This is a review I was unsure I’d even end up writing. The weird part is I feel so overwhelmingly positive on this experience that I couldn’t wait to get my thoughts down. So get ready, here’s the surprising truth. The new Battletoads is...good. It’s simple, funny, has fantastic art and a bumpin soundtrack. It manages to take the rocky history of the decidedly bad NES game that came before and make the joke before the player can. It’s not a deep and complicated experience, but it’s charming and harkens back to the sort of games you would see drop in the early days of Xbox Live Arcade.
Battletoads (PC [reviewed], Xbox One )
Developer: Dlala Studios, Rare
Publisher: Microsoft
Released: August 20, 2020
MSRP: $19.99 (also part of Game Pass)
Story isn’t typically at the forefront of games in the beat’em up genre. That’s why it is important to note that the storytelling in Battletoads (mostly done in Saturday morning cartoon style cut scenes) is one of the strongest features. The Toads you probably barely remember are back. Zits Pimple and Rash start their rebooted journey by finding out they’ve been stuck in a virtual reality chamber for the past twenty-six years. Turns out they’re not the badass heroes they thought themselves to be and are forced to find their way in a world that couldn’t care less about them.
After a quick and comical attempt at finding normal jobs, the (maybe) brothers set off to prove their value and save the world. Along the way, they’ll partner up with an old nemesis, and square off against the Topians, a duo of aliens looking to market our heroes to the world for profit. The plot is thin but is carried by fun weird characters and great performances from all voice actors involved. I’d watch this cartoon if it were real.
Gameplay isn’t complicated by any stretch. The Toads have a few basic punch and kick combos as well as launch attacks to help juggle enemies. They can also spit wads of gum to hold enemies in place and use charged up attacks to break an enemy’s defenses. You can also pull enemies in close with your tongue, a mechanic also used to eat health-restoring flys, grab collectibles from afar and switch between back and foreground sections in certain levels.
If you’re playing solo you can also switch between the three brothers on the fly, doing so can help keep your combo multiplier up by having another toad tag in with a special hit. Each Toad also feels slightly distinct. Zits is your light fast attacker, Rash sort of a middle of the road weight class, and Pimple is slow but packs a heavy punch. Three player multiplayer is supported and you can revive your fellow teammates rather than swapping between characters to preserve health.
While combat is simple and fun it never feels overwhelming on the base Toad difficulty. If you’re looking for more of a challenge you can always bump the difficulty up to make enemies hit harder, but more of a variation in enemy type would’ve gone a long way to make things a bit more interesting.
Battletoads doesn’t just deliver arcade beat’em up mechanics through the entire game though. Interspersed throughout are levels built around other game styles. Pimple has a few levels that are puzzle platformers where you solve puzzles by moving blocks onto pressure plates. He even gains a Donkey Kong Country inspired roll jump for these sections. The Toads even find themselves piloting a space ship for a few Galaga inspired levels, and of course, a few speeder bike levels appear as a tribute to the infamously impossible level from the original game. None of these levels are particularly deep, but they do a decent job of keeping things from getting stale. You can only punch so many bad guys before you’ve seen all a game has to offer.
Strangely enough, these minigames often feel like stand-ins for actual boss encounters a feature Battletoads is weirdly light on. There’s only a total of about three actual boss encounters that play out in the typical beat’em up style and none are particularly tough. One of them is even in the first level and feels like more of a tutorial.
You can shake out a playthrough of Battletoads in about three hours, but it’s a game with an arcade spirit that seems built for multiple plays. Even if you’re light on game savvy friends to play with you can always go back for all of those collectibles.
Verdict: Battletoads is a pleasant surprise from an IP I had zero expectations of. It reminds me of the days when a twenty dollar game you could enjoy with friends dropped every week on the Xbox Live Arcade. Simple, funny, and very replayable.
Gamepass owners: Move this one to the top of your queue
Buy it
Author: Rich Meister