Battletoads (1991)

Keeping this review brief. I played this game out of curiosity because a relative had mentioned it a lot. Maybe that person was thinking of the NES version, but I ended up getting this Game Boy version because I was in the middle of a course focused on completing some games on that platform.

I had just come from Super Mario Land, which is pretty chill, and then I landed on this game. Graphically, well, it was weird at first; some sprites overlap, but I'm not sure if it was like that in the original, as I played it on the Switch Lite. The sound and gameplay were reasonable, but the biggest problem is that it's an absurdly difficult game. It took me almost an hour, whereas more "hardcore" players finish it in 20 minutes. I'm not very talented or patient with games like this, so if it weren't for RetroArch's native save state feature, I wouldn't have been able to finish it in an hour.

It's brutally difficult, although some patterns are noticeable, especially with the bosses, so you can exploit them (e.g., jump, hit, and dodge). The last stage involves a jetpack and obstacles with enemies, but the brutal part is the extremely short time limit. Without the save state feature to preserve the scarce "continues," it would basically take me a lifetime of trial and error to memorize all the level patterns, not to mention the chance of human error ruining everything.

I'm not much of a sadist, so I don't see much point in this type of game, especially on a portable device that should offer a relaxing experience, not one that makes you want to throw the console against the wall, hahaha.

But maybe other people love these ultra-difficult and short games (the enormous difficulty is probably to compensate for the game being shorter).

Well, the experience was worth it in the end, but I didn't like the game very much. Mega Man X was also very difficult, but the design was better, the gameplay, etc. Could it have been a Game Boy limitation? Maybe.

Beat on 30 frames slow motion mode while save stating almost every 5 seconds. Pretty sure I played this with my cousin coop back in the day though I highly doubt we got past the hover bike level. The 1st 2 levels were great beat em up play with fun weapons. The 1st boss was especially creative with the action viewed from the 1st person perspective of the enemy. But then level 3 was the infamous hover bike runner style. It was creative how the upcoming obstacles flashed on screen as a warning of what is coming but the pacing was way way way too fast towards the end. Even in slow motion it took me several tries to beat. It was such a ridiculous difficulty spike, and completely different genre that it was like going to a candy store to buy candy then waking up with your kidney missing. It wouldn't be so bad if it was treated as a bonus stage or slowed down enough to actually be beatable without excessive practice. The rest of the game continued the trend of having annoying and overly difficult non beat em up gameplay when all I wanted was to beat the shit out of stuff. I found the flying runner stage even harder than level 3. There was a lot of creativity again, and for the platforming levels, other than the dumb blind drops that led to death if you did not already know the correct way to fall. The hardest part of the game was racing the rat to the bomb. For the 3rd and hardest race the only reason I succeeded was heavy save state abuse to get multiple perfect punch timings on the rat to send him backwards, and even then it was ridiculously close. I would never want to play this game legit past level 2

The game had quality production but its problems came from the design. Too much cheap difficulty and not near enough beat em up gameplay.

5.5/10

• Tunnels......easy thanks to save states

• The Rat Races.....some miraculous thing happened I defeated and detonated the last bomb in time

• -Clinger Winger....I used 2 different controllers...I used a keyboard....still I was frustrated...I couldn't beat it

• Until I used "slow motion" in retroarch but even then it demanded precise button presses and concentration

• I can finally say after 29 years of first playing this game I beat that black haired bitch and saw the ending!

-FUCK YOU BATTLETOADS I'm done with gaming.........for now! ;)