There were two types of games that majorly made up the 80s and 90s, the platformers and the beat ‘em ups. The platformers were ruled by Mario, Sonic, Dizzy and god knows how many other independent game mascots from famous companies and companies who were just trying to get a foothold in the market. The beat ‘em ups, on the other hand, were mostly controlled by franchised or licensed characters such as Batman, Power Rangers and the Ninja Turtles but against the fold, some companies decided to make their own beat ‘em up franchises. The most famous of these was Final Fight by Capcom, Double Dragon by Technōs Japan, Streets of Rage by Sega and Battletoads by Rare (Or Ultimate Play the Game if you’re a history nerd like the guy in my mirror).

While the genre is considered dead by most today, we have seen Double Dragon Neon and Streets of Rage 4 come into the limelight to prove that there is still room for the beat ‘em ups of yesteryear. Last Thursday they were joined by another member of the original crew when Battletoads decided to join the party. We have already covered Streets of Rage 4 which gives us a launching point to check out Battletoads. Let’s see if Rare still knows how to make beat ‘em ups or should they have just given up when the Stamper brothers left.

Story:

The Battletoads were held in a bunker that caused them to go on adventures in a virtual world. Once out of the bunker it seems that the world has forgotten about them in the years that passed. Rash, in an attempt to regain his fame, tracks down the Dark Queen, the toad’s old nemesis and convinces Zitz and Pimple to join him.

The story is not great and is used to hold the game together. It’s decently weak and poorly written. Even the banter between the characters is written to be cringy which when done well is great but they have gone so over the top it gets annoying. A lot of the banter could be cut and the game would become more bearable.

Sound:

I love the background music. Each level has a soft background track when you are wandering around but the second enemies appear on screen it releases the drums, guitar riffs and everything rock. The fight music is so perfect, it keeps the combat flow going. Even the special effects are fantastically well done while they sound odd if listened to in isolation they sound perfect when you consider it’s a toad whacking a woodland creature around.

The voice-over team, on the other hand, needs to be shot. The writing I mentioned in the last section is made worse by the voice work. There are a lot of sections where the voice acting shows no expression at all and when they do it’s lazily done.

Graphics:

The graphics are cartoony which is the way to go when bringing back a classic. The cartoony element isn’t just for the level layout and colours but applies to the characters too, the characters body parts seem to change size, dimensions or materials on a whim which is a throwback to Tom and Jerry, Road Runner, Bugs Bunny and other cartoons of old. They are a joy to look at and occasionally giggle at the absurdity.

No complaints about the graphics at all, they look great and they do their job perfectly.

Gameplay:

The levels in Battletoads have nothing new to talk about, they are mostly the same as every other beat ‘em up. You walk to the right and enemies show up. There are a few unique elements in the form of water that can be electrified by some enemies, grab points that make you switch between sections of the level along with a few puzzles along the way but nothing that truly stands out. We’ve gone through similar levels recently in Streets of Rage 4.

The game has tons of enemies but they all seem to be very limited versions of each other. Some enemies just melee, some can block, those who launch a close-range blast and then some can fire at long range. On occasion, some enemies are combinations but they are few and far apart. While the enemies look different level to level, they all follow the same basic principles mentioned above which bores you as a player since once you identify the new paint, they are all the same though slightly improved as you progress. This is exactly the opposite of my complaint with Streets of Rage 4 where enemies had the same characters but different abilities, here they have the same abilities but different characters.

Now that we have covered the standard stuff let’s get to the nitty-gritty: the actual gameplay. Anyone old enough to remember the original Battletoads games will remember that they were based around their combat. This Battletoads has done one hell of a job upgrading the combat to meet the modern-day. There are now multiple attacks such as the standard attack, a juggling hit and a shield breaker along with a dodge. There is also a grapple which is useful in a pinch. Pressing a random attack button during a combo or when in the air will pull off a unique move. Adding to the fun is the difference between the toads: Zitz is quick, Pimple is strong and Rash is neutral, each of them has different specials which is more of an excuse to try the different toads out. The only thing missing is weapons but it’s an acceptable loss for what was offered in their place.

Before we diverge away, I have to say that the combat system while modernising Battletoads is also its Achilles’ heel; the combat system is where Battletoads starts to fail. Yes! The combat system is fun, yes! The special moves are fun to watch but after the first two levels, the game makes these systems a hindrance. Once enemies with long-range attacks show up these moves are going to get you killed. You can’t stop the specials midway which means that any enemy projectile is health lost. The 4th level onwards you start using hit and run tactics just to keep alive even on the “Toad” (normal) difficulty. The level designers and combat designers were sitting in very separate rooms while they jerked off to their creations.

For some reason Battletoads only keeps to its core for 2 acts. Once you hit act 3 there is no combat at all. Instead the core combat gets replaced by annoying as hell mini-games, a semi-decent platformer and for some reason a 2D space shooter. While most of them are initially fun to play they quickly become frustrating. They are not the legendary Battletoads hard because they don’t beat you fairly, they beat you by taking cheap shots, having level layouts that are unbeatable without a great memory or being unnecessarily puzzling against a timer. The most obnoxious of these is a mini-game where you have to look at the top of the screen, see a symbol, find that symbol on the board, do the chore it tells you to do before repeating the task with a different symbol, all while against the clock. The mini-games could have been great diversions if they weren’t so long and overdeveloped.

As a whole, the gameplay design is confusing, to say the least. It makes no sense to improve a core mechanic to the extent that they did then make it completely useless. It makes even less sense to throw it out for a major part of the game just to replace it with… well, other games. Maybe Rare and Dlala Studios had a lot of scrapped projects lying around and couldn’t be arsed to develop Battletoads anymore so they just used the scrapped projects.

Conclusion:

I wanted the return of Battletoads to not just be great but excellent. Instead we got an overdeveloped collection of mini-games that wants to be every game but Battletoads. There is a loss of identity on display and I can’t figure out why. It’s not like the original company is dead, they are around and were involved in the development. Hell! we didn’t even need someone from Rare on duty, anyone who has played any of the original Battletoads could have told the dev team that everything was going to hell. It seems this game was developed by people who breezed through YouTube videos of the original games.

I can’t recommend this game; it has a long way to go to catch up to Double Dragon: Neon while should never be mentioned in the same breath as Streets of Rage 4. Go play those two instead. If it wasn’t for the first two acts and the initial platforming levels, I would give this game a 3 but since that little bit exists and there is CO-OP which could make things a tad bit more bearable let’s give it a bit more.

Pros	Cons
Great Graphics	Re-coloured enemies
Great Sound Track	Poor Voice Acting
NA	Poor story and writing
Fun combat system	Combat get’s thrown out very quickly
Varied mini-games	All the mini-games make the game worse
It’s a Battletoads game	It’s only 50% of a Battletoads game