If you’re unfamiliar with the Battletoads, it was a series of games that Rare made before they started to make good games. Hey-oh!
I’ve probably already lost half of you, but it was worth it. For the rest of you who remain, I’m mostly kidding. Mostly. I think history is misremembering Battletoads as a landmark series, when most people only played the first two levels of the original title and never saw past the Turbo Tunnel. Let me tell you, it doesn’t get better from there. But before anyone really had time to let the trauma set in, Rare had ported it to a myriad of platforms.
Battlemaniacs is weirdly derivative of the original title. But, hey, the 1994 arcade game is pretty good.
And then there was Battletoads and Double Dragon. The concept is just incredible, taking the grandfather franchise of the belt-scrolling beat-’em-up and combining it with the Battletoads. And it isn’t bad. It isn’t good, either. I feel like it’s just more interesting to talk about than it is to play.
Psychotronic!
I’m playing Battletoads and Double Dragon because it was part of my care package from Retro-Bit. The only game I’ve yet to cover from the shipment. They did a reprint of it, which is cool for a few reasons. They redid the cartridge label, colored it a semi-glossy green, and put it in a sort of box that I wish all SNES games came in. The box is sort of a harder cardboard and opens from the front. It’s not on the level of the Genesis/Mega Drive clamshells, but it’s enough that you’d want to keep it. Also, my favorite part of the label is that it has the modern Rare logo on it. I have absolutely no affection for modern-day Rare, but it’s just cool to see the update.
Weirdly, however, I already owned Battletoads and Double Dragon on SNES. I even have the box, which I don’t often collect.
Anyway, aside from that, the game is basically the same, aside from the copyright on the main screen. Well, I hit a bug twice during level 3 where I could no longer advance, but I feel like that might have been in the original game. I feel like I recall hitting it before, but I couldn’t find anyone complaining about it online, so it might be a false memory. However, I don’t think Retro-Bit really changed enough that this one particular problem would occur.
So, Battletoads and Double Dragon are what it says on the box. It’s a game featuring the three toads, Zitz, Pimple, and Acne, as well as Jimmy and Bimmy. The plot is literally, “Oh no, bad guys are attacking. We’d better go pick up the Dragons.” And then that happens, and the game starts. You select from one of the three toads because Jimmy and Bimmy are just a couple of dudes, and that’s boring. The Toads, meanwhile, confidently strut around naked, which I’m always a fan of.
Vague recollections
The gameplay of Battletoads and Double Dragon is like one of the designers of the original Battletoads was finally medicated. I’d say it was a halfway point between the two games, but it’s really more of a Battletoads game that doesn’t hate you as much. There are still the sidescrolling sections, a slower version of the Turbo Tunnel, and the vertical rappelling parts. It also leans a lot wackier than Double Dragon typically did. I mean, maybe aside from the shared hallucination that was Double Dragon V.
Combat was also usually a bit better in, well, the good Double Dragon titles. In Battletoads it’s mostly just trying to hit an enemy before they hit you, at which point they’re stunlocked so you can just mash the attack button until your character does a more powerful attack. If they hit you first, you’re stunlocked instead and will take a bunch of damage. On top of that, there’s a dash attack that you will be using all the time, an uppercut in the sidescrolling stages, and every once in a blue moon, you get to use a weapon.
Meanwhile, the elements taken from the Double Dragon series, like some of the enemies and bosses, are extremely, uh, made up. The guy built up as the archenemy of the dragons is called “The Shadow Boss,” and that’s not something that really exists. In the NES version of Double Dragon, you were fighting someone known as “The Shadow Boss,” but it turned out to just be Jimmy in a twist that only occurred in that port.
In a fairly recent interview, Paul Machacek actually said that he doesn’t recall getting “too much direction or feedback from the DD IP holders.” So, a lot of what they took just seems to have come from instruction manuals and their vague recollections.
Check out this Rash
This may all sound like Battletoads and Double Dragon sucks, but as I said, it isn’t bad. For one thing, the art style, animation, and sound are all on point. There are some great extra details, like when you push an enemy through the floor, or grab a woman by the hair and kick her in the butt. A lot of the levels that are just straight beat-’em-ups are good, if a bit shallow, and with a bit of memorization, the sidescroller parts can be fun.
The bosses, on the other hand, you need to learn to juggle against the edge of the screen or they’ll combo you into oblivion. A second player really helps that, but who has friends? That would mean interacting with humans, and have you ever met one?
Speaking of two players, you have three toads to choose from, and they’re all the same aside from color. Forget that Pimple is the big one and Acne is the one with shades. They’re all the same size, and all lack any sort of headwear. Jimmy and Bimmy are likewise the same aside from color, but, as I mentioned earlier, they’re just two dudes. The Toads at least have different moves compared to the Dragons, but that’s where the variation ends.
Confidently naked
There are only seven stages of different lengths, but, as is standard for the series, there’s a limit on your continues. Considering how inelegant the combat is and how necessary memorization is, it will probably take you quite a few runs to crack it. It’s easier with a second player who knows the ins and outs of retro games, but, in my experience, those don’t exist.
I’m aware that I’m being very negative about Battletoads and Double Dragon, but that’s because the only thing my teachers taught me to share is criticism. I feel that I must again walk things back and clarify that this is not a bad game. It’s not a great Battletoads title (if one happens to exist), and it’s not a very good Double Dragon game, but there are enough appreciable factors here to keep it from being a bad game. The music is good, and the designers knew how to have fun with things, and even with all the clumsy parts, that attitude gets transmitted.
More importantly, however, it was cool to see two games crossover. Even if you weren’t a fan of one or the other, just the fact that these two sets of characters were important enough to be combined into one game made it seem like you were playing something incredible. Like quality is accumulative. It isn’t, obviously. Battletoads and Double Dragon is proof of that.
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