2/5 ★ – jdraco's review of Battletoads.

Battletoads is what happens when a group of game developers snort a bunch of cocaine and then say “fuck it, lets make a video game” And what's funny is that this game was made by Rareware and I’m pretty sure that Battletoads was the game that kind of catapulted them into the mainstream of game developers Because before this they really had no games of any notoriety at all. Except for of course John Elway’s Quarterback, which is an absolutely misunderstood masterpiece, and a real hidden gem in the NES library But shifting back to Battletoads, the reason I find it funny that this game is what catapulted Rareware into the mainstream of game developers, is because this game really isn’t that good at all, and hopefully this review does a good job of explaining why However though, before I rip this game to shreds, I want to say what I like about the game first, because there are things that I like Firstly, I love the color palette of the game. This game probably goes through every single combination of colors known to man, and they almost always come together to create level designs that are very pleasing to look at There’s almost never a moment where I’m looking at the game and I’m bored, you know what I mean? There’s never really a frame that looks dull, you’re always looking at something that’s visually interesting, and I really like that about the game I also really like the fucking wacky ass world that the game presents to you. Where Toads are the heroes, trying to stop a big titted woman from… Taking over the world? I’m not really sure what she was trying to do to be honest But regardless, you’re thrown into this world where there’s giant fucking rats that you have to fight, there’s robots, there’s snowmen who throw pieces of their own body at you, you get a gist, there’s just a bunch of crazy shit. But nothing ever really feels out of place, you never really question anything that the game throws at you, because it all just kind of makes sense in this weird world that the game takes place in And I’d say that the last thing that I really like about this game, is how stylish that it is, and this is illustrated perfectly by some of the attack animations for example Like the finishing moves that your main character does is usually a punch that makes their fist enormous, or a kick that makes their foot enormous, and there’s so many more examples of very animated stuff like this I will say a lot of things in this game just feel like they were straight up ripped out of a cartoon, and I really like that. Even the little surprised animation that your main character gives when a boss shows up, again just feels straight out of a cartoon and I like it a lot But that’s the last nice thing that I’m saying about this game, I didn’t just give it a 2 for no reason, no, this game absolutely justifies that score I was honestly thinking about giving this game a 1, but, I took some time away after I beat the game, I cooled off a little bit, and I decided that it isn’t one of the worst things that I've ever played… But it’s pretty damn close For starters, this game has no idea what it wants to be It throws about 1000 ideas at the wall, and in a way I can respect that, but I also fucking hate it, because so many ideas that this game tries just aren’t fleshed out at all and it shows I mean this game wants to be a 3D beat em’ up, but it also wants to be a side-scrolling platformer, and an on-rails vehicle based game where you can only jump and then move around a little bit, but also an on-rails vehicle based game where you can move all around but then can’t jump, but then also an on-rails vehicle based game where you have to follow arrowed paths by holding the corresponding movement button on your controller that matches the direction shown on the path that you’re on You see what I’m saying. This game does all this shit, it tries to be all these different things, and the only one that I can truly say that I actually like is the 3D beat em’ up. And do you wanna know how much of this game consists of the 3D beat em’ up portions? 1 level. And it’s the first level of the game. This game just lacks so much identity, to the point where I don’t even know what kind of game to call it I mean I searched up what kind of game that Battletoads is on Google, and the best that it could come up with is that Battletoads is a “beat 'em up/platform video game” which is guess is what best could describe this game, cause I truly can’t think of anything else And I think that the rawness of most of these gameplay scenarios that the game tries to execute, is where most of the difficulty of this game lies Because if I didn’t mention it already, this is probably the hardest game ever made, and the thing is, it doesn’t have to be Poor game design just absolutely fucking slaughters this game, because this game is 12 levels long I believe, and the first 7 or so levels are difficult, but they’re not horrendously difficult until Level 8, called “Intruder Excluder” Which is just absolute fucking bullshit. Basically the goal is to platform to the top of this long ass level while trying to not to fall, while also trying not to get hit by these robot enemies that shoot electricity that does half of your health, while also trying to avoid gas projectiles that kill you in one hit, while also trying to avoid getting sucked into fans that also kill you in one hit, and basically just trying to avoid everything in the level, because they pretty much all just kill you in one fucking hit And now you’d expect that with all these things that can kill you in one hit, that at least maybe you’d have infinite lives to continuously try these difficult sections until you master them… But no. You have a max of 5 lives to beat the whole entire game. A game that is filled to the brim, with so much trial and error, so many 1 hit kills, so many moments in this game of dying to things that are just simply out of your control And even with all of that, the game only gives you five lives to beat the whole thing And if you lose all five of them, Then you have to start the entire game, all over again. This is just unacceptable, it’s unforgivable, it’s evil, if I’m being completely honest I truly believe that beating this game without using an infinite lives cheat code or any form of save stating is legitimately impossible Like I truly do not believe that anyone on this planet has done it. Any footage that may exist online of it being done, I truly believe is most likely faked, because there is just not fucking way It is impossible to beat this game without at least an infinite lives cheat code To the point where I feel like if I were a kid in the 90’s trying to beat this game legitimately, and then one day a friend of mine showed up with a game genie I would probably worship that friend as if he were Christ Because there is truly just no way to beat this game without some type of cheat code And that’s why this game is just bad, because for all of its trial and error bullshit, for all of the things that this game tries to do All of the dozens upon dozens of imperfections that this game has And yet it demands perfection from the player. That is just simply terrible game design and I just can’t let it go And honestly, I think that I’m gonna try to wrap up the review on that note I was gonna try and break down all the bullshit in this game, but to be honest I would probably be here all day, so I’m just gonna do a lightning round of all my least favorite things in this game For starters I absolutely fucking despise the boss fights in this game. They’re all dog shit and I’m pretty sure that every single one of them have moves the can just kill you in one hit They suck and hate them, and I also fucking hate Level 10, called “Rat Race” In this level you race a stupid fucking rat 3 times and the first 2 times it isn’t that bad, but the final time you race him, the rat moves at probably 8 million miles per hour, while you only move a measly 6 miles per hour, and the objective is to descend to the bottom of the level before the rat does, in order to diffuse a bomb However your main character sometimes just doesn’t drop down when you need him to, which caused multiple moments of me wanting to jump out of my fucking window, and then on top of that bullshit, when you actually do reach the bottom and get there before the stupid fucking rat, you have to wind up a kick in order to kick away the bomb, but I swear that this kick takes 10 seconds to actually go off Which in this time, the rat is still moving at 8 billion miles per hour, and all that he has to do is simply touch the bomb, which he’s allowed to do while you’re winding up your kick, which causes the bomb to explode, killing you and causing you do the whole fucking thing again I hate this part with every fiber of my being and whoever designed this deserves to stub their toe every single day of their lives And it’s not only bad enough that you have to do this stupid fucking race, but the level also has platforming sections beforehand, which have, you guessed it, one-hit kill gas projectiles that can kill you multiple times before you even get to do the main objective of the entire fucking stupid ass level It’s garbage and I hate it, and I also hate the checkpoints in this game They’re extremely unforgiving and you could legitimately play through 5 minutes of a level and then die and get sent all the way back to where you started 5 minutes beforehand It is the stupidest fucking thing that I’ve ever seen And another stupid ass thing about this game, is levels like the Turbo Tunnel and Volkmire’s Inferno, which are some of the on-rails vehicle levels that I mentioned earlier Now these aren’t necessarily bad perse, but they move so fucking fast, and the background moves so fucking fast with them, that the screen legitimately starts to hurt to look at And this is especially prevalent on Volkmire’s Inferno where the screen just moves at insane speeds and it makes my eyes want to fucking puke I legitimately feel like this game is the reason that video games starting giving epilepsy warnings, because I can see this game just giving multiple kids epilepsy, or causing their eyes to just explode upon trying to process what they’re looking at on screen, because it is just incomprehensible sometimes I will say though, and I know I said that I wouldn’t praise the game again, but it is legitimately impressive how the developers made the screen move that fast, or at least give the illusion of the screen moving that fast It’s just impressive, that’s all that I’ll say It’s almost weird too, because Battletoads feels like an NES game that doesn’t want to be an NES game, you know what I mean? Because when you play this game, you can clearly tell that it is pushing the NES to its absolute limits with some of the shit that’s in this game And it almost makes me wonder that if they would’ve just given this game a little bit more time in the oven and starting developing it for the SNES, then maybe it could’ve been a good game Because for all the absolutely putrid things that are in this game, I can truly see hints of a good video game, just buried beneath all the copious amounts of shit And it really is sad because at the end of the day this game had a lot going for it. It had a great world, fantastic sprite design, a truly solid 3D beat em’ up section that should’ve been the focus of the whole game It had all of that, But at the end of the day, It will simply just never be as good, As John Elway’s Quarterback baby!!! That game is a masterpiece 5/5 Game of the year for 37 motherfucking years in a row! … But yeah, Battletoads is still shit 2/5 *They should’ve just made John Elway’s Quarterback 2*