Although its gameplay isn't particularly original, Battletoads is still a lengthy, incredibly challenging beat-em-up.
Saying that Battletoads is difficult would definitely be an understatement. It is, without a doubt, one of the hardest games ever made and nigh impossible to beat without the aid of cheats or codes. In fact, even if you cheated and gave yourself infinite lives, you could still spend an eternity fighting and flying through the game's 12 lengthy levels. All 12 have totally varied graphics, backgrounds, and soundtracks, not to mention crazy-looking enemies and a dizzying variety of gameplay. Most of the game's stable of monsters under the Dark Queen's disposal will mercilessly tear into you, and even though you'll rarely face more than 2 or 3 at a time, the gang-up effect might cause a broken controller or two and will undoubtedly cause lost lives.
Still, as hard as the monsters are to deal with, it gets much worse. Over the course of 3 or 4 levels throughout the game, your reflexes, memory, and sanity will be put to the test as you ride speeders, rocket ships, or other machines that simply defy description through obstacles that come fast and often. Perfection is the only way to get through these white-knuckle sections, because if you hit one obstacle, you lose a life, end of story, and you simply don't have many to burn. It's important to note that the third level contains the first speed sequence, and that is as far as 99.9% of players will be able to get (the first two levels are easy enough for just about anybody to get through without much of a problem).
You'll start with three continues with three lives each (or five if you input a game code that makes the game easier, and yet still utterly impossible). Most enemies' blows won't take away that much of your health, but they'll often string together several before you can get up and right yourself. Death by falling into holes or onto spikes, being flattened into a pancake by one of the game's 6 interesting bosses, or just by getting pummeled into oblivion by the Rat Pack, killer ducks, or psycho-pigs happens quite frequently. Like many beat-em-ups, Battletoads will force you to restart a level if you have to use a continue, but to add insult to injury, it will also often force to you start a level section over as a result of dying once, so your deaths can't even be productive, so to speak.
Rash and Zitz play identically, and while it may seem like they have a variety of moves, they're pretty random and most are executed the same way. The toads can jump pretty high and far, but, unforgivably, they can't attack from the air like so many other games allow. Still, you'll gain immense satisfaction from beating down your enemies, because you look so awesome doing so. Most of the time, pressing the B button will punch, and so to wear down an enemy, you'll have to repeatedly punch before pressing B one final time. This will execute a finishing move of sorts, as the toad's fist or foot will become huge, and send the weakened enemy flying. You can't say enough about how satisfying it is to watch, as your body part suddenly grows by five times and slams your cheap enemies into the stratosphere. There are several other attacks that you can use, but they aren't as commonly used as the main one.
The punching, kicking, and head butting animations all look awesome, but that's par for the course in Battletoads. Almost everything about the game looks fantastic. The toads themselves don't stand out that much, but that's only because their enemies look quite impressive themselves. There's a lot of variety to them, and they animate incredibly well. The frame rate rarely drops, mostly due to the fact that you encounter only 2 or 3 enemies at a time. Each of the 12 levels looks totally unique and quirky, particularly the third level, which almost looks like somebody's intestinal track. Rarely can it be said that the look of a game achieves both technical greatness and artistic greatness, but Battletoads pulls it off effortlessly. Finally, the sense of speed that the "fast segments" pull off graphically truly stands out.
While it doesn't come close to matching the game's standout graphics, the audio impresses most of the time and only adds to the strangeness and "beauty" of the game's environments. As mentioned before, each level has its own track, and sometimes even two or three. The main theme music, quite simply, rocks. The sound effects are less impressive, but the sound of your enemy, or more likely, you, getting pounded is satisfying enough. The real strength of the game's sound is the score, though.
The underlying question that anybody evaluating Battletoads has to ultimately ask is, "Does the difficulty help or harm the quality of the game?" Surely, the unbelievable difficulty has made it more memorable and well-known, over the years, but the truth is that there is a great, memorable game lying under all that difficulty that could have stood up on its own for everyone to experience without using cheat codes. What's done is done, though, and players should appreciate Battletoads for what it is. Although its gameplay isn't particularly original, Battletoads is still a lengthy, incredibly challenging beat-em-up. And, in the end, most everyone who tries it will probably enjoy it, though they would be advised to bring a Game Genie along for the ride.