Especially when great talents are wasted, that’s hard to handle.
Well anyway, Welcome to another edition of Arcade’O’rama!!!
Today, let’s talk about the abbreviation I.C.: Instant Classic.
In video games it refers to a game that marks our childhood and was a success in the market. There’s a game that I believed everyone (And I MEAN EVERYONE) has heard of, and had at least (or never) played it one time in their live of Geek. Now the game that I’m talking about is ….
Battletoads!!!
This game is simply one of the best games in the NES library; it gets everything a good game must have: great graphics, excellent game play, awesome soundtrack and it’s freaking challenging!!
Even the Angry Video Game Nerd has reviewed this game, and it’s true: Even the most perfect game had some flaws, like the 2 Player game mode. It’s nearly impossible to finish without getting yourself hit by your partner, and when one player lose, you’ve to start in the last checkpoint, even if you’ve still some lives left, which it’s bullshit !!
The game was such a success, that sequels came out like Battlemaniacs, Battletoads in Ragnarok world, and Battletoads and Double Dragon: the only game where you can play the Battletoads AND the Lee brothers!! This…. IS the second awesome thing I’ve saw in my life!!! (After Moonwalker and the robot mode)
Now, why am I talking about Battletoads on a show who talks about arcade games??
Well, simple…There’s an arcade game based on the franchise: simply called Battletoads (or Super Battletoads). Have to notice that this is the last game of the Battletoads series that Rare has ever produced, as late as 1994. It is one of the lost gems of the arcade library that people have never heard of or never played. Maybe for the reason that Electronic Arts had published this game which is understandable, because they’ve made one of the worst game on the SNES ‘Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City’.
Oh well, let’s get the benefit of a doubt and play the game.
Now the first thing that has shocked me is the extreme violence of Battletoads, I mean look at it, there’s blood in this game. YES, BLOOD!! BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!
Not only there’s blood, there’s a lot of rat’s abuse, they got decapitated, kicked, stomped, drilled, pounded, falcon punched… Wow, I cannot believe they don’t suit for such abuse. And not only they get their asses obliterated, they died a la Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts, puke and taking a dump!! DAMN, for a last episode, they decide to cut the crap and go completely nuts!!
Like in BTDD, you can play with all 3 toads: Rash Pimple and Zitz. Well, the names are silly, but at least it’s appealing to call them like that, because calling them with their real names, they won’t take them seriously.
I mean, just look:
Pimple: George Pie (They begin with « Pi -»)
Rash: Dave Shar (the name’s invert)
Zitz: Morgan Ziegler (..Sounds familiar…)
And that’s interesting to note, the battletoads aren’t really toads: they’re humans (refers to Battlemaniacs storyline and the cartoon show).
Now, back to the game: your mission is to go through 6 different levels and beat the hell outta monsters. You’ll face recognizable enemies form the BT series: General Slaughter, Karnath, The Dark Queen, a mysterious opponent (Which is Big Blag in reality) and Robo-Manus. One thing that makes me perplex is that it’s not Dark Queen who’s the final boss of the game. Instead it’s Manus who’re the last guy you’ll face. And that’s interesting, because he was the final boss of Battletoads on the Game Boy. And even worst, he becomes bigger and dangerous throughout each episode. I believe it’s his final form, which means he doesn’t fuck around.
Other thing that I hate is there’s no professor T-Bird and Princess Angelica in the game. Why not??
And now for the enemies rollcall : we got rats, rats in spandex, rats in biosuit, swat rats, general Vermin, pigs, dwarfs, evil Rodolf, gargoyles, evil eyes, plants, and balls. Yeah, fireballs and big giant metal balls. What do you expect…?
For the graphics, it’s awesome: it’s animated, well detailed, and fun to watch… BUT WHAT RASH IS DOING??
OOOHH YEAH!!
And that’s not all: when you kick the pig out of the screen: sometimes you can see his ass rack with your boot’s print. In stage 3, you can see rats taking a huge dump (WTF?) and when you fight the Robo-Rat, you can see Dark Queen’s nipples out of her suit and her breast bouncing (Hard to see…). And of course, when you beat the Swat Rats: when they get up, they puke.
The gameplay is great; you can attack on both sides, pound enemies on the ground and kick’em, using weapons like a Rock hammer, laser and mini nuclear bombs, grabs Vermin’s…..balls!?
WHY?? HOW COULD THEY PUT THAT IN THE GAME??? That’s the spirits, game: if you see someone who’s taller than you, just grab and squeeze his happy sack, and punch it to death!!
And you know, in 2 or 3 players, you can easily beat Vermin by putting 2 toads on both sides and pound him on the nuts!!
Now that’s humiliating!!
In stage 4, you are on a jetpack and the jump button swap with a bomb attack that can help you out cleaning your enemies, which is cool!! But sometimes, it feels stiff to maneuver when you wanna move from one point to another.
In the final stage, you can shoot in every direction, but the problem is you can’t move while shooting. Even if you tap rapidly the shoot button, you still change direction.
It’s hard to explain: play this game until stage 6 and after that, pop up Contra. You’ll understand why..
But still, it’s easy to play, and it never getting boring.
For the challenge, the game is easy in the 1st stage, but after the end of the 2nd stage, it becomes very hard.
It’s difficult to hit Karnath after several strikes on his head, and he become faster and faster.
By the way, bosses can drain half of your life bar. Except for Slaughter, he’s too easy to beat. So, in the end of the 2nd stage, you can except to die, and die, and die, and DIE!!
The music…One word...INCREDIBLE!!!
For a last episode, they really want to end this with some ass kicking music! They even recycle the 1st stage them from the original Battletoads on the Korpse Kount!!
My favorite is Stage 5’s music, listen:
And besides, Stage 5 is my favorite stage: it’s kinda the Hall of Evil, where all enemies from Battletoads are listed: except for Admiral Oink who never appeared in the game. As a matter of fact, HE NEVER APPEARD IN THE WHOLE SERIES!! Why not replace him with Silas Volkmire instead?
Well anyway, Super Battletoads is one hell of a game, and not to make all people angry, it’s actually better that Battletoads on the NES...
I know I know, but don’t get me wrong; I love the 1st game as well as Battletoads & Double Dragon. But Super Battletoads perfected it: they took everything that is good from its predecessors and multiply it by 10, to make it the ULTIMATE Episode of the Battletoads series!!
That concludes my review about Super Battletoads. Now one thing that makes me upset is this game was never ported on consoles, which is Bullshit!! It suffers the same fate as some good arcade games like X-Men, Asterix, Aliens or the Simpsons (If we don’t count its computers portage that’re ugly!!). Why they didn’t take example to TMNT 2: Turtles in Time??
And furthermore, since Rare was bought by Microsoft, Why not making a sequel to Battletoads? There’s this video about a possible sequel on the Wii which is never came through, but when it’s official release??
Well, they’ve made a beta version of Battletoads on the Game Boy Advance, but when you look at it... Thank god it never came through:
Now if you excuse me, I need to listen to some “Big Balls”!!
FrenchOtaku signing out from ARCADE’O’RAMA!!!
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