Elements of Funky Gaming — Battletoads Takes the Cake
November 15, 2007 12:55 am NES
What does it take to make a funky game? Well, that depends on what you mean by funky. If you take one part impossibly difficult game, one part tougher American than Japanese version and one part retro-brand battle from the early ’90s, then you definitely have a funky game on your hands.
What game out there exists to meet these exacting funky standards?
Battletoads.
It’s so amazing and funky that my good friends over at FunkDeli would back me up on this one.
Wait…isn’t Battletoads just a rip-off of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
You’re damn right it is, but that’s just the beginning of this fantastically funky tale.
The History of Battletoads
You see, back in the early ’90s (well, they probably started developing it in the late ’80s), Rare wanted a brand to rival TMNT, so they did what everyone who wants to compete with someone (or something) does, they copied! It worked for Coke and Pepsi, it worked for Gatorade and Powerade, hell it even worked for Deep Impact and Armageddon…so Rare was certainly off to the right track with Battletoads.
When it originally came out for the NES in 1991, Battletoads was quite the graphical achievement. During this time, the power had shifted to stronger machines (the SNES and Genesis), but Battletoads did the Father of All Modern Systems proud.
The story, as did many games from this generation, involved people who were captured and needed saving. In this version of this tried-and-true plot, the dastardly villain is the Dark Queen, the ruler of Planet Ragnarok. Our heroes, aka the saviors, were Rash and Zitz, the Battletoads. Helping them out on this perilous journey was Professor T. Bird and his spaceship The Vulture.
At this point, Battletoads seems like John Q. Average game, with nothing really special or funky. However, this is where the plot thickens.
Battletoads Gameplay — This Game Goes to 11
The insane difficulty of Battletoads ratchets it up a level on the Funk-o-Meter. It’s so hard that IGN gave it eighth place in its “Top 10 Most Difficult Games to Beat.”
‘Course, this game isn’t just the garden-variety “the computer cheats to help itself” brand of difficulty, oh no. It has a mix of high-speed obstacle courses, powerful enemies and multiple instant-death hazards delicately sprinkled throughout its multiple levels.
To succeed in Battletoads, it takes patience, practice, patience, memory, skill and most of all, patience. Did I mention patience? Yeah, that’s an important skill with this one.
Battletoads was so harsh that there was no gradual level of progression for the difficulty.
You want to die on the first level? Just walk to the bottom of the screen, there’s no artificial barrier there. You want a good time? On the first obstacle course level, you’ll be driving a speed bike and maneuvering around a complicated sequence of roadblocks and enemies — if you can beat this on the first time through without dying, I’ll give you a quarter.
When you die in Battletoads, good luck continuing, because you only have a limited number of times to do it. Want to save the game? Fat chance, that’s not an option.
Consequently, only the most extreme of hardcore gamers have ventured to the end of this funky beast.
A bit of advice: Don’t try playing this game two player. Just don’t do it. You’ll thank me later.
Making it Easier to Beat — Rare isn’t the Devil with Battletoads
There were a couple of concessions made to ease the
throttle of difficulty on this game. First, on the second level, a skillful player can build up a cache of extra lives. Second, there are warp points that let a player skip ahead levels (making it so that a skilled player could skip roughly have the game). That is all.
Even with these two gimmes, Battletoads is still damn near impossible to finish for the NES. However, the subsequent Genesis version takes it down a notch or two on the difficultly level. Not only that, but the Japanese release of the game was easier than the American version (it usually goes the other way).
Yet, with all of these fantastic ingredients combined, the early ’90s brand battle, the insane difficulty and the harder than the Japanese version of the game (take that you Japanese, we can handle the tough stuff!), it makes for a great funky game.