Battletoads (1991)
Action
In Collection
#175

My Rating:

Completed:
No
Publisher Tradewest, Inc.
Developer Rare Ltd.

Battletoads are not a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ripoff. That's the first thing Rare wants you to understand. They may be a team of anthropomorphic swamp-dwelling animals who are radical and gnarly and tubular and all the other secret levels in Super Mario World, and they may be fighting heroes, and they may be from the early 1990s, but they are not a ripoff. They are completely seperate. For one thing, they're toads, not turtles. And also they're in space. Have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ever been to space? Since I haven't seen the newer version of the TV show, I assume the answer is no. They have only been to Dimension X. But even if they have been to space, the Battletoads are not a ripoff. Not like that vile Bucky O'Hare. Now there's an obvious TMNT ripoff.

So the Battletoads are the hilariously-named Zitz, Rash and Pimple. Get it? They're toads! So they're named after skin conditions! Also, their father may or may not have been Wart from Super Mario Bros. 2. Rash is the coolest because he wears sunglasses and is controlled by Player 1, Zitz is the shittiest because he's brown and so he tries to make up for it by spelling his name with a Z, and Pimple is the big, strong one who, if a Battletoads cartoon was ever made, would also be stupid. Together with their totally-not-Splinter mentor, the grizzled old bird Professor T. Bird, they fly through space and do hero stuff against the Dark Queen. So one day the Dark Queen realizes that she lives in an NES game, and thus kidnaps the princess, whose name I don't know but who I will call Princess April. She also kidnaps Pimple, which supports my theory that he is dumb. I bet the Dark Queen put some flies under a box held up at one end by a stick and marked with a sign that said, "Free Flies." The Dark Queen escapes in her spaceship, the Gargantua (forefather to Invader Zim?), and buries it in planet Ragnarok. So it's up to the two palette-swaps to save the princess and the one toad big and strong enough to have not been kidnapped in the first place.

On a personal note, this game will always have a special place in my memory (whether I want it to or not), because my parents rented it for me to play while I recovered from surgery in the summer of 1991. I had a hydrocele. Look it up if you really want to know.

THE GAME
On its face, Battletoads has an interesting idea. It's kind of one of those games where you walk along until the screen stops scrolling and you have to beat up all the enemies that spawn before you move on, but not really. In actuality, almost every level in the game has something different going on. It does have a few recurring mechanics, though.

When you fight enemies, you weaken them with a series of light punches, and then deliver an over-the-top, exaggerated, cartoony special attack, with a huge fist or boot or something. Also, the Battletoads produce stunned wild takes when confronted with a boss. So the game is trying to create an obvious cartoon feel, which there is certainly nothing wrong with. There are flies that appear sometimes for brief periods, during which your toad can extend its tongue to catch them and refill his life, and there are also 1-Ups and the occasional warp zone.

Other than that, it really is a hard game to describe, because every level is different. The first level is the 3D walk-until-the-scrolling-stops-then-beat-up-enemies level. The second one has you descending down a shaft via cables. The third one puts you on hover bikes and challenges you to avoid rapidly-spawning obstacles. And so forth. There is even a level where you have to climb a tower that scrolls by rotating, a la Castelian.

Two players can play simultaneously, the second player controlling Rash, and I think that friendly fire is enabled, so to speak, so the two toads can beat each other up. As if this game had to be harder.

THE GOOD:


Excellent graphics, including parallax scrolling.

Neat idea with the cartoony attacks to break up the potential monotony of fighting.

Also a neat idea for every level to be different.
THE BAD


Okay, this game is fucking hard. And I think a lot of the challenge just comes from poor design. When flies are onscreen, pushing B shoots your tongue at them instead of attacking, so you can easily end up unable to fight enemies. In the first and third levels at least, it is possible to fall off the bottom of the screen and die if you go up or down too far, which includes while jumping, while the shadow disappears and you have no concept of your placement. It's not too bad in the first level. In the third, there is a whole section where you have to make a series of blind jumps, and you will die if you push up or down, or don't, or basically at random as the game decides. The third level also contains a ridiculous portion of quick-spawning walls where you pretty much have to rock the control pad up and down in just the right rhythm to survive. And there is no margin for error. If you miss, you die. There is no reason for a game to have that in its third level. A later level has you weaving between logs on a surfboard that skips on the water, so you have no idea whether you're going to be in the air on on the water when you've steered your toad to where you want him to go. Later in that level, a boss appears and makes you do that wild take thing while life-refilling flies are on the screen, and the flies fly away after a few seconds, so your life-refilling time gets wasted gawking at the big rat boss. The wild take also causes you to drop any weapon you might be holding, so you have to pick it up again. Also, the boss appears halfway through the fucking level instead of at the end. Shit like this is retarded and unnecessary. Games can be challenging, fine, but there comes a point where they're so hard, they aren't worth playing.

As if the game wasn't hard enough, there is no password or save feature. The best you get are a few well-hidden and time-sensitive warp zones that skip a level or two for you. Basically, you have to go through the whole damn game from start to finish every time you play (unless you are playing on an emulator with save states, which Rare couldn't have foreseen).

Also, you only get three continues. Fuck you, Rare.
TIPS & TRICKS


On the title screen, hold Down, A and B and press start to start with extra lives. Also works when you continue.

Start a two-player game, then beat the shit out of the second player until he is given the option to continue. Then just play as normal. When you run out of continues, start playing again as Player 2 to use his three continues.

In Level 1, if you go through the first two battles fast enough and run fast enough, there will be a warp to Level 3 on a raised ledge. Warp zones all disappear quickly, though, so you have to be fast on this one and the three listed below.

In Level 3, in the last set of walls (the ones that appear really really fast without advance warning), there is a warp to Level 5 in front of the fifth wall on the bottom.

In Level 4, there is a platform that lowers when you stand on it. If you jump back up, it will rise. A warp to Level 6 will have spawned up there since you left.

In Level 6, in the second room, climb the first snake all the way to the top, then jump all the way to the right. Hopefully, you'll hit a warp to Level 8.
FINAL ANALYSIS
A lot of people seem to love this game. I don't get it. The difficulty is completely crippling, and I can't overlook it.

Thumbs down for Battletoads.
Product Details
UPC 031719199112
Format Cartridge
Nr of Disks 1
Language English
Audience Rating Everyone
Personal Details
Purchase Price $0.00
Current Value $0.00
Links Battletoads at Game Collector Connect
Amazon US
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