Battletoads - Review
It has been almost 30 years since the release of the original Battletoads game on the NES and in that time, there have been a attempts at new games, some cameo appearances, but really that is about it. An all new Battletoads game has been a long time coming, but in the 26 years since their last appearance, does this newest adventure make the wait worth it, or should it have stayed away?
The story starts out with the Battletoads, Zitz, Rash and Pimple, fighting through waves of enemies in order to take down Porkshank, but upon doing that, they begin to fly away and then discover they have been trapped in a virtual world for the past 26 years, explaining their disappearance until now. While two of the Toads, Zitz and Pimple are able to adapt to a more sedate lifestyle, Rash lives up to his name and decides that he wants to be a someone again and proposes that they go and capture the Dark Queen, restoring their place at the top of the heap. Being convinced, they head off, but eventually find that the Dark Queen is a prisoner herself, being made to create things for a race called the Topians, and with a team up they venture out into space, to confront this new threat to the galaxy. It is really your average cartoon plot, mostly by the fact that it doesn’t take itself to seriously, but is still able to move things forward at a decent pace, if you are looking for the videogame equivalent of Citizen Kane, you won’t find it here, the closet might be a parody called Zitz-en Kane.
While the original game was purely a side scrolling beat em’ up, with the well known and often derived side scrolling hoverbike sections, this latest release is more of a bag of genres and you really never know what you will get. The game starts off sticking to the side scrolling beat em’ up tropes, you move forward from screen to screen and the enemies warp in, beat them up and move on, fairly straight forward. Things change up in a big way when you have to travel on your first hoverbike and the perspective shifts from a side scroller, to and old school racing game, where you race away from the camera. The shift in viewpoints doesn’t make it any easier, but it does make it feel different and something that I noticed, was that the hoverbikes are now coloured, which they weren’t back at E3 2019 and I called the game out for it. While you are racing along, objects will now come towards you and the game gives you a bit to get used to it before it throws the real challenge at you.
Sadly though, this is where the familiar stops and things just go crazy, there are side scrolling platformer stages, mini games galore, including a gymnastics course, a schmup style shooter, donkey kong country-esq mine cart sequence and more. Because each level has a different name, which you only discover when you hit the end, there is no clue as to what gaming genre you are about to experience, and I was ok with that. The downside though is that they move at such a pace, by the time you feel that you have managed to maintain some sense of control over things, the game has moved on, which is also a bit tricky as the game is very slow, across the board. In the beat em’ up levels, which are the most proficient, when not in active combat, you can run, but the moment you do start a fight, you lose that ability and no matter which toad you choose, you will move slow. This would not be a big thing if other parts were faster, but most are not, the platforming levels are slow and while you can roll to get some speed, it is only for a short distance, not a constant.
The reason why this is a problem is due to the games level being so unbalanced in length, it makes for some very tricky and annoying moments. The hoverbike and sledding levels are the most guilty of it, when you think they are done, you realise that you are no where near the end and when you add in the constant deaths from falling down into pits or smashing into walls, it just drags out even further. It seems the developers have confused length with challenge and while long levels are nothing new, making them longer, without a purpose is an exercise in frustration and many gamers today will not like it. Something that they might enjoy are the number of collectable to discover in each stage, 5 specifically and most of them are pretty easy to spot, but there are always one or two hidden away. Most of the stages have elements you can interact with, puzzles to solve, targets to shoot and so on, get them all and you can unlock a hidden area near the end of the level, which contains your reward. While not a required thing to do, it is a nice little addition which helps add some exploration into an otherwise linear experience.
I mentioned shooting before and it is something you can do, the problem is understanding the controls, in order to get everything, you have to understand them, and it is not an easy task. To shoot some bubble-gum, you have to hold the left trigger down, then press the left stick in the direction you want and press A, it sounds simple, and is easy enough outside of combat, but in combat, it is a pain. The moment you old the left trigger down, your character stops moving, which means you are left wide open to get punched by an enemy, which is never fun. The other issue to consider is that each of the face buttons does something different in these times, and if you press the wrong button, you might find yourself pulling an enemy towards you, or at worst, zipping you across to them. If the controls were the same for the entire game, it might not be such a bad thing, but given every new gameplay genre has a new set of controls you will find yourself having to learn new ones far too frequently.
One area that I love is the visual style, I mentioned before that the game has the story of your average cartoon and thankfully the visuals match it, and if Xbox wanted, I could easily the Toads getting an actual series with this same art style. There is not to say it is entirely kid friendly, there are some jokes and moments that might go over the head of many players. Something that the games before this one haven’t had the chance to do is provide a sense of individualism to each of the toads, outside of their names and here we get that. Pimple, whilst big and strong has decided that life is lived best when one is at peace and when he snaps, it is quite funny, while Rash is living up to his name and being extremely eager to rush into a fight, even without thinking of potential consequences. All the new characters fit into their roles pretty well, but the game loves a pun and throws them into everything, which, if you are not a pun person can drag things down.
On the audio side, things are a little mixed, the voice work is really well done, though why the Toads are American and not English is nothing short of mind boggling, given they were created in the 90’s by Rare, in the UK. The Dark Queen is English, and she stands out against everyone else who is American, and I just don’t understand why they went that way. One aspect which is going to make you happy or make you want to throw your controller is the music, there are a number of tracks that are modern takes on those classic tunes. Whilst the iconic score of David Wise is referenced here, there are a bunch of new melodies, which help fit in the worlds that you now visit, but when you die, the tunes tend to repeat and some of them just don’t do so well when heard for the 50th time in row, because you couldn’t clear a random jump or obstacle.
Xbox have had the rights to Rare games for many years and while they went hard with the original Xbox and the Xbox 360, since Perfect Dark Zero came and failed, they have not done much with it and if they take their time, like they did with Battletoads, things will work out fine. Battletoads is a game that is not going to appeal to everyone, there is a real challenge to be had here, the game is frustrating a lot of the time and slow and boring at others. With how often it swaps between the different gameplay genres by the time you feel like you finally have a grasp on one gameplay type, things will change to something else entirely and while playing it until the end is highly advised, getting there might be a problem for most.
The Score
8.5
Review code provided by Xbox Game Studios
The Pros
+The visual style is eye catching and executed almost flawlessly
+The mix of gameplay genres keeps things fresh and fun
The Cons
+The constant swapping of genres also means you never know what to expect
+The game is slow and drawn out, far more than it really should be
