
attack animation.
- Background April at the end of Scene 1 and at the end of the parking stage: some minor pixel edits to make
her look a bit better.
- Some minor outline fixes to a couple of other sprites which is hardly worth mentionning
- Fixed the garbled looking background tiles of the parking stage

v1.2:
- Some more polishing on the intro: placement of Raphael, placement of the "Fire!" speech bubble and of its tail.
That's on top of the fixes for the intro done in v1.1 (see intro.gif in both v11 and v12 folders).
- Added Krang's missing hand during his spawning animation (see Krang_spawn_hand.gif)
- Replaced a few tiles for the blown-up wall during the vertical scrolling of Scene 2 (see blownupwall.gif)
- Some minor pixel polish on some of the Turtles portraits in the characters select as well as during the ending
- Added a few missing pixels for the outline of Foot Soldiers defeated frames, as well as for the blue Stone Warrior.
- For the bushes in Scene 3, replaced the row of black pixels at their top by blue pixels, so that it fades better into
the water.
- More clean up on the outlines for the Spear and Hammer Foot. Also got rid of the stray black pixel on the Spear's
leg, sadly couldn't do the same for Hammer.


3) List of fixes and Improvements

You can refer to the screenshots and gifs I have joined with the hack, but keep in mind I did
not provide screenshots of everything, only the bigger stuff or what requires a visual explanation the most.



a) Turtles:

- Fixed the wrong tile for Donattelo's leg during the initial frame of the A+B attack (donatello.gif)
- Fixed the wrong frame appearing under certain circumstances at the end of the A+B attack for Donatello
and Michaelangelo (glitchedattack.gif)
- Fixed the shadow on Michaelangelo's arm during one of the frame of the A+B attack (fix taken from the Jap version)
- Drew in the missing part of the Nunchuk during one of the attack frame (michael.gif)



b) Bosses:

- Rocksteady: Before the rush-running attack, he puts away his gun (and grabs it back at the end of the attack), however
the gun was missing in one of the frame and the hand was incomplete. I took the gun and hand from other frames and
put them together (rockholster.gif)
When shooting upwards, a part of the gun was missing. I drew that one from scratch (rockshoot.gif)

- Bebop: Added the missing bandana on his leg during the running animation (fix taken from the Jap version).
Fixed his defeated frame
If some of his onion ring shots are still on screen at the moment he's defeated, they now get deleted.

- Baxter (fly form):
During the fly-swap attack, the two first frames had many issues (wrong sprites used, wrong placement for sprites, etc)
See Baxter1.gif and Baxter2.gif

- Granitor: Drew and added on all his frames the missing tile below his head
During the "gun smack attack": drew and added the missing tiles on his arm, but also fixed the wrong tile
appearing around his knee (granitorsmack.gif)
During his damaged frame, fixed the wrong tile for the hand being used (granitorhurt.gif)
Removed one tile for his outline near where the gun is so it doesn't look weird when he's highering his arms

- Shogun: small adjustment to the outline of the feet for the defeated animation



c) Enemies:

Footsoldiers:

- Most of the footsoldiers in the game were using beta sprites for their upper body, combined with final version sprites for their feet and
lower legs, which lead to several discrepencies (legs appearing "cut", wrong knees, etc). Some body parts also look better in the final version.
The first footsoldiers you meet in the game however have final sprites for the entirety of their bodies, so I applied those to everyone who was
using beta sprites (footbeta.gif).
I also cleaned up slightly the two jump frames (initial jump + jump kick), mostly for the outline.

- Katana foot: This one is interesting, refer to the Katanafoot folder.
The US version had the final version upper body, but was missing parts of the sword. The Japanese version has the sword parts,
but the body was using the beta version.
I made a version that uses the final version body but with the sword parts, best of both worlds.
Even after doing that, some of his sprites had to be offset 1 pixel for it to look right like other footsoldiers.
I also fixed the sword looking crooked on a frame or two. Yes, I know katanas aren't straight, but it still didn't look right.

- Gunning foot: even after updating the beta tiles, he still needed an extra pixel on his leg for a walking frame (footgunwalk.gif)
For his shooting frames, moved the upper body sprites 1 pixel inward (footgunshoot.gif)
For his shooting anim: the upper body goes down 2 pixels on the 2nd frame, I made it go down 1 pixel instead so weird
pixels don't appear around the leg area, and the animation looks smoother that way.

- Boomerang foot: fixed the empty space on his arm during the throwing animation (footboomerang.gif)

- Hammer foot and Spear foot (foothammer.gif and footspear.gif):
Some fixes around the knees and legs
Made the outline/shadow look smaller. For the longest time I thought these guys wore a robe, but nope, it was just really big shadows.

- Foot throwers: small outline additions to their hand when they're still holding what they're about to throw, so it looks less like they're missing
a hand. The footsoldier throwing missiles also needed a fix for his leg.


Mouser:
- During the spawning animation: fixed the frame where the top of its head appeared twice (mouserspawn.gif)
- Fixed leg during jump frame (mouserjump.gif)
- Fixed the upper frame of the "arm biting" animation
- Small improvements for his outline (all frames)

Roadkill Rodney:
- At the end of the spawning animation, the drill retracts into the robot's head, however the drill was missing in one of the frames.
I drew that one in. (roadkillspawn.gif)
- During the electric lasso attack, the lasso was offset too far from the body on one of the frames
- Minor fixes on the outline

Turrets:
(turret.gif)
- Added more sprites at the top of the turret so it doesn't look like they're floating in mid-air
- Mirrored the guns on the turrets. It's arguable whether or not it should be this way but I think it looks better

Frosty the Hit Man:
- Small improvements on his outline for all the snowman frames (Frosty.gif)

Blade:
- His hand was offset during one of the walking frames (blade.gif)

Vincent Van Growl:
- When the tiger spawns, he turns into a sprite. I adjusted the X/Y pos at which the sprites spawn so that they match the exact position the tigers
have on the background.
- Some slight improvements to the outline of the tiger



d) Menus:
- On the title and continue screens, the cursor is a turtle face. I found out by accident that this face has a 2nd frame, with a grin.
It is pretty obvious that this grin is supposed to appear when you select something, so I added it. I didn't make it appear if you decide to give up
on the continue screen however, which seemed more fitting. (titlegrin.gif)
- The sound for selecting options were missing on the continue screen, I added it.
- After the ending, there is a Game Over screen, but it used the same downbeat "You lost!" music as the Game Over screen which appears when
you've lost all your continues. I changed it to the trademark TMNT melody, I think the version I put goes well with Shredder's taunt at the end of
the ending, strengthening the cliffhanger feel.



e) Cutscenes:

- At the start of Scene 2, when April asks for help on the TV screen: fixed the outline on April's chin as well as her coat near her right shoulder.
Also centered her "HELP !!" message (AprilHelp.gif). For Shredder, a slight fix on his mask and lowered the bar on the "A" and "H" (ShredderHa.gif).
- At the end of the sewer stage, the turtles walk away and jump, but they were going in the direction they were coming from...
I changed it so they jump towards the exit manhole instead.
- During the "Turtle soup!" cutscene, added the 2 missing pixels for Shredder's outline (turtlesoup.gif)
- After rescuing April, everyone walks to the Turtle Van. One of the frames of April's walk animation was offset 2 pixels up, I reduced that by
one pixel to make the animation look smoother and less jumpy.
- Van crash: fixed the position of the first turtle's leg, and added a couple of pixels for the outlines of both turtles (vancrash.gif)
- Once Splinter is rescued, his background art turns into a sprite, but the position of the sprite was higher than it should be, fixed.
Just after that, Splinter comes down, and his sprite made a sudden jump on the Y axis when reaching the ground, also fixed.
- For the ending, fixed the wrong tiles appearing at the top of the bottom left building (ending.gif)


F) Other:
- For about half of the bosses and for some of the enemies, the palette flickering when they're damaged or low on HP would cycle through the
2nd player's palette (bossbadpal.png). Fixed it so it only goes through the red/orange palette like it does for the rest of the bosses or in TMNT3.
- Made the pal flickering stop during the defeated frames for Rocksteady and Baxter (fly form), so that it behaves like with the other bosses.
- Fixed the slices of pizza that could, under some specific circumstances, appear as "XYZ." instead of pizza slices (pizza.gif)
- In a few rare occasions when a footsoldier grabs you, the wrong tile would appear for his hand. I fixed that the best I could, which
is to say not completely (footgrab.gif).
- For the skateboarder NPC girl in Scene 2, replaced her legs by her Japanese version's.
- In Scene 7 (ninja stage), fixed the timing of the animation for the Footsoldier coming through the rotating wall, so that it is better in sync with
the animation of the wall (footwall.gif)




4) Patching & Compatibility with other hacks

a) Patching:

Made for and tested with this rom:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II - The Arcade Game (USA).NES

Using an IPS patcher such as Lunar IPS to patch the rom.
You can find the rom on archive.org.

b) Compatibility with other hacks:

- This hack is fully compatible with my other hack: "TMNT2 - Turtle Swap" !
First, patch an og rom with this hack, then with Turtle Swap, or vice versa. The order should not matter.

- This hack should also be fully compatible with "TMNT II - The Arcade Game Revamped"!
First, patch an og rom with Revamped then with this hack. The order is very important here.

You can grab both hacks on romhacking.net.
Compatibility with other TMNT2 hacks is unsure of.




5) Credits

ASM editing and art editing: MetHy aka Ness

Thanks to SCD and rainponcho for their Revamped hack of this game. I did not use anything from their hack
to make this one, everything we have in common we both took from the Japanese version of the game, but I
did look at how they handled the defeated sprite of Bebop, and even though I went for a completely different
solution, it helped me a bit.

Thanks to Anonymous for his hacking help.

Thanks to the FCEU X and YYCHR devs.

Feel free to use this hack in your own hacks, no need to ask me, just a small credit is enough.









































!!! Dick's secret stash!!!

6) Things I didn't or couldn't do but maybe I will in a later update:

- Adding the "hi-score" on the title screen like in the Jap version. It's not that complicated to do, but I'm not sure it matters as the score in this game
really doesn't (matter). Indeed there are two places in the game where you can grind for points infinitely, one of which is very safe.
- Rocksteady's defeated frame should flicker, but I ran out of space in both the PRG bank used by him, and in the main PRG bank (when combining this hack with
Turtle Swap).
- When sprites collide with the HUD, they appear "behind" the HUD, but sometimes the whole system craps out and you can see sprites flicker in and out.
The whole system seemed a bit too complicated for me to be worth investigating at the moment. TMNT3 and Batman Returns (NES) "fixed" this by putting the HUD
on the bottom of the screen instead, (smartasses).
- When sprites are located on the left edge of the screen, parts of them show up on the right side of the screen. I think I know exactly how to fix that, the
thing is, when combining both this hack and the Turtle Swap hack, I ran out of space in the "main" PRG bank which is where this code is located.
- The cars that go through the screen in the snow stage and on the highway stage: the top of those cars should appear "in front" of the turtles when the turtles
are above the car, instead of making it look like they're walking on the cars. Under the circumstances, it seems impossible to achieve this with background stuff.
However, I may have thought of a solution but I'm not sure it would work...
Again, TMNT3 and Batman Returns "fixed" this by having their background-made vehicules appear at the top of the screen instead (smartasses!).
- The vertical scrolling in Scene 2 looks like absolute crap. Vertical scrolling in TMNT3 is stellar though, but this kind of stuff is probably too advanced
for me at the moment.
- The collision with certain background objects, mainly slanted walls, is awful, and again, is much better in TMNT3 but probably too advanced for me.
- In some cases, enemies can walk on background objects that should be blocking. I think they only check for the Y axis location of the top of the screen,
unless told otherwise, so it can probably be fixed.
- The shadow of turtles and footsoldiers don't update properly during a jump to a higher ground level.
- The shadows of the "Tubular Transports" (small flying helicopter thingy enemies) flicker all the time. Even after disabling the routine that does that,
they'd still flicker all the time unless there was only 1 enemy on screen. There is probably another routine that favors shadows for sprites flickering,
in anticipation of sprite flickering related to the 8 sprite limit... and I should probably leave it be!
- There is a system that stores and loads players HP when they get to another scroll, which is used before the bossfights at the end of the first and final stage.
In theory, the transition between the highway stage and the skateboaring stage should also use this system, since both scrolls are a part of the same one stage,
and the Skateboarding segment is like "the bossfight" of that stage. But it would make the game a bit harder as HP wouldn't get replenished at the start of the
skateboarding segment. Players may hold that against me.
- When Footsoldiers are throwing something, their arms look really small. To fix that, I'd either need to get rid of the outlines or add two 8*16 sprites, just for
a couple of pixels... neither solution was satisfactory.
- During the intro cutscene, the weapons of the turtles appear the wrong colours. I don't think I can do anything about that considering all the palette slots
are used.
- During the cutscene when the Turtle Van crashes, the outline of the van (and other parts of it) appear transparent. I could probably fix that by adding (a lot)
more sprites.
- During the cutscene(s) with the Technodrome: the exit of the cave looks absolutely horrible, but that thing is a mess that looks like it'd take more time to fix
than it's worth.

Database match: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II - The Arcade Game (USA)
Database: No-Intro: Nintendo Entertainment System (v. 20180803-121122)
File SHA-1: 40FF068D2A7BE1202D843C2A9DC1220F087A094A
File CRC32: C9FFBBDB
ROM SHA-1: DEE9CF8DCC91DE3F9C65181A07E7E84F7570363D
ROM CRC32: A9217EA2