How would you rank the difficulty of the stages?

I haven't actually beaten the game yet. I'm stuck on Level 12 right now and it's so annoying having to restart and go through 11 levels at this point just to be able to keep trying until running out of continues. It really doesn't help that this level seems ridiculously long, either. So far, the furthest I've gotten in it is this part with a yellow cloud thing and a bunch of springs in a platforming sequence.

Anyway, my opinion so far, anyway, from hardest to easiest (I may come back and change my mind after I beat the game, I don't know):

Level 12: The Revolution
Level 9: Terra Tubes
Level 8: Intruder Excluder
Level 10: Rat Race
Level 11: Clinger Winger
Level 5: Surf City
Level 6: Karnath's Lair
Level 4: Ice Cavern
Level 7: Volkmire's Inferno
Level 3: Turbo Tunnel
Level 2: Wookie Hole
Level 1: Ragnarok's Canyon

Honestly, compared to what some people seem to think, I find the game's difficulty to be pretty linear for the most part. The only possible exceptions for me are Rat Race and Clinger Winger. The only reason I have them ranked that high is pretty much just because of the boss battles, to be honest. For the stages themselves, Rat Race is only somewhat difficult in the final race, and I don't understand why Clinger Winger is generally considered to be one of the most difficult stages in the game. I passed the stage itself (up until the boss) on my second or third life the first time I reached it, and you may suffer a death or two against the boss, but it's not THAT bad.

...Then again, I also ranked Volkmire's Inferno really low compared to what I normally see, so maybe it's just me and the type of gameplay that I'm best at.

Okay, so I actually just took two more tries at this game tonight, and on my second try I finally beat the game (I had been working on this game for one or two attempts per day for about the past week or so). I was actually surprised by how close I was to the end when I wrote my last post. I made it to the Dark Queen on my first try tonight, but I unfortunately ran out of continues before I was able to beat her. I took her down easily enough on my second try, though, and actually beat the game without continuing or warping, with the maximum possible score, and with at least five extra lives in reserve (all of my hearts were filled in; I don't know exactly how many lives I had left at the end).

Anyway, since there is apparently technically a Level 13 (Armageddon), I suppose I would place that in between Rat Race and Clinger Winger on my previous list. Otherwise, I still stand behind what I said before regarding the difficulty of each stage.

Some final thoughts on this game:

Honestly, I would say that the difficulty of this game is certainly above average even as far as NES games go, but I personally would not say that it's the most difficult game on the console. It's up there, but to use some other games that I've beaten as examples, I would consider Ghosts 'n Goblins; Ironsword; and possibly even 1943 and Castlevania 1 and 3 to be more difficult. I think the main difference is that all of the games that I've listed give you unlimited continues (or, in the case of Ironsword, a means to continue unlimitedly), whereas Battletoads forces you to make do with 3 continues. I think that this causes people to perceive this game as being more difficult than those games and give up quickly, not realizing that it actually becomes fairly easy, at least compared to those other games that I've listed, if you put enough time (and restarts) into the game to learn each level.

Anyway, I found this game to be extremely fun and it's probably now one of my personal favorite NES games. I wish that more people would play it, but I imagine many are quickly turned away by the amount of effort that it takes to beat it for the first time.

If any of you guys have played any of the other Battletoads games, how do they compare to this one? If they're good as well, I think I'd like to get them at some point and play through them also.