Gamers Month - Battletoads

Battletoads [NES] (1991)

Click for box art:

Developer: Rare
Publisher: Tradewest
Genre: 2D platformer/beat-'em-up

Battletoads is: 1) not as hard as you think, and 2) the best dang platformer on the NES.

Okay, so it's not really a pure platformer. But really, if anything's filler in this game, it's the early brawling sections, when the enemies pose no threat. After a few levels, the game casts off all pretense--suddenly you're doing instant smash hits with every punch, and the enemies aren't foes to be beaten down as much as they are roving obstacles that you can bash out of your way: robots that explode if you touch them, ducks that smash you if you touch them, rhinos that eat you if you touch them, etc.

Despite the title, this game is not about "battling" anything other than your own nerves as you try to survive a variety of vicious obstacles courses. When you're not jumping over spikes or pits, you're swinging around on a rope, juggling dead crows for extra lives. Or ducking snowballs and tossing a few back at some snowmen. Or dodging whirlpools on a surfboard. Or climbing on giant snakes, or racing upside-down, or doing any number of awesome/manly/EXTREME activities. There's just a ton of stuff in this game. Every stage has unique obstacles and enemies, some of which make a single appearance and are never reused again. There's even a second-person boss fight! Yeah, it's just a neat gimmick, but how many games have a second-person boss fight? The only other one I can think of is Turtles in Time on the SNES, and that came out a year later.


"But wait, isn't Battletoads way too hard to be enjoyable?" I guess, if you've never played an arcade game in your life. Battletoads is often named as a game considered "Nintendo hard," but the phrase should really be "arcade hard," because it exhibits a very arcade sensibility. Other than the aforementioned early levels, the game provides constant challenge, with no time-wasting cakewalk sequences. The pressure is always on to perform and perform well, and it's only because of this challenge that you can have the satisfaction of success.

Now, one phrase that inevitably crops up in criticism of Battletoads is "trial and error." But "trial and error" is not the same as "almost impossible without practice." True trial-and-error means having to pick one door among several with no clues as to which is the correct one. In contrast, almost everything in Battletoads is survivable on the first try--assuming the player has incredible reflexes. So let this be a plea for people to stop using "It's repetitive trial-and-error" to mean "It was hard, and I had to replay parts, and I didn't like that."

...

...okay, so some sections are kinda bullshit, but this is all I can think of:

1) The flame walls in Volkmire's Inferno. I can't see anyone getting through the end without anticipating the gaps.
2) The randomly-placed mines in Surf City.
3) The erratic sharks and electric eels in Terra Tubes.
4) Terra Tubes also has some spikes in the Krazy Kog section that you can't see coming.

Note that two of these aren't trial-and-error, just elements outside of the player's control. But really, these are all minor gripes, and it's not like the game doesn't toss quite a few extra lives your way. There are even easily-accessed warps that will skip past some of the trickiest bits--good luck finding any of those in a true arcade game!

Also, Battletoads is refreshingly free of other annoyances common to NES platformers. There are no respawning enemies. No flying things knocking you into pits like in Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden. No power-ups that you lose on death. No need to grind to refill health or boost score. No "How the hell am I supposed to make that jump?" or "No one could have known that without a FAQ!" moments. Battletoads is nothing if not straightforward.

Graphically, Battletoads is quite advanced for a NES game. Of course, it looks much better when it's in motion on a CRT monitor. Screenshots can't show off this game's best tricks, such as animated backgrounds with parallax scrolling, or the crazy spinning tower effect on The Revolution. I suspect that the backgrounds received most of the attention, since the rest of the sprites aren't that great. The 'toads look alright and are well-animated, but most of the enemies are ugly. Their sprites have only a couple of colors and often have a odd border around their edges, almost as if they're poorly digitized scans. Maybe it has to do with the NES's palette limitations and how colorful the stages already are.


With the exception of Terra Tubes, every level has unique music. The tracks are great, with plenty of octave trills, echoes, and fast arpeggios to create that bubbly 2A03 sound. Check out the descending runs in the Rat Race stage that match the free-falling movement in that level, the dark and moody feel of The Revolution, or the fast-paced songs that kick in whenever you start a vehicle section. The game also makes good use the DPCM channel for punchy sound effects.

There are also all these atmospheric touches that show it was a labor of love for Rare, like the pun-filled banter of the of the Dark Queen and Professor T. Bird in between stages:

"OH, YOU'RE GONNA BE SURFIN' - SURFIN D.O.A.! THAT'S DEAD ON ARRIVAL, POND PATROL!"

"SLITHER UP OUTTA THERE, 'TOADS! YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO SCALE THE CAVERN TO FIND THE EXIT!"

I know it's hard to love a game when it's constantly kicking your face in, but for sheer variety of obstacles and platforming challenges on the NES, Battletoads is the game to beat. And don't bother with any of the ports or sequels--they're all uglier, easier, shorter, and more boring.




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I have the original cartridge and still play this game on my '87 toaster-style NES. Aside for ranking it as the best platformer, if I had to pick just one NES game to keep, it'd be this one.

And seriously, Turbo Tunnel is not that hard if you take the warp near the end. My brother and I always used to do this. However, there is a map screen displayed between levels, so we could always see that there was this level labeled "ICE CAVERN" that we never got to visit, since the warp skips you right to Surf City. It was a substantial thrill not only to finally beat the last section of Turbo Tunnel, but see what this strange new level offered (I liked the music so much that I sequenced a MIDI of it a few years ago: http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console.../icecavern.mid ).

Of course, when I say "my brother and I," I don't mean 2-player mode, because that shit is ridiculous. It's not even a matter of finding two players with enough skill; accurate timing and positioning becomes a pain in the ass when the sprites start bobbing around in the same space and overlapping. There's also the Clinger-Winger glitch: only three lives for the last level? NO THANKS. If anyone has found video evidence of two guys playing through successfully, I would love to see it.

Battletoads clearly designed for the one-player challenge and is pretty poor when compared to other NES beat-'em-ups anyway. If you want to punch some faces in co-op (which I assume is the main draw of the 2-player mode), go with Double Dragon, the TMNT sequels, or even River City Ransom.

Jam it back in, in the dark.