by all means, i want to give this 5 stars. it's woefully short, has a dumb asteroids-like shmup stage, and has a stark difficulty spike right after that shmup stage (dark queen and shadow boss are really unfun, tbh). however, after hearing this game's music masterfully remixed in the 2020 battletoads game, i had a ratatouille flashback that reminded me how much i adored this game back in high school. i played all FOUR versions of it just to see all the differences between them, no matter how tiny. i'd look at youtube videos to see how others conquered this game, taking note of all the quirks and secrets it had to offer. i managed to internalize the gameplay loop of the lee brothers, how their running kick efficiently yeeted enemies into an explosion, how their tornado spin when using ropes could be steered and even exploited to skip a section of saws in the third level (nes/genesis only), how their smash hit (an aerial attack landing with the knees) swiftly got the weird ball-chain hands swelled up like tom setting off a mousetrap to see why jerry avoided certain death.
i loved this game. it was nowhere near the best game in the world but something about its cheesy action movie grandieur, its in-between level dialogue, david wise's rocking score (that somehow took a weird beating on game boy, even though wise was an expert at the old thing), its weird technicolor aesthetics, especially on nes. the way the battletoads have SMEAR FRAMES on snes. the way turbo bikes explode when you dash into them. the way you can use a stick to hit enemies like they're a baseball. the way the shmup stage can be destroyed and reduced into a spectacular of white impact frames and explosions. battletoads double dragon is the pinnacle of the franchise for me. has enough of a difficulty curve to be managable to an extent, but keeps all the gritty art, the swift controls and simple combat, the sense of humor it keeps with a proud grin as it takes you atop a rocket careening towards earth.
no other battletoads or double dragon game has done it for me like this has. what a thrill.
i loved this game. it was nowhere near the best game in the world but something about its cheesy action movie grandieur, its in-between level dialogue, david wise's rocking score (that somehow took a weird beating on game boy, even though wise was an expert at the old thing), its weird technicolor aesthetics, especially on nes. the way the battletoads have SMEAR FRAMES on snes. the way turbo bikes explode when you dash into them. the way you can use a stick to hit enemies like they're a baseball. the way the shmup stage can be destroyed and reduced into a spectacular of white impact frames and explosions. battletoads double dragon is the pinnacle of the franchise for me. has enough of a difficulty curve to be managable to an extent, but keeps all the gritty art, the swift controls and simple combat, the sense of humor it keeps with a proud grin as it takes you atop a rocket careening towards earth.
no other battletoads or double dragon game has done it for me like this has. what a thrill.
4 Comments
hard to say tbh
Do you have a recommended version for a first time player? Or a version to avoid for the first time?
since the nes version was the initial version and features some cool bugs you could use to use to your advantage, i'd say go with that one. honestly, anything that isn't the game boy version.
MegaDriver69
2 years ago