Battletoads

Tradewest , Mindscape , 1994 Electronic Arts

NES / NFC: June 1, 1991 December 20, 1991 February 18, 1993 Mega Drive: March 1993 March 26, 1993 July 1993 Game Gear: December 1993 1993 January 14, 1994 Amiga / ACD32 1994

platform

NES / Famicom , Sega Mega Drive , Master System , Game Gear , Game Boy , CD³² , Arcade

genre

Side scrolling beat 'em up

Game mode

Single player , multiplayer

Battletoads is a video game from the game developer Rare , which was launched as a competitor to the then successful games in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series.

The game was published in 1991 by Tradewest for the Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Mega Drive . Porting to other platforms followed: 1992 for Amiga , 1993 for Sega Game Gear and Game Boy (the latter as Battletoads in Ragnarok's World ) and finally in 1994 for Amiga CD³² . Implementations for the IBM PC and the Atari ST were planned, but did not appear.

Battletoads was one of the most graphically advanced games for the NES at the time the video game market was moving towards Sega's Mega Drive and Nintendo's SNES. The game gained popularity due to its exceptional level of difficulty and the fancy methods of beating its enemies in exaggerated comic book effects.

action

After her defeat by the Galactic Corporation in the battle for Canis Major , the evil Dark Queen and her rogue troops withdraw to the most remote areas of the galaxy. Meanwhile on board the Vulture, Professor T. Bird and the battletoads trio - consisting of Rash , Zitz and Pimple - escort Princess Angelica to her home planet, where her father awaits her safe arrival. On the way, Pimple, the biggest of the Battletoads, decides to take the princess on a jaunt on the Toadster to a nearby leisure station. Before they get there, however, they are surprised from behind by the Dark Queen and kidnapped to Ragnarok's World , the home planet of the Dark Queen. Professor T. Bird sends the two remaining battletoads to Ragnarok to rescue Pimple and Angelica. On their journey through the dangerous environment of the planet, the two cunning traps and the Dark Queen's troops await, while they fight their way from the planet's surface through underground caves and dangerous steppes to the Tower of Shadows , where the Dark Queen personally awaits them.

Game mechanics

Almost every level has a different play style. There are some 3D as well as traditional 2D beat 'em up levels in which the player progresses by defeating opponents and overcoming abysses and obstacles. The most difficult levels include the race and obstacle levels, which demand a high degree of reaction from the player due to the extremely high speed and extravagant sensitivity. Typically it is necessary for the player to remember the order of the coming obstacles in such levels in order to overcome them in the next round without difficulty. Other level styles include falling and steering à la Snake , an underwater level with deadly spikes and dangerous monsters, as well as two difficult tower climb levels up to the final climb of the tower of the Dark Queen.

Another feature of the game series is the special style of defeating opponents on the final blow. These include a head butt in which ramming horns appear on the player's head (or in Pimple's case a football helmet in the arcade version), a blow with an extremely long fist, a two-handed forceful blow into the ground that only protrudes the opponent's head leaves; a kick with an extremely large boots and climbing and case level, the ability to wrecking ball to be.

reception

The original Battletoads was rated as good by most game critics. It was especially memorable because of its extreme level of difficulty, even for experienced players. The game has been categorized among the most difficult games of all time on numerous occasions and was even voted first place by GameTrailers .

While in normal beat-'em-up levels two players progress more easily than one, the obstacle levels are much more difficult with two players, as both players have to start over if one of the two hits an obstacle. Another focus in terms of difficulty is the lack of an option to turn off the " friendly fire ". During a co- op game it is possible to intentionally or unintentionally attack the other player. The latter often happens while one player is attacking an opponent and the second is getting in the way.

The game also suffers from some bugs . Probably the most serious occurs in level 11 ( Clinger Winger ). During a co-op game, the second player is sometimes not able to move - and is thus forced to lose all lives before player 1 can continue the level. Another point of criticism is the fact that the player only three Continues are available, with whom he has a chance to continue the game after he was defeated. There is also no password or storage function, which means that the player would have the option of continuing the game at a different point in time.

However, some features can help. Using a cheat code it is possible to get five lives instead of the usual three. In addition, fast players can get a lot of extra lives in the second level by hitting opponents several times without throwing them off the screen. Last but not least, there are four hidden warp points with which the player can skip two levels.

Despite these perks, Battletoads is considered one of the toughest games of all time for the NES. In contrast to the NES version, the Sega Mega Drive version reduces the difficulty considerably by rewarding the player with more additional lives and easier game mechanics. A detailed review of the game was in Dragon magazine in 1992 by Hartley, Patricia and Kirk Lesser in the category The Role of Computers , in which the game received 5 out of 5 stars.

Published titles

1991
- Battletoads (NES, Sega Mega Drive)
- Battletoads (Game Boy) - Although this title was marketed with the same cover illustration as the NES game, it is a different game. As Zitz, the player has to save his partner kidnapped by the Dark Queen.
1993
- Battletoads (Game Gear, Amiga, CD³²)
- Battletoads in Ragnarok's World (Game Boy) - Implementation of the 1991 NES game
1994
- Battletoads (Arcade) - Publisher Electronic Arts

successor

Battletoads developer Rare programmed two follow-up titles for Tradewest , which appeared in 1993:

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs (SNES, Master System)
Battletoads & Double Dragon ( Crossroads - NES, SNES, Mega Drive, Game Boy)

During its E3 press conference in June 2018, Microsoft announced with a short teaser trailer that the development studio DLaLa Studios is working on an as yet nameless remake that will be released exclusively for Xbox systems in 2019.

Trivia

The protagonists of the series are named after the skin diseases rash ( exanthem ), titz ( acne ) and pimple ( pustule ).
In the 1991 version of the Gameboy, Professor T. Bird says after completing level 7: “You're a green machine, toad !! I love the smell of blasters in the morning - they smell like ... victory !!! " , which is supposed to be an allusion to Apocalypse Now .
In Killer Instinct -reboot for Xbox One Rash is available as a playable character.

Individual evidence

^ Levi Buchanan: Battletoads Retrospective . IGN . January 2009. Accessed May 24, 2010. (English)
↑ Top Ten Most Difficult Games . GameTrailers . August 2008. Accessed May 24, 2010. (English)
↑ News & Features Team: Top 10 Tuesday: Toughest Games to Beat . IGN . March 2007. Accessed May 24, 2010. (English)
↑ Top 10 hardest games ever . Virgin Media . Retrieved May 24, 2010. (English)
↑ The Top 5 Hardest NES Games ( Memento from May 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
↑ Lesser, Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk: The Role of Computers . In: Dragon . No. 187, November 1992, pp. 59-64.
↑ Details about the Gameboy game at World of Battletoads ( Memento from January 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (Fansite, English, via archive.org) and MobyGames (English)
↑ The master system version only appeared in South America: GameFAQs entry on Battlemaniacs for master system
↑ Xbox: Battletoads - E3 2018 - Announce. June 10, 2018, accessed June 13, 2018 .

Web links

The World of Battletoads (English)
The Battletoads series at MobyGames (English)