The most powerful batrachians in video games are back with a delivery that is summarized in pure action, colorful and healthy Coop.
“These cameos kill me!”, Rash
1991. The Ninja Turtles beat it, they destroy it worldwide, converted from an ultraviolent underground comic to an animation series for children, converted in turn into a source of pure and constant merchandising. In the midst of this, the basic idea in US animation studios is simple: “we want more anthropomorphic warriors and / or sugarcane animals”. And as the most direct ‘heirs’ of the TMNT fever we have a Rare production for the Nintendo NES: Battletoads, some warrior toads that hit ostia like bread and have that 90s attitude of Poochie from the Simpsons -Rash wears sunglasses, what we leave there …
Beyond the ‘copy-paste’
The saga has been brilliantly summarized by our ‘voice’ and retro compendium Juan Arenas in this Memory Card video. But suffice it to say that the Battletoads, obviously emerged from the turtle-madness, reached their own personality, became an icon of their own, and that has kept them in memory for 26 years despite not having starred in more than a handful of games in 3rd and 4th Gen and the Arcades – plus cameos like Killer Instinct or Shovel Knight.
And it is that when you debut with a game that has A- a great rhythm in terms of mixing different genres and B- THE **** MOST HATED MOTORCYCLE PHASE IN THE HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES -or one of the most hated-, you go to memory Yes or yes. For this reason, and with the fever they revive hitting very hard since the last 7th Gen, a group of fans died (we) because these three batrachians returned. And a year ago, Microsoft gave us that pleasure when it released the trailer for this Battletoads, a title sold as a remake – reboot that is actually one of those late sequels that we are seeing so much.
26 years later …
The plot? Well, without revealing much, the Toads have been ‘lost’ all these years, and now they must face the real world, and do a ‘reboot’ of their lives. But of course, the Dark Queen appears again and must be defeated. And in a (applauded) sign of current times, her redesign is the most radical, since it stops being a 90s gothic pin up style Playboy cover to get closer to a mad scientist, but the (divisive) artistic style we will talk more late.
The game is divided into 4 acts, and each act in several levels or stages (25 in total). They are not always the same amount, and in fact some acts last longer than others, although the usual thing is that in a first game and in SAPO difficulty -that is, in normal-, each act lasts between 90 and 120 minutes, with some levels that barely last 2 minutes and zones that can be extended over 40 min – it depends on your ability to pad.
The story is pure anecdote to join phases, it has a touch of madness very of the classic Rare exploiting that ‘meta’ concept, but also current firing jokes during the gameplay and machine-gunning us with (too many) jokes in the cutscenes, which have a dubbing in English, but texts in Spanish -although more Latin than Spanish.
Did you doubt it? Absurd difficulty peaks
True to its name, we’ve run into some absurd difficulty peaks here and there. If you play on Easy or Normal, you have access to a temporary invincibility skill that you can summon and use when the game proposes it, something that happens when you are stuck in a place and die many times in a row, so you can use it to pass yourself that section that resists you.
And it is one thing that they make it difficult for us – as a good Battletoad it is and we appreciate it – but it is another thing to get stuck at a point not because of our lack of ability, but because the game insists on it. In fact, and to attest to this, the studio has implemented an immediate respawn system for the user, and just when you die you reappear instantly at the last checkpoint, without having to load a game or see intermediate scenes. You die, explode or crash and reappear immediately to continue.
In the event that you get stuck on a difficulty level and want to go down to a lower one, the game will not let you. You must restart a game from the beginning.
Multi-gender
One of the best assets of the original NES was its enormous variety, since to pure hack ‘n slash combat and platforms were added vertical phases by abseiling, horizontally with the famous flying motorcycles, etc. This Battletoads repeats that: Hack ‘n slash levels followed by mini-games of giving massages, sending emails, participating in an Olympics, levels of escaping in a’ sled ‘-which seem inspired by Rayman Legends- or 2D platform, going to a vertical Shoot ’em up… That is one of its strengths: you don’t know what you are going to find at the next level, but also a problem, because the proposal in general is not well balanced.
In fact, whoever comes to you for your Beat ’em up offer should know that the sum total of these levels is not even half of the total phases of the game -18 of those 25 levels are minigames, chase scenes or platforms. And while the idea of hacking and switch puzzles may add more variety, their inclusion doesn’t make much sense in the hack ‘n slash phases, because they interrupt your rhythm.
But the best thing is undoubtedly its magic cooperative with 2-3 users, because apart from the extra help by beating enemies -something that can be done uphill alone-, everything is in doubles or triples and must be solved collaborating: the phase of the bike, the hacking puzzles, etc. -in fact there are several Achievements / Trophies that can only be achieved by playing coop in 3. The only bad thing is that not everyone can call a colleague to come to their house -in these times of Coronavirus even less-, so this title begs, demands, screams for an online multiplayer that we do not understand why it has not been implemented.
“When the brain fails, brute force prevails”, Pimple
Let’s talk about an important part: the combat system: We have the classic hit button, which will create a combo of several hits, then we have the launch attack to project the enemy shot into the sky, and the transformation attack, which makes our character makes an ideal movement for when enemies surround us -Rash takes out a giant fish to hit while spinning or starts playing an arcade, Zitz fires a sound attack; Pimple turns into a mummy or Pimple-Wolf. Each toad is designed for a type of player: Pimple is an ideal ‘tanker’ for groups of enemies, albeit slow; Zitz is very good with aerial combos and the fastest – ideal for Final Bosses; and Rash is a little in the middle.
Holding B tight is a Guard-Breaker for enemies that you must break their guard. RT is the dodge button that will help us move quickly around the stage when it closes for combat – if we are not fighting, RT serves to run. LT + x will serve to attract the enemy towards you with your tongue and immobilize him for a moment to crack him well. Really useful, there are enemies that seek to get away from you at medium distance to hit you from afar. With this movement you attract them and prevent them from attacking you, but it is only one at a time, so you must be careful to use the movement quickly and hit him, use it and hit him, etc. You also use your tongue to collect flies using LT + Y. And as in the original games, flies are health items that increase your life.
Battletoads can also spit to momentarily paralyze the enemy and interrupt their attack – seriously: you’ll use it a lot. The bad thing is that in the end you try to combine all these actions and you can’t, so you directly resort to hitting buttons in the middle of the visual chaos. One of the best things is that when we have almost defeated them, they are paralyzed waiting for us to finish them off. This renders them harmless and we can go and spank those who are still active.
One great thing is that there are no RPG elements, there is no Skill Tree, the characters do not progress, but have their ‘skills’ unlocked from the beginning so as not to waste time. And the most outstanding novelty is the option to change in real time between each one of the Battletoads by simply pressing the pad’s crosshead on the sides or down.
The best thing is that this also gives you several lives, since if you are in the middle of an impossible wave or against a Final Boss – there are a few, but they are not memorable or difficult once you find their pattern -, and one of the characters loses entire health bar, you automatically switch to another while the previous one recovers, but this is limited.
One last note is that the scenarios have collectibles to collect – or earn by doing certain actions.
“It’s my turn to shine”
“They have switched me to Battletoads. Why that purely American flash series look when Rash looked so brutal on Xbox One’s Killer Instinct? ” Undoubtedly the most divisive section, the artistic design of the game forgets the glorious and ultraviolent Battletoads of the arcade and reconverts them under a Cartoon aesthetic that will divide opinions.
At a graphic level, it should be noted that the game is colorful until saying enough and it absolutely enters the eyes with its cel shading touches. The best are undoubtedly the animations of the special blows of each battletoad deforming their bodies and transforming, and especially the enemies, how they hit and how they react to blows, because we are talking about a very fluid Cuphead-type animation style ‘by hand’, Kind of the latest Rayman, which is a joy to watch.
Perhaps that is why the cutscenes and animated flash-type minigames lose a lot in the comparison, since although effective for the type of accelerated narration of constant gags they seek, the flash aesthetic loses to the Cuphead touches.
At the sound level? Well, the characters are dubbed into English, the voices are good and the first thing that greets us when we start the game is directly the original NES Main title, only re-instrumentalized for the occasion. The 8-bit MIDI sound is lost, but it gains on guitar riffs and drum hits – and frankly sounds better than the lazy orchestrated version of the Rare Replay compilation. Without being memorable, the way the music adapts to the madness that is happening on screen is commendable.
CONCLUSION
The Battletoads are back, and they do so from the hand of a Rare who recalls old times although she does not sign. The game certainly lives up to the original iconic classic: unbridled action, multi-genre not to bore, and pointless difficulty peaks. It is a good way to bring the batrachians back with the idea of giving them more deliveries, although analyzing it in detail the gameplay feels unbalanced, it needs more cohesion between the genres and the flash aesthetics collides with the detail of the in-game animations.
THE BEST
- Let the Battletoads come back at last, they were missed among so much retro fever
- The variety of genres you are constantly jumping between
- The hit and enemy animations are delightful, and some settings are gorgeous
- It is a constant machine gun of gags and jokes ingame and in cinematics
- Cooperative mode is the real sauce of the game …
WORST
- … But it’s only local. The game is crying out for online multiplayer
- Certain absurd peaks of difficulty, brand of the house?
- The puzzles in the middle of the hack ‘n slash phases make no sense and break the rhythm of these levels – which are also few in the game.
- The variety of genres is appreciated, but not well balanced
- The cinematics with blow, rhythm and current flash aesthetics do not convince us
Okay
It meets the expectations of what a good game is, has quality and does not present serious flaws, although it is missing elements that could have taken it to higher levels.
