Uploaded January 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

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I wanted to explore this glitch more and the old video had awful quality, so I decided to redo the glitch in a new video and add some other observations about it. Old video in case you're curious: youtube.com/watch?v=AGiGWSisLyY

Basically, when you destroy the Technodrome Guardian, the tracks sometimes damage you during the victory cutscene. If the damage is enough to kill you, various things can happen depending on the timing of the death. Didn't test it extensively, but I'm fairly certain you have to destroy every individual part of the Guardian before you destroy the eye for the damage to occur afterwards.

0:00 Main glitch (Skips part of the cutscene, zombifies turtle)
- This is the main glitch I discovered twelve-odd years ago. If you kill the boss while you're far enough to the right of it, you will die and it will skip the rest of the cutscene. Afterwards, you will be in a zombie state where you are still playing the turtle that died, but are unable to pause the game to switch to other turtles. Getting hit in this state instantly kills you.

0:25 Dying way too early (Regular death effect)
- If you die as soon as the destruction begins, the game will treat it as you losing to the boss like normal.

0:41 Dying slightly too early (Softlock on character select)
- If you die after getting only a little bit into the cutscene, you will enter the "[Turtle] got caught." menu, but the game will softlock. It won't let you choose a turtle.

1:01 In-between death (Doesn't skip cutscene, zombifies turtle)
- If you die late enough to trigger the zombie turtle glitch, but still a bit early, the game won't skip the fanfare after defeating the boss. Outside of this, the glitch is identical to the main one.

1:33 Collecting pizza (De-zombifies turtle)
- If you eat a pizza or rescue yourself (latter is impossible without glitching/hacking due to unavoidable hazards), it will fix the zombie turtle glitch, allowing you to switch turtles and play normally again.

1:50 Defeating Shredder as a zombie (Zombifies game)
- If, through some miracle, you manage to reach Shredder and kill him while you're still in the zombie state, the game will softlock. There seems to be something in the code that forces the boss to stay alive if it detects you are dead, so it will take away your controls and Shredder will keep attacking you endlessly. This softlock is very similar to a glitch I encountered on my game about 5 years ago (youtube.com/watch?v=rCv1h9MDq9Y).

Not shown in the video, but if you die right after you've thrown something (Shuriken, Scroll, etc.) at the boss and it hits after you've died, it won't kill the boss regardless of how little health it has left. This is also why Shredder doesn't die if you get to him in the zombie state, since it triggers the same status check.

Assuming you don't have other caught turtles, reaching the area with a captive turtle in your zombie state will have you staring at yourself. Here's an example: imgur.com/WC8CLAc

Happy new year by the way. Can't wait for 2028 when "Technodrome Guardian Death Glitch Once Again" comes out.