E3 2019 - Hands on with Battletoads
Like many older gamers, I grew up with a NES controller in my hands and while Mario and Zelda were mainstays of my gaming diet, one title that I loved to play, but like almost everyone, sucked at, was Battletoads and with the news last year of a new one coming, it made me happy, having played it though, are my nostalgic thoughts messing up the game, or was it actually fun?
First up, the game sports are look that is very eye-catching, it has some hand drawn animation and the results were great, think Cuphead, but with a more modern look. Each of the three toads, Rash, Zitz and Pimple now have clearly defined looks, making them easier to distinguish when they are side on. Just like the goodies, the baddies all sport wonderful looks and the boss I got to fight, Porkshank looked just as great and when you combined all of that, with the wonderful hand drawn backgrounds, it honestly looks like a Saturday morning cartoon, come to life.
As far as gameplay goes, there is nothing to inventive here, if you have played any side scrolling brawler in the past decade, everything will feel familiar. You have your basic attacks, your stronger ones, you can launch enemies into the air and take them to pound town up there if you wanted to. Your moves are contextual, so you can pummel enemies from a distance, by dashing into them, which gives you a stronger punch, but if you just continue to bash them, you can build up a combo and deal out some serious damage there as well.
The boss fight against Porkshank, also provides some challenge, as you can’t just wail on him, until he succumbs to your toady might, in fact you need to wait and learn how he attacks. After he launches a massive attack, he will generally be out of breath, leaving him open to taking damage and this is your chance, using the combos that you know. As the game contains three playable Toads with tude, you can have a friend jump in at anytime, though during my demo, they reset me to the last checkpoint, so I don’t know if that was because of the build or how it works in game for real.
Now, of course, you can’t talk about Battletoads, without talking about the hoverbike segment and of course, it returns in this one as well, though with a new perspective on things. You will have seen in the trailer that playing the game, it now has you playing, looking towards the action, with the three Toads, or however many you have driving away from the screen. This does allow for far more ease, when it comes to seeing what objects are coming up, be they walls, hurdles or giant pits, you get a good amount of notice before each one. Apart from moving left or right and jumping, the game now offers you the ability to dash to the left or right, letting you clear a large portion of space, in a shorter amount of time, perfect for when you need to jump over a wall, then dash away from the hole you would fall into otherwise.
The problem that this segment faces is that, when you have three toads all on the screen, racing away from you, it is hard to keep track of where you are. Currently there are no easily distinguishable ways to know which toad is which, as the bikes are similar enough in colour, which can lead to some confusion. It gets even worse, when you only have two players, as if you crash, you don’t die, but instead you will swap out to the one that was not being played, but as the game does not tell you that this is going to happen, it just ends up being super confusing. Of course, when you combine that, with the chaotic nature of the level and the almost OCD level of control required, it can become frustrating, quite quickly.
Battletoads, does not have a release date yet, as the team are still working hard on it, I mentioned to one of the developers there, my concerns of the bike sections and he actually noted them down in a notepad, so hopefully they are taking all player feedback on board and the end result is a game that exceeds the nostalgia that is likely fueling it right now and becomes a modern classic.
