In the late 1980's to early 1990's, there was a huge TMNT craze going on, especially with the cartoon. Really, what was there that children wouldn't like? Action, humor, well-made animation, and an admittedly-awesome premise. But what about the other companies who wanted to leech off of its fame? Surprisingly enough, Rare was one of those companies, and to compete with it, they created Battletoads. They even planned to make a cartoon to make it a full-blown competition, but the cartoon was scrapped after the pilot, mainly due to what it was trying to imitate, and partially due to the abysmal quality. But, enough about the game's history, let's talk about the game itself.

For whatever reason, Rare was apparently very, very determined to get this thing out the door as soon as they possibly could. In fact, Rare got it out the door so fast, that they realized "Uh-oh! We forgot to polish it and work out the bugs!" and proceeded to work a bit more on the European and Japanese versions of the game. They took so much time finishing the game that, in direct contrast to their speedy US release, the European and Japanese versions took them two years to release. But, for this review, I'll just be talking about the US release.

Graphics - It's unbelievable what they did!
First, and certainly least, the graphics are amazing for an NES release. There's almost no flicker, the environments are well-detailed, and both the player character and enemies are given some character with the animation - when you finish an enemy, there's several different finishing moves that can be used, depending on the enemy.  And, when you reach the third level, you'll discover that they were really able to push the power of the NES - the scrolling is unbelievably fast, especially for an NES game. Even the cutscenes look great - though there aren't many of them, they're about of Ninja Gaiden quality.

+Almost no flicker
+Well-made environments
+Great animation
+HOW did they make it scroll that fast?!
+Excellent cutscene animation

Music/Sound - Rare's outdone almost every other game on the NES
The sound is really quite satisfying to listen to, especially after some of the audio atrocities I've had to hear. It's like healing for the ears, both the music and the sound effects. They all fit the mood perfectly, and the music is some of the best ever composed on the NES.

+Awesome music
+Great sound effects

Gameplay - Here's where some of the problems start to kick in
You know, when I mentioned the issue about the US version being released two years earlier than the other version? This is where that kicks in.

In the first level, it's a standard beat-em-up, with running attacks, normal attacks, and combos. There's one glaring flaw, and that's the fact that it's nearly impossible to break out of a combo once you've been locked into one. And, one full combo worth of hits takes away two blocks of your life bar, out of six. Though you can get a block of health back for eating a fly(they are toads, remember?), three combos will wipe out your six blocks of life. Along with your fists, you can get a stick from what appears to be a wooden AT-ST walker by beating it until it breaks into pieces.

But, the second level has you descending into a massive hole, hanging by an extremely long rope and defeating birds and toad-eating plants. This is the first, and certainly not the last, large gameplay change. And, there's a terrible glitch that sometimes happens here - occasionally, the hit detection will just completely die, and you will be able to neither hit enemies nor get hit by enemies. Since you can't commit suicide, you have to reset the entire game, and start from the first level. This is easily one of the worst bugs of the game, and that's saying a lot.

The levels just keep getting harder and harder - i.e. the third level has you dodging obstacles with absolutely no room for error. And, with that, the levels and scenery just keep getting better and better - aka, the sixth level has you climbing on giant snakes, which is a bit more original than most games get. It's like they wanted to draw the player in with the excellent graphics and scenery, along with the spot-on control and such, but they forgot to tone down the difficulty so that it wouldn't crush almost any player's soul.

The game's extremely hard, but for all the wrong reasons. For one thing, in the first level, there's a couple of flying enemies, both near the same area. If they knock you on the ground, they will proceed to pick you up and slam you on the ground, which is a one-hit-kill. Plus all the glitches in said level, the electric currents in the second level will take off three blocks of your health. In fact, this game suffers from one of the same problems that plagued the NES port of Dragon's Lair - almost everything kills you in one hit. And, when that's the case, what's the point of having a lifebar? While there are enough hazards that don't kill you in one hit, they are by far fewer than the things that cause lethal damage( like spikes and pits ).

And, since the game is so hard, it's not nearly as fun as it should be. If it was the difficulty level of your average NES game, then it wouldn't be that bad, but they seem to have taken it far beyond what it should be. In fact, they made the game easier when they were fixing the Japanese and European versions. The JAPANESE get the EASIER version?! There's a reason why those Asian stereo types exist, you know! This should be the other way around!

Anyways, even though they were creative with the level designs, they didn't put too much effort into the co-op mode, and actually making it so that you'd want to play with a friend. If you play with another player, then when they run out of lives, whether they continue or not, both players have to start the entire level all over again, even if both players were at the very end and the other player hadn't died once.

And, in most levels, if either player dies, then BOTH players get sent back to the last checkpoint. And, here's the kicker - there isn't anything to prevent friendly fire. You can beat each other up as much as you like, but all that'll do is hinder you in the long run. So, in other words, both players will weigh each other down so much that they won't be able to do much of anything in the game. Did somebody even playtest this mode first?

I'm pretty sure they didn't, because they forgot to fix a massive bug - in level 11(out of 12), the second player's vehicle never starts moving, and since you're being chased by an instant-death orb, they will die over and over again, and they can't do anything about it. They fixed this in the other versions...which almost convinces me that they just really, really hated Americans and wanted them to suffer.

-Occasional cheap shot at the player
-TOO HARD
=Racism in the video game industry?
+It's fun anyways
+Two-player option
-Both players get weighed down by each other
-The glitches!
+Very diverse gameplay
+Interesting level designs
+Spot-on control

Story - Just about average...
As for the storyline, you have to infiltrate the Dark Queen's defense system and rescue two characters - Princess Angelica, who is a princess of...actually, the game never explains it, and Pimple, one of the toads' comrades. And I almost forgot to mention, the other toads are named Rash and Zitz. It's kind of clever, I guess. It's just your average NES game's story, though there is some amusing banter between the Dark Queen and the toads' commander between levels.

+A bit of naming cleverness
+The in-between level banter
-Cliched as possible

Anyways, that just about wraps it up for this game. To be perfectly honest, you haven't been exposed to a truly hard game until you've played Battletoads. There's all those Kaizo romhacks, but those don't really count - they rely on artificial difficulty. This game actually got released, and it's one of the hardest games on the NES.

So, let's recap -

Graphics -

+Almost no flicker
+Well-made environments
+Great animation
+HOW did they make it scroll that fast?!
+Excellent cutscene animation

Music/Sound -

+Awesome music
+Great sound effects

Gameplay -

-Occasional cheap shot at the player
-TOO HARD
=Racism in the video game industry?
+It's fun anyways
+Two-player option
-Both players get weighed down by each other
-The glitches!
+Very diverse gameplay
+Interesting level designs
+Spot-on control

Story -

+A bit of naming cleverness
+The in-between level banter
-Cliched as possible storyline

Overall Rating - A(Almost the perfect game...now, if only they'd made the US version the same way they made the Japanese and European versions)

NovemberJoy : A review? OMG dude I thought this was a full story on how the game was made! Cool btw

Great review! Loved all of the detail and info. The breakdown was great as well. Very nice.