"13 stages of FIERCE FIGHTING and fast paced racing!!... are you GAME?"

While the game is considered by many simply as a Ninja Turtles rip-off, the Battletoads are considered to be some of Rare's finest work from the early 90's. Not only are Rash, Zitz, and Pimple tougher and more hardcore that their shelled counterparts, but they get serious when it comes to inflicting punishment on their enemies, they don't hold back. Not to forget their nemesis - the evil, but attractive Dark Queen and her army of vermin.

Story - 7/10
Ok, so it's a corny story like something out of Saturday morning cartoons. Basically, Pimple and his girlfriend Princess Angelica go out cruising in the 'Toadster (A flying car), and they just happen to be captured by the Dark Queen's giant ship, the Gargantua.

Taken captive by the Dark Queen, Rash and Zitz decide it's time for a bit of payback, and their head honcho Professor T Bird drops them off at the Dark Queen's home planet. Time to get mad, bad 'n crazy! - beat up and defeat everything in your way to rescue your musclebound buddy and his date. To make things more complicated, you're gonna need to drive, fly, and surf to get though this ordeal!

Graphics/Presentation - 8/10
The game starts off with a similar setting to what you'd find in a cartoon movie where you see the S.S. Vulture descending toward the planet Ragnarok, and nice green Battletoads logo appears. The game will give you a lowdown on the story with some cut scene graphics. Quite impressive for a NES title.

The graphics are quite good for NES quality, far from the primitive early NES titles. The characters are mostly standard NES sized sprites with a few large bosses added in for variety. The stages are nicely drawn, stages are either rich in vibrant color or have a dark palette, some even include multi-layered parallax scrolling which is something rarely seen in NES games.

Gameplay - 7/10
The game is mainly side scrolling fighting, sprinkled with some racing stages in between. Both toads have the same moves and abilities - beat up your opponents and finish them off with a smash hit - where super deformed limbs crush your opponent to pieces. The few weapons in the game are the heads of walker robots - which don't even do any damage, walker robot feet that smack down the tough guys, ride on dragons in stage one only, and boulders which are only used in the first stage also. You can run and head-butt your enemies by double tapping the d-pad in either direction, then perform a smash hit. You can recover energy by eating flies (they are toads at heart) that are scattered throughout the game.

Enemies you'll be facing include the Psycho Pigs, rats, crows, toad eating plants, sharks, snowmen, electric eels, robots, and more toad killing menaces. There are several boss characters and they aren't a push over either. The Dark Queen might not be as musclebound as the other guys, but she'll whip your butt if you underestimate her.

Apart from the fighting, there are some variations in the form of racing games. You must negotiate through the course while avoiding walls, flames, wooden logs, missiles and static electricity. Many first time player will get stuck on Stage 3, which requires extreme dexterity to negotiate. These are the toughest parts of the game.

The game features intermissions throughout where you receive some encouragement from T. Bird in the S.S. Vulture, and a negative, but humorous remark from the Dark Queen - "Aaargh!, you've made pork-meat out my my Psycho Pigs!", "Prepare to meet your doom, Battlebarf!".

Multiplayer - 7/10
The game can be played with a friend in co-operative mode. It can become frustrating in 2 player as the stage resets in the racing levels if your friend dies. Players can also inflict injure on their teammates, and there's no option to disable it.

Control - 8/10
Mostly responsive controls, but one some of the strictly 2D fight levels (no vertical movement) you can sometimes end up tapping run by accident causing you to fall into a trap. The racing levels will wear out your thumbs for sure.

Soundtrack/Audio - 7/10
The game feature a selection of mellow rock 'n roll tunes, which was a popular music style back in the early 90's. Many tunes are a pleasant addition to each stages atmosphere. The sound effects are loud crunches and hitting noises that sound like real bone shattering smacks, they sound painful! Not bad stuff for NES audio.

Replayability - 7/10
You'll either play it until you master each stage and complete it, or give up on the Turbo Tunnel stage. You are missing out on some great gameplay if you quit there, and the game will roughly take an hour to complete. Multiplayer is ok as long as you're fighting with someone who is good at the game otherwise you won't last long as a team.

Final Score - 8/10
One of the better fighting games on NES, and it was voted Game of the Year 1991 by some games magazines. If you want a better fighting experience than Double Dragon and Target Renegade, this game is it - the box art just screams HARDCORE! with the toads in some intense combat action.

An achievement for Rare in it's early days, spawning a few sequels, including the more vicious and violent arcade version. Perhaps one day they'll remake Battletoads on the next gen Microsoft systems, but nothing has been confirmed since the series ended in 1994. Oh, and the Dark Queen is the sexiest villain on the NES ;)

-Steven

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/28/05