TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: TOURNAMENT FIGHTERS - GRANDMASTERS EDITION
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
written by Allo on 3rd March 2025
updated by Allo on 20th October 2025

REASONING AND JUSTIFICATION FOR CHANGES
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The main goal of changes made in this "Grandmasters Edition" was to:
1) balance the Grandmasters Rat King and Karai (who are boss characters and therefore overpowered) by "nerfing" them sufficiently, so they may be used in fair competition;
2) address as many bugs as possible (e.g. control issues, graphical glitches, etc.) that exist within the game;
3) as of v2.0, make the Grandmasters (and War) feel more complete, by adding in missing normal moves that they never had previously, adding in more command normals, and also giving them light/heavy variants of their special moves as well;
4) as of v3.0, add the aesthetic/functional changes to the game to make it polished and complete, as though the Grandmasters are properly integrated and always intended to be played as regular characters.

These goals serve to expand the competitive roster by 2, increasing the playable characters from 10 up to 12. This adds more variety to the gameplay and can change up the existing meta, keeping this game fresh and exciting.

Balance changes were chosen by first assessing what tools made Rat King and Karai too strong, and then figuring out the best way to reduce the effectiveness of these tools. (It is important to note that these changes only apply when played by a human player, so as to make the final bosses in Tournament and Story Mode still very formidable to create a good end game challenge!)

To make the Grandmasters more complete, every single button now has a unique attack when crouching, standing and jumping, just like all the other characters. These added attacks have their own hitboxes, hit/block stun, hit sounds, damage, meter gain and dizzy, frame hold durations; and even updated animations and hurtboxes where necessary. War has also been given cancellable normals, as he is the only character that does not have them.

These changes were then playtested for some time, which yielded promising results. However, it will be worthwhile getting very high level, competitive players in the TMNT: TF community to truly explore these changes to see if they are fair and balanced as it will likely take some time for the meta to evolve, and strategies to be found. Hopefully people see this as a good start! 

To make the Grandmasters appear properly integrated from an aesthetic and functional standpoint, their body portraits have been added to the character select screen, character profiles and demo fights have been added to the attract mode, and proper endings will be added in future as well.

The changes made are detailed below.

RAT KING
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ADDITIONAL NORMAL MOVES
Rat King is missing a s.LP, s.LK, c.LP, c.LK, j.LP, and j.LK. The lack of light attacks means that Rat King is unable to tick throw, which is really a staple of grapple type characters. This restriction also leaves him with no fast attacks to interrupt an opponent's string of attacks. These six normal moves have been added to Rat King's arsenal, which still resemble their heavy counterparts, but with slight variations on their animation frames and frame hold timings. They are detailed below:

s.LP and c.LP - Single hit versions of their heavy counterparts, but with faster startup and recovery, animated with his fists bouncing back instead of following through.

s.LK - A single hit version of s.HK that omits the high kick, and goes straight into the front kick. This has very quick recovery and small hit recoil, which makes it a perfect tick into hit Rodent Suplex or Rat Bomber.

c.LK - Much faster version of c.HK, but obviously does not knock down, also good as a tick for throws.

j.LP and j.LK - Faster startup with continuously active hitbox. Due to reduced hit stun/recoil, the opponent is still within position to land a tick into Rat Bomber afterwards; or even just an earlier Rat Bomber without the tick). This gives Rat King so many more setup options, as a grappler should.

CHANGED INPUTS FOR RAT BOMBER, RODENT SUPLEX, HOPPING AXE KICK AND FLAT RAT
Now that Rat King has light attacks, a light punch Rat Bomber that is whiffed will come out as a very short light punch animation, which cannot be easily punished for making this whiff mistake. Chrome Dome's Electric Pile Driver, which is also a command grab, leaves him flying in the air if whiffed; this can be easily punished. To make a whiffed Rat Bomber more costly and give the opponent more opportunity to punish, Rat Bomber now can only be performed with a heavy punch.

Since the Rodent Suplex (Rat King's normal throw) is also performed with a heavy punch, it can come out mistakenly when a Rat Bomber was intended. As a result, the Rodent Suplex can now only be executed with HK.

The addition of a crouching light kick also now means that the Flat Rat command normal input has had to be changed - it is now crouching LP+LK. Likewise, the addition of a standing light kick now means the Hopping Axe Kick has been changed from just a HK to a command normal, needing LK and HK to be pressed simultaneously.

RAT BOMBER - USEABLE DURING BLOCK STUN
Rat King is too strong for a number of reasons. The first is his Rat Bomber, which is strong because 1) the throw system allows a character to be thrown during block stun, and when combined with the fact that Rat King is positive on block with most jump-ins and grounded attacks, he can essentially react to his opponent's block by performing an inescapable Rat Bomber; 2) it has a greater throw range than even Chrome Dome's Electric Pile Driver; and 3) his rebound after the move is small enough to make it so that he is easily in range to perform another Rat Bomber.

Being thrown out of block stun is essentially a broken mechanic in the game, so this issue was resolved by making a global change to make characters unable to be thrown while in block stun. TMNT: TF is a Street Fighter clone, and no Street Fighter game (outside of World Warrior) permits throws in block stun. It stands to reason that TMNT: TF also should not allow being thrown out of block stun.

RAT BOMBER - RANGE AND RECOIL
Rat King's Rat Bomber range has therefore been reduced from 88 pixels, to 80 pixels (which is the same as Chrome Dome's Electric Pile Driver). This only applies to human players.

Rat King's Rat Bomber also normally leaves him close enough to very easily get into range again to do another one! As a result, his post-move rebound has been increased, and the opponent is also able to recover faster, making Rat King have to put a lot more work to get into Rat Bomber throw range again.

GENERAL DAMAGE
Rat King's attacks also do too much damage. His Rat Bomber does a whopping 38 damage, which beats out the strongest throw move in the game (Chrome Dome's Electric Pile Driver) by 14 points. All his normal attacks also do very high damage, so his overall damage output was reduced by 25%, with the exception of his Rodent Suplex throw. Even with the damage reduction, this still leaves his Rat Bomber at the most damaging throw in the game, but brings it down to 28. This damage reduction only applies to human players, also now applies to the bonus stages (as earlier versions did not).

RAT ARROW
Rat King's mobility is also extremely good, due to the ease of executing his Rat Arrow special move (his jumping HK, which propels him forward). When done sequentially low to the ground, this can have him cross the entire screen in less than 1 second. Given it is a special move which even does block damage, the tool needs to be made harder to use. The Rat Arrow now requires a directional input (i.e. pressing down+K). Down was chosen as it is diametrically opposite to up, and so now doing multiple Rat Arrows close to the ground requires executional skill and therefore be prone to mistakes (which can cause loss of good spacing/positioning, or even leave Rat King flying vulnerable in the air with a normal kick).

The concept of a directional motion was entertained (e.g. U,UF,F+K) given that the Rat Arrow is a special move, but the time it takes to execute said motion would be too long and this would render the move almost useless by comparison! Additionally, Wingnut's Power Dive is also a Special Move that does block damage, and is executed with the same simple single direction motion requirement (down+K).

For completion, Rat King's Rat Arrow has also now been given more variety depending on the strength of the button used, as this helps with Rat King's positioning game. Rat King now has a LK version of the Rat Arrow, which travels at half the horizontal speed of the HK version. This can help him get over projectiles without getting too close to the opponent, and the variety can also create less predictability and make it harder for the opponent to react to.

HOPPING AXE KICK
Rat King's Hopping Axe Kick is also extremely powerful. It is just a single button normal move (which was HK, prior to the changes implemented by the addition of the light attacks), but it can hit THREE times (each being a heavy hit); leaves him positive on block so he can combo with another (i.e. 4th) attack afterwards (which can result in re-dizzy even from an already dizzied state). Additionally, it allows him to cross approximately 75% of the screen with just a single button. (He was also previously able to react to an opponent blocking by performing Rat Bomber while they are in block stun, but as stated earlier, this mechanic has already been fixed.)

To weaken his Hopping Axe kick, as mentioned above, the move has now been changed to a "Command Normal", requiring pressing LK+HK at the same time. Errors in execution leads to a whiffed standing kick instead, which can be a very costly mistake. Additionally, the very first phase of the move where he lifts his leg up now no longer can hit the opponent. The move is only able to hit after he hops forward and brings his heel down. This effectively makes the move have a long startup/telegraph, and removes the ability to easily re-dizzy. Finally, the horizontal movement speed during the move has been slowed down, so he needs to be much closer for all the hits to connect, and it is also harder for him to be close enough to perform follow-up attacks afterwards.

RAT KING'S CROUCHING HEAVY KICK
Rat King's crouching heavy kick has zero startup frames, and recovery is so quick that it rivals the animation speed of some character's light attacks! It also inflicts an incredible amount of dizzy (20 points!), which is significantly higher than any other normal move in the game. Given that it can also knock down, this is obviously overpowered.

As a result, the startup and recovery on this move has been slowed down; and the dizzy inflicted has been reduced to 16 points. This means that his standard three hit combo from the Hopping Axe Kick into cHK no longer dizzies the opponent.

KARAI
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ADDITIONAL NORMAL MOVES
Karai is missing a s.LK, c.LP, c.LK, j.HK. The heavy versions of all the crouching and standing moves come out so fast that they rival the speeds of most characters' light attacks. To balance this, her heavy attacks had to be slowed down, and the light attacks a just slightly sped up versions of her heavy attacks. Karai also gains a close version of her s.LK, a fast knee attack, which has much faster recovery than her long range s.LK and does more damage and dizzy. Karai has an added j.HK, which has a limited active frames window and does more damage and dizzy than her j.LK.

BALANCING
Karai is much more difficult to balance while keeping her core abilities intact, as almost every tool of hers is overpowered. It would have been easy just to strip her of all her tools, but this would result in her losing a lot of what makes Karai "Karai". All attempts were made to try and keep her core abilities wherever possible.

SLIDING
The first and most obvious overpowered tool is her ability to perform infinite combos. One of these involves the ability for Karai to enhance her grounded normal attacks with a forward slide, by holding the back direction while pressing an attack button. Her standing light punches can combo in each other, cannot be ducked under (so will hit crouching opponents) and when used in combination with the slide enhancement, the slide brings her close enough to negate the hit recoil, so she stays close enough to follow up with a never ending string of light punches. As a result, the slide version of light punch has been removed for human players.

Karai can still convert all grounded heavy kicks into slide versions. However, the speed of the slides has been decreased. Additionally, the input has been changed from needing a back+attack input to needing a forward+attack input, which feels more intuitive given that Karai is sliding forward during her attacks.

The computer controlled version of Karai still retains the ability to slide for all of her light grounded normals.

HITBOX OF GROUNDED NORMALS
Karai's standing light and heavy punches are incredibly powerful. The reason is because hitbox starts so high so it can clip jumping opponents that are even quite high into their jump AND extends down vertically so much so that it can hit even crouching opponents! This is too strong, and as a result, the hitboxes for both of these two attacks have reduced vertical sized hitboxes, so that they can no longer hit crouching opponents.

Karai's sliding crouching kick also has a very long range when compared to her hurtbox. Karai's sliding crouching kick had such a large hitbox compared to her hurtbox, that any other character who is also performing a sliding kick at the same time would be beaten out of their attack all the time. The hitbox has been shrunk to have the same position relative to the hurtbox when compared to every other sliding character in the game.

Karai's standing kicks also had an extremely small hurtbox, which meant that it was almost impossible to play footsies against this attack. As a result, the hitbox has been shrunk in length; while the hurtbox has been significantly increased instead.

SPEED OF GROUNDED NORMALS
Many of Karai's normals have very short startup, in particular the standing kick, standing heavy punch, and sliding crouching kick. This makes them far too strong, as this gives Karai too much advantage when playing footsies, and can beat out any other character easily. Another issue is that the very short (1 frame) pauses between each successive animation doesn't make it possible to proportionally shorten them further at higher game speeds, as a 1 frame pause cannot be made any less than 1, despite every other character having shorter frame pauses to make the game run faster. This makes Karai's normals inconsistent between game speeds, making her normals seem slower at higher speeds by comparison. As a result, all the startup animations of her standing kick, standing heavy punch crouching punch, and crouching sliding kick have been made to have longer frame hold durations, so that she is no longer overpowered when playing footsies, and there is also much better consistency of Karai's moves for all game speeds.

Karai's crouching slide kick also has too fast recovery, which doesn't match sliding low knockdown attacks from all other characters. For a move that has such a long range and causes knockdown, she can't really be punished for spamming it. As a result, the recovery on her crouching slide kick has been increased.

JUMPING HEAVY PUNCH
Karai's jumping heavy punch is a multi-hit air move which has a fast downward trajectory, and can be activated very close to the ground. As a result, it can be easily linked into another jumping heavy punch by holding up and pressing heavy punch again just as Karai is airborne again. This creates a never ending loop, resulting in an infinite combo. It also does an extremely high amount of damage.

This move has been changed so that it no longer has a downward trajectory, so cannot be linked into itself. Additionally, it is now is limited to a maximum of two punches, which require the player to actually input the two heavy punch  buttons individually. This requires a bit of timing, as hitting the subsequent button too early or too late will not allow the second punch to execute. This is now a great combo starter, and given that no other character has a two hit jump in, this move now makes Karai a very unique character.

JUMPING KICK
When Karai's jumping kick is performed,  the jump trajectory immediately changes to halt any upward movement and also add a lot of forward velocity (making it travel much more horizontal compared to the Diving Torpedo Punch), turning it somewhat into a Diving Stomp. No directional input is required, so it's very easy to perform low to the ground consecutive Diving Stomp kicks. The speed of these dives rivals that of games in Capcom's Vs. games, much faster than any other Street Fighter game. The closest we see is Dhalsim's drills, which is still significantly slower. This incredible speed and ease of execution makes Karai's high/low mixup game very difficult to react to.

As a result, there is now an input requirement, by holding down, to execute the Diving Stomp. If down is not held, Karai will continue her default jumping trajectory (this is technically a new move that isn't normally in the game). Additionally, to allow the opponent more reaction time, it can only be executed at the peak of her jump (just like Chrome Dome's dive kick). This also means that dives now require good execution, timing and positioning. Mistakes in execution can leave Karai flying vulnerable in the air with a normal non-dive version of the attack. Finally, the dive can only be applied to Karai's j.LK, but not the j.HK. This gives players a choice to make - the ability to dive comes at the expense of damage potential.

DIVING ATTACKS MOVEMENT SPEED
Even with the additional directional movement requirement, Karai's Diving Torpedo Punch and Diving Stomp Kick are still overwhelmingly strong. To further balance them, they now have significantly reduced horizontal and vertical movement speed. The Diving Torpedo now functions like Armaggon's dive attack (D+HP) which has a constant downward velocity rather than being affected by gravity. The Diving Stomp Kick now has a significantly reduced horizontal velocity. Additionally, given both dives are light attacks and don't create a lot of hit stun, poorly positioned/timed dive attacks can be appropriately punished, creating a risk/reward mechanic.

These changed movement speeds only affect human players.

THROW INPUT
Karai's wall throw is performed with a light punch - this is the only character in the game (aside from Chrome Dome) that can throw with a light attack button. For all other characters, a heavy button is used. In a game where there is no whiffed throw animation, a whiffed throw comes out as a heavy attack which has a longer startup, attack duration and recovery compared to a light attack. This seems like a small detail, but it gives Karai an unnecessary advantage. Karai's wall throw is now executed with HK, so there is a bigger risk for attempting to use her wall throw.

THROW RANGE
Karai's normal throws have greater range than other characters in the game. Since she is already so strong, her throw range has been reduced to be equivalent to other characters. This only applies to human players.

WALL JUMP FOR FLYING FIST FRENZY AND FLYING OVERHEAD SLAM
Karai's Wall Jump is extremely easy to execute - it is a two button press move (HP+HK for Flying Fist Frenzy or LP+LK for Flying Overhead Slam), but you don't need to hit the two buttons simultaneously (as in, in the same frame). As long as the two buttons are being held down together at some point in time, the move will execute. This means, you can literally have two buttons continuously held down and the move will keep executing one after another! No skill or timing is required to pull off another one as soon as Karai lands from her previous Wall Jump move. The next one is essentially immediately executed on the exact frame she is able to do another one!

On the downside, both the Wall Jump moves (Flying Fist Frenzy and Flying Overhead Slam) moves are very predictable because a) Karai always jumps off the wall at the same height; b) she always jumps off the wall behind her, c) her flight path is pre-programmed and is not controllable by the player. Both of her moves were designed to mimic Street Fighter's Claw's Wall Dive and Sky High Claw moves, but Claw has the ability to jump off walls on either side, the strength of the attack button used changes certain properties of the move, and the player has control of the flight path after jumping of the wall. Changes have now been made to both of Karai's Wall Jump moves to better emulate Claw's specials, and also make using the move more interesting.

Firstly, the input requirement for Karai's Wall Jump is now a charge down, and then up and kick, to simulate Street Fighter's Claw's move. This means that executing another one requires forethought and precise timing otherwise Karai will get hit before the move comes out, or even clipped as she tries to jump backwards. (There is a huge upside to this move change - it no longer overlaps with the input requirement for her Dark Thunder Ultimate Attack!)

Secondly, Karai can now jump off either wall by inputting a direction (together with up) after the charge down. The direction determines the wall that Karai will jump off, so if up-left or up-right is pressed, Karai will jump off the left wall or right wall respectively.

Thirdly, depending on the strength of the attack button pressed, this will change the height of the jump at which Karai jumps off the wall. Now, a heavy attack button will result in Karai jumping off the wall at a higher height than when executed with a light attack button.

Finally, after jumping off the wall, the player is able to control the flight path by holding left or right. This creates a lot more variety and unpredictability to Karai's special moves!

FLYING FIST FRENZY
This move is one that a lot of characters struggle to deal with. It has so many hits and does a LOT of damage and gives heaps of meter gain regardless of whether or not it is blocked, is pre-programmed to execute the move at the perfect distance for maximum range (making it difficult for most human players to time their counter attack to intercept it without an anti-air attack), and allows Karai to escape all the way to the other side of the screen afterwards making it very difficult to punish.

Despite it's strength, the move also comes with a downside. Once you have input HP+HK, Karai is not able to change her chosen attack. This means that you cannot adapt to your opponent's actions after the move starts.

To address all the issues above, the move has been fixed in several ways, for human players:
1. The Flying Fist Fury now requires player input with a light or heavy punch to initiate the move. This only starts off the first couple of punches, and then the player needs to rapidly press these punch buttons to keep the move going. The hit stop from the hits connecting gives sufficient time for additional punch buttons to be pressed. This means that if Karai's positioning/timing is poor resulting in fewer hits connecting, the player will generally have insufficient time to input enough punches to keep the move going. This rewards good positioning and execution. (The move still caps out at about half the total number of hits that the computer version can execute.)
2. The amount of super meter gain for each individual hit has been reduced by about 1/2, further reducing meter gain for the move.
3. After the move, she no longer jumps back to the end of the screen, but rather stays in the same horizontal position. This means she is in much closer range to be punished afterwards, particularly if the player initiates the move too high, as the post-move bounce may mean she doesn't reach the ground before the opponent recovers from the hit stun. The opponent would then be able to hit her before she lands, further punishing poor positioning/timing.

FLYING OVERHEAD SLAM
Fortunately, this move isn't really overpowered, but is instead quite limited in usefulness. As described before, and doesn't allow the player to react to the situation after the move input has been made. 

Additionally, this move is not able to grab the opponent if they are airborne. This really limits the effectiveness of the move, as just jumping means the move won't activate.

The move now requires player input to execute, which is by pressing left or right and then pressing heavy punch when in close proximity. If executed too far away from the opponent, the Flying Fist Frenzy will execute instead. Secondly, opponents can now be grabbed even when jumping.

GENERAL DAMAGE AND DIZZY REQUIREMENTS
Despite the above changes, Karai's attacks do more damage on average than the rest of the cast; and her dizzy requirements are higher than all other characters in the game.

As a result, her overall damage (with the exception of her special moves and throws) has been reduced by 12.5%. This damage reduction also applies to the bonus stage as well. Her dizzy requirements have been reduced to that of Raph/Mike who have the lowest dizzy requirements in the game.

As usual, the CPU controlled Karai still retains her normal damage and dizzy requirements.

KARAI'S CANCELLABLE CROUCHING PUNCHES AND KICKS
Karai actually gets a buff here, rather than a nerf. Karai's code routines do not support having any of her normals cancellable. However, given how slow the non-sliding versions of her heavy crouching punches and kicks are, a routine has been added into the code to allow both these normal moves cancellable into her Wall Dive. They will obviously not combo, due to the long animation before the special moves actually enter their active attack phase, but at least gives Karai some exit options if the opponent tries to counter-attack.

ARMAGGON
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FIN SLICER (AKA SHARK UPPER)
The intent of Grandmasters Edition was to only change broken global mechanics, and also balance Rat King and Karai. However, Armaggon is so strong that he sits in a tier of his own. This is contributed to by his very strong Fin Slicer (AKA Shark Upper) special move. This move is very damaging, has invincibility startup frames; and on top of this is difficult to punish because a) there are no recovery frames on landing, b) the LK version has a very short flight height, c) and the HK version can end up behind the opponent making all forward facing attacks and B,F charge specials unusable in response!

This overpowered special move is (partly) responsible for the infamous Armaggon vs Armaggon mirror match at high level play. As a result, this is the only non-global mechanic, and non-boss/War balance change to be made.

The Fin Slicer's horizontal velocity has been halved, so that Armaggon can no longer end up behind the opponent (unless they are in the corner). The vertical velocity has also been increased, so he flies much higher in the air, allowing him to be hit on the way down (he still has no landing recovery frames though). Finally, the damage of the first hit has been reduced to compensate for its invincibility startup frames.

WAR
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As of v2.0, one of the goals was to make the Grandmasters and War feel more complete. War has always felt like he was never fully programmed, when compared to all other characters in the game. His negative edge routine does not exist (unlike the rest of the cast), his ending only contains a single panel (while all other characters get two), and he is the only character in the game with no special-cancellable normal attacks (aside from Wingnut and Rat King, who only have airborne special moves anyway), and therefore has ended up as the sole occupant of the bottom tier. As a result, a few changes have been made to make War feel more complete and competitive.

CANCELLABLE c.HP AND CLOSE s.HK (1ST HIT)
It seems very unlikely that having no special-cancellable normal moves was intended by the developers when no other character has this restriction. As a result, two attacks from War have been made special-cancellable. This is his crouching heavy punch, and the first hit of his close standing heavy kick.

This allows him to combo into his light Turning Uppercut. When used with his c.HP, this can make his Death From Above a little safer to use.

ROCKET HEADBUTT
This move has always been perplexing. It is a command normal, requiring simultaneous pressing of LP+LK, but is no more effective than any other normal attacks. It has a hitbox which looks to be positioned to counter air attacks, but his hurtbox is so close to the hitbox that he often gets hit while trying to use it against airborne opponents.

It stands to reason that given it is a command normal, it needs to be made more effective. The hurtbox on this special move has been shifted to a lower position so that War is much less likely to get hit when used as an anti-air attack.

FUNCTIONAL AND AESTHETIC CHANGES
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In addition to boss balance changes, Grandmasters Edition also set out to fix any game breaking mechanics. Also, other functional and aesthetic changes were made to the game to make the game feel more complete.

LEO'S ROTO CUTTER INPUT
Due to the way the inputs for special moves are read, which permits quite long time delays between each successive directional input, walking forward and then trying to perform a Shining Cutter (QCF+P) results in a Roto Cutter coming out. This is not only very frustrating, but reduces Leo's effectiveness as a character. As a result, the attack button used to trigger Leo's Roto Cutter has been changed to a LK/HK (from LP/HP) so that the Roto Cutter will not accidentally come out.

TURTLES' BACKFLIP
The backflip input is to tap backward twice in a row. However, the code is written to consider RELEASING of the back direction as the first back input, rather than the initial tap. This means that holding back for any extended period of time, then letting go and tapping back again immediately afterwards causes the backflip to execute. This is incredibly frustrating, as the backflip can come out in situations when not desired.

For example, if Donatello is holding backwards to block, then an opponent jumps are him, and he wants to use his Headspin Attack to counter the air attack, letting go of back and then pressing down, down-back, back (quarter circle backwards) causes the game to recognise the release of the first back and the second back from the quarter circle backwards as fulfilling the requirements for the backflip, meaning the Headspin Attack never comes out.

Another situation - if Raphael or Michelangelo are charging backwards, uses a special-cancellable normal, and then cancels it into a special move by pressing forward and an attack button, and immediately starts charging again, this results in the backflip coming out instead of the special move. The game recognises the release of the charge as the first back input, and then the charging of the next move as the second input, both of which happen during the special-cancellable normal is still going before the special move comes out.

The code has been re-written to only detect the initial directional press as the requirement for the first back input, instead of back being released. This fixes this he accidental backflip execution that was so rife when playing as the Turtles.

UNBLOCKABLES ON TURTLES AND WAR AFTER ARMAGGON'S SHARK BITE AND CHROME DOME'S GUT PUNCH THROWS
One of the other major game breaking problems was the inability for the Turtles and War to block immediately on landing after the Armaggon's Shark Bite and Chrome Dome's Gut Punch throws. This leads to some very nasty and inescapable follow-up situations, including touch of death combos.

This mechanic has been fixed, allowing the Turtles and War to block immediately after landing from these throws, effectively removing unblockables after Armaggon's Shark Bite and Chrome Dome's Gut Punch.

ARMAGGON, ASKA, SHREDDER AND RAT KING'S INABILITY TO CROUCH BLOCK WHEN LEAVING CROUCHING BLOCK STUN FIXED
These four characters are unable to block for one frame as they return from a crouching block stun back to a neutral crouching state, meaning there are many situations where attacks become unblockable for these four characters. This bug has been fixed, so that unblockables re no longer possible against them.

ARMAGGON, ASKA, SHREDDER AND RAT KING'S INABILITY TO STAND BLOCK FROM A CROUCHING BLOCKING STATE
For most of the cast, when in close enough vicinity to an active attack, they are able to transition from a crouching block to a standing block by holding down-back and then releasing down. This is of critical importance as it facilitates blocking against jumping attacks, when the blocking state was first initiated from a crouching position. Due to programming errors, these four characters are unable to do so. This bug has now been fixed.

NO NEGATIVE EDGE ON SPECIAL MOVES
Negative edge is when certain special moves for certain characters can be executed on release of the appropriate attack button, as well on press. For unknown reasons, not all characters have this programmed in (e.g. War) and not all specials have negative edge either! Not only that, the way the negative edge is programmed into the code is also wildly inconsistent, differing between the characters!!

Not only is this inconsistent, but when combined with the extremely lenient timing requirement of attack button presses (i.e. you can even press/release buttons before the directional requirement has completed), this can make special moves come out when you don't want them to. This is most noticeable when trying to execute combos, particularly when the cancellable normal move and subsequent special move use different buttons, for example, Raph's s.HP into HK Chest Buster and Mike's c.LP into HP Rising Thunder.

As a result, to make things more consistent AND to make combos easier to execute, ALL negative edge detection on Special Moves has been removed.

REMOVAL OF DIZZY METER RESET AFTER BEING THROWN
When thrown, about half of the cast have their dizzy meter reset to zero, while the other half would retain their accumulated dizzy meter. A decision was made to remove the dizzy meter reset, as 1) other fighting games do not have this same mechanic; and 2) logically, it doesn't make sense that being thrown would make a character "less dizzy".

GRANDMASTERS EDITION SUBTITLE
The subtitle "Grandmasters Edition" has been added in place of the Copyright text on the Main Screen.

KARAI'S PORTRAIT
Karai's character portrait has been replaced with an improved one, which better resembles her in-game sprites.

RAT KING AND KARAI ADDED TO CHARACTER SELECT SCREEN
Body portraits for Rat King and Karai have been now added to the Character Select screen. As per the rest of the cast, their body portraits illuminate when the cursor moves over them. The control of the cursor movement implemented by Championship Edition has also been tweaked to reflect the new position of the Rat King and Karai's body portraits relative to the other characters.

CHARACTER PROFILES AND DEMO FIGHTS FOR KARAI AND RAT KING ADDED
During the "demo mode" or "attract mode", a demonstration fight takes place for a featured character and immediately afterwards this featured character would have their character profile shown on screen (containing information about height, weight, age, weapons, goals, etc.). This was noticeably absent for Rat King and Karai as they are boss characters. Karai and Rat King now have demonstration fights, shown first and second respectively. They also now have proper character profiles, complete with information that will match their ending sequences, their character portrait displayed in the top left corner, and their character sprites doing attacks in the bottom right corner.

SPECIAL STATE PALETTES RE-INSTATED
The Championship Edition hack stopped all the special state palettes from displaying. These included the yellow/black palette when being electrocuted by Chrome Dome's Electric Pile Driver; and also when certain characters perform their Ultimate Attack (e.g. War, Shredder, Rat King and Karai) where a special tinted version of the current palette was applied. These special state palettes have not only been re-instated, but there are even additional tinted Ultimate Attack palettes added for all of the additional colours introduced in the Championship Edition patch.

NO CRASH FOR CREDITS ROLL AND BOSS ENDINGS; FASTER CREDITS ROLL
The Championship Edition patch unfortunately introduced a crash for the high difficulty level credits roll (i.e. the version where there are fighters duelling in the background). This has been addressed by always loading the text only version of the credits roll. Additionally, because the credits roll takes so long (almost 4 minutes), the credits roll has been significantly sped up.

Rat King and Karai were never intended to be played in Tournament Mode, and since no endings were programmed for them, the game crashes instead. This has been fixed, by jumping past the ending sequence and straight to the credits roll.

CURSOR MOVEMENT BUG FIX
The Championship Edition patch allowed better movement of the cursor on the main menu, where left and right inputs could be used to move the cursor from one column to another. However, this also resulted in the cursor still being able to move after a menu item was selected. This bug has been fixed - the cursor now cannot change position after a menu item is selected.

LEVEL 6 & 7 CREDITS ROLL CRASH FIX
The Championship Edition patch introduced a bug where the credits roll at Level 6 and 7 (the one with the fighters battling behind the credits roll) would cause a crash. This has now been fixed. At the moment, the music stops when Rat King or Karai enter this credits roll, due to the ending skip code, but since their endings will be added in the next patch, this will self resolve when the endings are added.

EXIT TO MAIN MENU FROM CHARACTER SELECT SCREEN BUG FIX
The Championship Edition patch added the ability to exit from the Character Select screen and return to the main menu by pressing B. However, this cause garbled graphics to be displayed on the screen. This bug has been fixed, resulting in no garbled graphics being displayed, and a more gentle fade out of the Character Select Screen music.

CONTINUES IN STORY MODE
This seems like a trivial change in comparison, but it always seemed unusual that there are 4 Ninja Turtles, but there is a 3 or 5 option for number of continues. In story mode, it should be that each continue can represent each Turtle so that when all Turtles are eliminated, the game is over. As a result, the number of continues you can choose from has been changed from 1,3,5 (and 10 with the secret code) to 1,2,4 (and 10).

BOX ART AND INSTRUCTION MANUAL PAGES
To make the game feel more complete, new box art for Grandmasters Edition has been made. For the front of the box, Mikey was chosen as the lead protagonist, as he is the only one missing out of the NES, SNES and Genesis versions of Tournament Fighters. The logo has also been updated to match the same colour scheme, and the text "Grandmasters Edition" has been added in the same style as the text in the game for continuity. For the back of the box, the author had a lot of run re-writing the text in the same style as the original! The entire box has also been put together, which can be printed out and assembled if someone wishes to do so! The box art can be downloaded here:
http://www.geocities.ws/allo/BoxFront.jpg
http://www.geocities.ws/allo/BoxBack.jpg
http://www.geocities.ws/allo/BoxFull.jpg

Additionally, Rat King and Karai have always been missing move lists in the instruction manuals, so these were also made for them in the same style (fonts, layout, art style, etc.). A commissioned artist was engaged for the artwork. Hopefully people can get enjoyment out of this as well:
http://www.geocities.ws/allo/RatKingManual.jpg
http://www.geocities.ws/allo/KaraiManual.jpg