"Hard as hell, good as hell."

Battletoads is an ancient series of games made by Rareware (yes the makers of Donkey Kong Country, Golden Eye and many other masterpieces for the glory of Nintendo). However, before being a slave of Nintendo, Rare made wonderful games too, here we have which is probably their most well known. The Battletoads are some kind of hybrid between the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and...mmmnn... the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, yes, because they are green, mutants, and like kick ass a lot, only that with a little bit more violence, wacky violence but violence anyway.

There are three toads, Zitz, Pimple, and Rash, one day Pimple and a princess called Angelica were out cruising for a while when suddenly the hot Dark Queen kidnaps both of them and.... you know what is next.

This Rare’s game is some kind of beat em-up mixed with platform and sometimes side scrolling elements (and racing elements I would add), once you descend from your ship a lot of hogs, big rats, and some other weird things like some kind of tall yellow stick-like aliens will try to smash you in no time. The gameplay is extremely similar to the one of Double Dragon but better and a million times more varied, it is so varied that almost every single stage has something that makes it unique, in the first stage everything is very beat em-upish, in the second one we will be descending with a rope into some kind of hole infested with weird enemies, in the third one we will begin kicking butt like in the first stage but soon we’ll be trying to beat one of the most infamous stages in the video game history, and so on. And this is Battletoads main problem (aside from the insane difficulty of course), if it were a more traditional beat em-up it could have been way better, I like variety, but not that much variety, the game lacks more stages like the first one, because even if at the beginning you will be surprised with the huge amount of ideas the programmers had, later you will just want kick butt in amore traditional way, like in the first stage.

Reducing the difficulty A LOT could have been a solution also, Battletoads is an insanely hard game, and Rare probably knew that because there are warps hidden in some stages, with these warps you will be able skip two stages, but there is no point on using these warps because of the game’s originality, it is really interesting to see how is the next stage going to be.
But everyone that has played Battletoads has probably used that warp in the third scenario, because that part where you ride those weird supersonic motorcycles is nearly impossible to beat, even getting to the warp is nearly impossible because it is at the last part of the stage and to get it you will to practice a lot, damn you just can’t imagine how many times I have tried to beat that part without the warp, but it was futile, I always ended up using the warp. It is not fair, that stupid stage almost ruins the whole game, I repeat it is not fair, because if the difficulty weren’t enough the stage is long as hell, at the beginning is fine, it is hard but with some good reflexes it is passable, but the last part of the tunnel is excruciating, just go and play to see why everyone gets so pissed off here.

But even without that stages Battletoads is a bloody hard game, the enemies are quite violent, and when they hurt you the chances to fall to a pit are very high, you will have to be very careful even when your are hitting, because the toads move a lot while attacking, and the pits are abundant in this game.

We have a two-player option, and yes it rocks, but that way the game is even harder, because you will have to advance at the same time than your pal, co-ordinating some movements is an extremely difficult task.

Rating the game’s gameplay is an extremely difficult task, in terms of controls the game is simply perfect, because the beat em-up parts or any other situation the Toads are involved in have wonderful controls, whether if you are riding a super sonic motorcycle, throwing snowballs or burying big rats in the ground everything works perfectly, but I guess the extreme difficulty is also a gameplay flaw, and here the difficulty basically ruins the exiting experience Battletoads is, so I really don’t know what to think.

The graphics are terrific, the toads’ animations are simply awesome, and due to the game’s variety you are going to see these toads doing tons of different things, and all of them look extremely spectacular. Battletoads is definitely one of the better looking games for the Nes.

Unlike its sequels this first Battletoads doesn’t have hard rock music, for that reason the soundtrack is a bit so-so, sometimes is good, a bit weird but good. In general this is not the game’s strongest point, but does its job.

Battletoads was a classic back in the old good days of the Nes, with less difficulty and a more standard beat em-up style could have been easily not only one of the best beat em-ups in the Nes but one of the coolest games in history, too bad. Anyway, even with all the difficulty Battletoads is a very cool game, it has to be experienced at least once, but I should stick to the sequel, Battletoads & Double Dragon (the Nes version, avoid the Snes one), because while it is still a bloody hard game, it is a bit easier and more enjoyable than this one.

”My lack of vocabulary and grammatical errors (if there’s any) are because I’m not from an English speaking country, sorry about that.”

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/25/04