One thing I’ve made a point of talking about elsewhere is the myth of objectivity in games criticism. Any piece of art can be critiqued with some degree of objectivity, but only to a point. In the case of video games this can mean things like dodgy framerates, reproducible bugs, dropped inputs, and so on. What you can’t quantify, and is significantly more important in an interactive medium, are the subjective elements. Gamefeel, execution of its mechanics, the quality and payoff of strategic (in this case I mean long-term planning) and tactical (short-term) decisions, and the satisfaction of performing tasks within the framework provided by the designers are just a handful of largely-if-not-totally subjective elements that carry massive weight. This is largely a matter of personal preferences, skill level, familiarity with the conventions employed, and a million other things that are a waste of time to get into here, but I think you probably get the gist.
All of that preamble – and believe me that’s the truncated version, I could easily go on – is to say that while I can find many things worthy of praise in Battletoads (GB) on a technical, “objective” level, none of this surmounts how much I cannot fucking stand playing it. I love a good beat ’em up, and Battletoads has not and will never be a good beat ’em up.
When you consider how early in the Game Boy’s lifespan this arrived, Rare pulled some frogdamn magic here. The sprites are massive, they animate smoothly, they use a lot of convincing faux-3D, and the performance is so much better than many games that came after it that honestly beggars belief. They even went so far as to make an entirely new set of levels here, despite the name match, that broadly work better on the Game Boy than the NES levels would! That said Rare eventually did go on to port the NES version with a different subtitle because sure, why not double dip on fucking Battletoads?
Just…god, actually playing this thing? Sliding around everywhere? The total lack of significant animation cancels? Those awful rope sections? Obnoxious vehicle after obnoxious vehicle that all handle like a bar of soap? Having to memorize the fast sections because there’s no room for error? Bigass cartoon limbs with borderline improvised hitboxes taking half your health from nowhere? Ew. Ew. This game is fucking grimy, dog. It just feels bad in the hands, and as impressive as its technical aspects are, the bile starts bubbling up as soon as I see it in motion because that probably means I’m touching it.
I’ll go one further. Moreso than many BEU franchises, Battletoads has a lot of defenders that are quick to get into the difficulty discourse. I’m going to head off anything git gud-adjacent at the pass with two points:
1) I’ve already beaten Battletoads. Multiple Battletoadses. The NES one and this one. I am one of you! I still think this franchise sucks!
2) This version? For the Game Boy? Actually pretty damn easy by comparison, barring some bits at the very end that you could just slam your continues into if you really needed. Hell, there’s an entire section in the back half where you just run from a boulder and are in basically no danger if you know what’s coming up.
A game being challenging is a perfectly fine thing! What it isn’t is inherently virtuous. I fully understand that completing these games is a satisfying feat that comes with a side of bragging rights among those in the know, but that doesn’t make up for the game being so much worse than its contemporaries to actually play, as far as I’m concerned. Fuck the skin condition toad trio and the jet skis they rode in on. I’m glad their parents are too busy with Sea of Thieves to play with them anymore.
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