Battletoads (NES) review
This kind of game design could only come from the minds of NES devs that knew their game would last at most 1 hour if there wasn't all kinds of bullshit to constantly make you lose lives so you restart again and again.
This game genuinely reminded me how good are savestates, after ihavenoideahowmany attempts on the snake level I gave up on following the intended design because the intended design SUCKED. I don't want to keep replaying the first levels over and over again just to get another attempt at the next section.
The game feels clunky at times, deceptive hitboxes and collisions that are clearly there just to take more lives away from you. There's so much level design that's also just remember that the enemy that kills you inmediatly appears here so memorize that you have to jump to survive.
But even despite all that, the game has a LOT of charm. The animations are awesome, i love the way the characters are deformed, and the gameplay styles are really fun when designed without hatred for the player in mind. during the first areas I was really liking what they were doing. But all of the annoying elements just make it hard to appreciate. Let's talk about each level.
Ragnarok's Canyon
Here the game actually seemed really good, the combat is simple but it's fun and with the bossfight it seemed like I was gonna be enjoying the rest of the game a lot. If it had stayed like this I would like it a lot more.
Wookie Hole
A really meh level. Ocasionally the camera would stop moving down and softlock me but pretty sure that was an issue with the web emulator.
Turbo Tunnel
I got sick of replaying this level, before using savestates I just took the warp on level 1 to get here as fast as possible. I thought the racing section wasn't that bad and if people thought that was the worst part of the game then it wouldn't really be that bad. It wasn't. It wasn't even close to being the worse part of the game.
Artic Caverns
Aside from the typical deceptive platforms and snowball hitboxes it was a fun platforming challenge. When I got to this level I switched from a web emulator to nestopia cuz the emulation mistakes were getting pretty frequent and ruining my runs.
Surf City
The surf section was fun until the end where it felt really unfair. The combat encounters were alright at least, the boss was fun.
Karnath's Lair
THIS is where they get really offensive with the "memorize everything that happens in this level" design. I started using savestates here, but only on the checkpoints, so it was just like I had infinite lives.
Volkmire's Inferno
Who designed the platforming sections in this level. Why do they hate me. The racing section didn't feel as painful as it would have been thanks to using savestates, still it was just retrying until I survived the final missles attack.
Intruder Excluder
It was good I guess.
Terra Tubes
This is like DIMPS Sonic advance level design, except in Sonic Advance you have rings to survive through the constant bullshit, here you get 2 hits at most if it isn't an instakill. And the enemies are so awkward to fight.
Rat Race
Honestly if the third rat wasn't such a pain in the ass that I had to look up a guide on how to defeat it it would have been a fine level. With a very forgettable bossfight.
Clinger Winger
This might be the worst level honestly. Just learn the inputs on the dpad for a minute. Or if you don't want to do that you can just use the pause button to slowly make your way out. So it can be annoying and repetitive or slow and boring! And at the end there's also a bossfight that really sucks!
The Revolution
On this level I straight up started using savestates everytime I jumped into the next platform cuz I didn't even care at that point. It was fun to play even though there was a lot of bad and "memorize this" design. The bossfight was also dissapointing because it's just a lives check and by having full lives it was just mashing the attack until I won.










