Battletoads
System: NES
Release Date: June 1991
Developer: Rare
Publisher: Tradewest
Genre: Action
Take control of the baddest amphibians in town in Battletoads! While Pimple and Princess Angelica decided to take a pleasure cruise in space, they were abducted by the Dark Queen and her minions. Professor T. Bird and the other Battletoads, Rash and Zitz, need to haul warts to catch up to them on the planet Ragnarok. There are 12 incredibly diabolical levels in front of you before you can save the day. It’s going to be an incredibly difficult journey and only the very best will have what it takes. Will that be you?
You’re set down on the planet’s surface and immediately are beset upon by a couple bipedal hogs. The B Button is your attack and you can press it or hold it down to automatically keep attacking. Most enemies get hit a few times before you give a special attack that launches them across screen or outright kills them. Each enemy has their own special super attack animation the toad uses on them. You can double tap a direction to run and get a special attack off if your timing is good. Punching and killing enemies is the easiest part of this adventure, what’s hard are the gimmicks.
Each level has a different gimmick. Some of them aren’t much of an issue, like rappelling down in level 2, kicking and wrecking enemies with your toad’s body. Others are maddening as you play them. I look at the Turbo Tunnel as the level most people don’t get past. That’s level 3 and the amount of memorization and precision that it takes to beat it is paramount. I lost dozens of lives trying to get through it before I resorted to save states so I didn’t run out of continues again. Right before the end, there is a warp that skips the annoying Ice World. Here you’ve got slippery platforms, barriers that need to be destroyed, projectile throwing snowmen, and instakill ceilings and floors, moving platforms, and sometimes many of these things at once.
Surf City is like Turbo Tunnel, but with even less control. You’re constantly skipping on the surfboard, which does not make avoiding obstacles in the water easier. Riding the snakes in Karnak’s Lair requires memorization of their routes and not getting too far ahead of yourself. One fall and you get to start all over again. Throw in spikes and you’re in for a world of hurt when you make a mistake. Volkmire’s Inferno has you jumping rolling logs and then boarding a personal sized plane. You have to fly through gaps in electrical currents without any heads up of where they will come from, at least until the end when they come at you so fast you need to be pixel perfect.
Intruder Excluder is the most normal platforming level since the opener. You have to climb up a corridor while avoiding obstacles, jumping springing platforms, and killing what you can. The Terra Tubes are back to requiring foreknowledge of what’s coming to get through. The copter segments aren’t bad, but having to dodge the gears is not happening if you don’t know exactly how the pipes turn before you see them.
The last three levels are beyond infuriating. Rat Race has you running down girders, but touching them slows you down and allows Giblet to get to the bottom first, killing you. If your timing is spectacular, you can punch him, but sometimes that pushes him further toward the finish instead of giving you an extra second. You can not make a mistake on the third of the races because your opponent moves too quickly. I think I hate Clinger-Winger the most of all because you have to outrun this spinning void, but it’s faster than you. If you don’t make clean button presses on the turns every single time, you’re dead. The final level is a tower ascent that uses the graphics trick of Castelian to rotate as you move left and right, so I guess other games did use this. Disappearing platforms must be jumped on precisely and if you move the screen too far up, you die if you fall. That’s always fun.
When you see flies come on screen, you want to do your best to eat them to replenish health. Points are also a great way to earn lives. Every 100,000 adds another frog to your spare pile. There are also 1Ups in the environment for you to find. Hit detection is hit or miss on some enemies. Fighting bosses is an exercise in finding their weakness and exploiting it. A lot of them can be made easy if you’re good at juggling. The Dark Queen was one of the easier fights and didn’t make for a satisfying final boss. You can always play a two player game, but you both need to be amazing at games to get through.
Graphics: 3.0
Sprites and landscapes look good, while the cut scenes and animations are top notch.
Sound: 3.0
Rare usually does pretty good with music and sounds and they keep it up here.
Gameplay: 1.5
Fighting bad guys is fun, while dealing with poorly implemented gimmick after gimmick is not.
Difficulty: 1.0
There’s way too much memorization required to get through this game. Limited continues will be the death of you. This is one game that would have benefited from unlimited continues.
Fun Factor: 1.0
I didn’t really enjoy my time and it devolved into playing out of spite to try out every level.
Overall Rating: 1.9
Battletoads earns a C. I believe that there are people out there that can get through this game, but they don’t play anything else and have dumped hundreds of hours into practice. Give it a shot, but don’t feel bad when you fail.