Battletoads

Battletoads
Battletoads
	Title screen from the NES version.
Developer(s)	Rare
Publisher(s)	Tradewest
Platform(s)	Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Sega Game Gear, Game Boy, Amiga CD32
Release	June 1991 NES/NFC ; 1993GEN/MD, 1992 Amiga 1993 GG and GB, 1994 ACD32
Genre(s)	Beat 'em up, Platformer, Action
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

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Battletoads was a video game franchise by Rare Ltd. created to rival the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. The first game was released for the NES in 1991 and then ported to the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, in 1993, Amiga in 1992 Sega Game Gear in 1993, and Amiga CD32 in 1994 in. It was arguably the most graphically advanced video game for the NES, at a time when the video game market was turning to Sega Genesis and SNES. Some also argue that it is one of the most difficult NES games to finish.

Despite having the same box art and title as the NES release, Battletoads for Game Boy is a completely different game with new levels. A modified version of the original game was later released on the Game Boy as Battletoads in Ragnarok's World.

The distinctive music of the Battletoads series was composed by David Wise.

Story

Two toads named after skin disorders (Rash and Zitz) have to save their brother (Pimple) and the Princess Angelica from the Dark Queen, ruler of Planet Ragnarok (named after a battle from Norse mythology), with the assistance of Professor T. Bird and his space ship, The Vulture.

From the game's manual

After her defeat by the Galactic Corporation at the battle of Canis Major, the Dark Queen and her renegade space troops retreat to the outer reaches of the universe, hiding out in dark spaces between the stars.
Meanwhile, on board the spaceship Vulture, Professor T. Bird and the Battletoads - Rash, Zitz and Pimple - are escorting the Princess Angelica back to her home planet, where her father, the Terran Emperor, awaits her safe arrival.
Along the way, Pimple, the biggest Battletoad, takes Angelica out for a cruise in the Toadster to a nearby Leisure Station.
Pimple and Angelica burn space, but the Dark Queen ambushes them before they can get there. Luckily, Pimple manages to send out a distress signal before the Toadster is gobbled up and carried away to Ragnarok's World, the Dark Queen's planet...
So, there's the situation, 'toad: the Dark Queen's kidnapped the Princess Angelica and your best buddy Pimple - what're ya gonna do about it?!
You're gonna get real MAD, that's what you're gonna do - and then you're gonna get EVEN!
Professor Bird's gonna set you down on Ragnarok, but from there it's up to you. You've got a long way to go, 'toad, thru ice and fire and nightmares so terrible you don't even want to imagine 'em - thru a monstrous Gargantua and ultimately to the Tower of Shadows, where the Dark Queen awaits you.
Have you got the guts, 'toad? We'll soon see, one way or another...

Main characters

Heroes

Rash (Real name Dave Shar)
The most well known of the Battletoads, Rash is the green toad who wears black sun glasses. During the series' latter half, he is depicted wearing a bandana around his arm. He is both the fastest and craziest of the 'toads.

Zitz (Real name Morgan Ziegler)
The leader of the Battletoads, Zitz is both intelligent and cunning, and tends to use machine-like attacks (Sawblades and Drills in the arcade Battletoads). Zitz was the original brown-colored 'toad. In later games, he is depicted as greenish-blue.

Pimple (Real name George Pie)
The muscular, albeit less intelligent Pimple serves as the 'toads' "tank." He loves using heavy objects to attack his enemies (e.g., anvils, hammers). Pimple was originally the greenish-blue toad. Due to his larger build, he was impossible to be used as a palette swap like the other two toads, and was an unplayable character in the NES game. Pimple was playable in most future versions, however.

Professor T. Bird
This old vulture serves as the Battletoads mentor; he guides them through their missions, and mocks them when they fail.

Villains

File:DarkQueen.png

Dark Queen

Dark Queen
The mysterious ruler of evil: Her ambitions include destroying the Battletoads and ruling over the universe with the help of her evil allies.

Robo-Manus
One of the Dark Queen's top lackeys: This dangerous cyborg has been defeated by the Battletoads many times, yet he remains one of the Battletoad's most intelligent and dangerous opponents.

Big Blag
Big Blag is another of the Queen's minions, an obese rat who contributes his weight to his fighting style, which usually involves flattening the 'toads. Big Blag also fights using the Morningstar-like spike ball at the end of his tail.

General Slaughter
A bull who is one of the Dark Queen's least intelligent commanders. He attacks with his fists and horns. Aside from his appearance in the original Battletoads, he serves as a first stage boss in the Gameboy game and Super Battletoads and as a mini boss in Battletoads and Double Dragons.

Silas Volkmire
A allie of the Dark Queen's. He is the scientist who designed the Gamescape, he intends to turn the world into his own computerized kingdom. Volkmire appears in Battlemaniacs. He was thought to have been killed when the Battletoads shot down his ship, although his body was never found. Volkmire was also briefly mentioned in the first Battletoads in the name of the seventh level, Volkmire's Inferno. In the comic he is a human scientist from Earth responsible for creating the Battletoads. But he appears physically deformed in Battlemaniacs.

Other characters

Scuzz - Members of the rat pack led by Big Blag. These vile vermin are the main soldiers of the Dark Queen's army. They come in many variations and use many types of weapons. They are also called Giblets, Gonads and Gurtles.

Note: there is also an individual rat named Scuzz who who appears to be the right hand of Big Blag. He is encountered in the Gameboy version of Battletoads piloting the Rat Rocket or Rodent Rocket, you race him to bombs in Battlemaniacs, and in Super Battletoads, he is driving the Robo-Rat, the third stage's boss.

Psyko Pigs - Another group of soldiers in the Dark Queen's army, assumed to be lead by General Slaughter. Psyko Pigs are humanoid pigs who have a tendency to wield large weapons, especially axes and maces (some of which are charged with electricity), or just throw their own weight around. They are generally larger and stronger than the Rat Pack, but are of course slower.

Giblet - A robust rodent, who's surprisingly quick and mean. Beat him to the bomb, or you're history.

Princess Angelica - The damsel in distress in the original Battletoads game.

Michiko Tashoku - She is daughter of the president of Psicone Co. She is the girl who gets kidnapped in Battlemaniacs.

Karnath - A giant snake you ride groups of them in the original Battletoads and in Battlemaniacs, he appears as a boss in Super Battletoads.

General Vermin - A Tall, muscular rat, as opposed to the short(ish), portly Big Blag. He appears as a boss in the Gameboy game and as sub boss in Super Battletoads.

Story Comic

The back story of Battletoads was given in a comic printed in Nintendo Power magazine. The storyline in Battletoads in Battlemaniacs is somewhat based on this back story.

The 'toads were originally three gamers who play a virtual reality Battletoads videogame in front of spectators for Psicone Industries. Technician Silas Volkmire is told to make the game harder in order to make the spectacle more thrilling, but Silas, having long held a grudge that he wasn't allowed to share the trio's spotlight, hacks the game machine. When the gamers try to use it again, they find themselves transformed into their characters and trapped in the game. After escaping from an ambush set up by the Dark Queen with the help of Professor T. Bird, the 'toads join forces with the avian genius to save the universe from her forces.

Gameplay

Different levels of the game have very different play styles. There are a few 3D and traditional 2D "beat-em-up" levels where the player progresses by defeating enemies, though even these levels tend to have many lethal obstacles. The most difficult levels are the obstacle course and race levels, where the character must dodge a series of obstacles while driving or flying at high speed, or outrun an enemy that can instantly kill the player. These levels typically required the player to memorize the sequence of obstacles in the way, and to have extremely rapid reflexes. Other levels include a climbing/jumping "snake maze", an underwater level with lethal spikes and dangerous monsters, and two difficult "tower climb" levels, including the final climb of the Dark Queen's tower.

Part of the series's marketable appeal is due to its exaggerated ways of finishing off enemies. These include a headbutt that would have the battletoad sprout ram's horns (or, in Pimple's case, a football helmet in the aracde game), a punch with an extremely enlarged fist, a two-handed smash into the ground that yielded only the enemy's head sticking out, a kick move with the character sprouting a very enlarged boot, and on climbing/falling levels, the ability to transform into a wrecking ball by having your character line-up vertically on either the right or left side of the playing field.

Difficulty

Battletoads is extremely challenging; it is notorious among NES games for its brutal difficulty and quick deaths. It requires a great deal of skill, practice and memory. Because of its mix of race levels, high-speed obstacle courses, and dangerous instant-kill obstacles and monsters, it requires a broad base of skills which makes the game very difficult to beat. Although Battletoads is classifiable as a side-scrolling fighting game, the monsters the player defeats through brute force are much less challenging than the obstacles and instant-death traps the player must avoid.

Two features did reduce the otherwise crippling difficulty of the game. In the second level, a quick player could gain multiple lives by repeatedly hitting defeated enemies before they fell offscreen; thus a skilled player could build up a store of ten or more lives to spend in future levels. Second, there were several "warp points" scattered throughout the game that let the player skip ahead two levels. A knowledgeable player could avoid approximately half of the levels in the game through judicious use of warp points.

Despite these concessions to the player, Battletoads for the NES has a reputation as being virtually impossible to finish, even among hardcore gamers. The Genesis version tones down the difficulty considerably, awarding the players with more lives and generally featuring more forgiving controls and gameplay than the NES version.

Criticism

The original Battletoads was well-received by most gaming critics. However, it has remained somewhat maligned in the eyes of more casual gamers, due mostly to its capriciously-high difficulty. It earned 8th place in IGN's Top 10 most difficult games to beat.^[1]

Even in the first level, there are many ways to meet quick death from "falling off the edge" by walking too close to the bottom or top of the screen (unlike most games, there was no artificial barrier to prevent such occurrences).

In contrast to most games, which become harder gradually as the player progresses, the third level of Battletoads presents an extreme leap in difficulty. The first of the obstacle-course levels (which involves driving a hovering car and avoiding sequences of blocks) is a formidable challenge, even for experienced players.

To compound the problem, Battletoads gives the player limited opportunities to continue after being defeated (many other games of this size gave unlimited opportunities), and had no password or lithium battery-based save feature to enable the player to continue the game across multiple sessions. Therefore, only the most dedicated players made it more than halfway through the game, let alone completed it.

Unlike many side-scrolling games in which two players cooperating can complete the game more easily than one, Battletoads becomes even more difficult to complete with two players, because of the many obstacle levels. If either player crashes during an obstacle course, both are sent back to the start to try again; thus both players need perfect play to get through many of the levels.

The game is also littered with minor glitches that suggested poor beta testing. The most critical flaw occurs in level 11, entitled "Clinger Winger." During a 2-player game, the second player is unable to move in level 11, and therefore must lose all of his or her lives before player one can continue the level. This makes finishing the game even more difficult for the second player, as that player had one less continue and any accumulated extra lives at his or her disposal.

List of Games

There are several other games in the franchise, principally for Nintendo and Sega consoles:

Battletoads (Game Boy): It features levels and some characters not seen in other games in the series.
Battletoads & Double Dragon: A crossover with the characters from the Double Dragon series with liberties taken. Released in 1993 for the NES, Game Boy, Sega Genesis, and SNES.
Battletoads in Battlemaniacs: The characters are bigger and the graphics are better. Released in 1993 for the SNES and Sega Master System.
Battletoads aka Super Battletoads: An arcade game released in 1994. The arcade game, unlike the other games, featured voiceovers and several other features that distinguish it from the other games, such as an increased level of violence (players could bloodily decapitate some of their enemies with specific attacks) Also, during vehicle levels, combat is emphasized rather than memorizing and avoiding obstacles.

Comeback?

In a recent interview with Rare about their latest title Viva Piñata, a question was asked about what is going to happen to the company's other franchises such as Battletoads and Killer Instinct. In response, they replied that if someone in their development team comes up with a new idea for a Battletoads or Killer Instinct game, they might consider it to happen.

This very same year Rare has denied not once, but a couple of times, that they don’t intend to make a port of any Battletoads title for XLA, despite the interest repeatedly shown by their fans. They usually argue that the original games were too hard, and the public wouldn’t approve such difficult gameplay nowadays.

There is also a petition for a new game to appear on the Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, and/or Game Boy Advance.

Animated series

Battletoads also spun off a half-hour, traditionally animated television special produced by DIC Entertainment, airing on Fox in 1991, about three kids who turn into humanoid toads to rescue a princess. However, only the pilot made it to the airwaves; it was never picked up as a full series, despite comic-style ads in GamePro magazine claiming otherwise.

Set in Oxnard, California, the show stars three kids (despite the fact that the comic's story revolved around three video game testers). The trio is given the ability to transform into anthropomorphic toads with superhuman strength and the ability to change their arms and legs into weapons in techniques called "Smash Hits." They are charged with protecting Professor T. Bird and Princess Angelica from the Dark Queen, who wants to steal Angelica's magical amulet for her plans of universal conquest.

It is likely that the show was an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Incidentally, DiC would try this again with Street Sharks.

References

^ Top 10 Tuesday: Toughest Games to Beat

[1] Top 10 Tuesday: Toughest Games to Beat

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