[Playing…] Battletoads in Battlemaniacs

What is the game that has pissed you off the most? Have you ever thrown your controller on the ground and screamed at the television after losing all your lives in less than 1 minute? Do you hate those games whose difficulty curve shoots up from one level to another without warning? And those that are more difficult in two-player mode than one?

When I hear any of those questions I can't help but think of a popular NES game released in 1991: Battletoads.

That assumption beat'em up developed by Rare and starring muscular anthropomorphic toads He was responsible for making an entire generation cry, since many of the players never completed the third level, Turbo Tunnel, where we drove fast motorcycles in a scenario full of stones that killed us on the first hit.

Its difficulty was unfair and poorly adjusted, but it was a great game and is considered one of the best in the enormous NES catalog. Its success led to more toad games being released on various consoles, most of them being ports of the first game or alternative versions of it.

In 1993 Rare released a sequel to the original game for Super Nintendo, Battletoads in Battlemaniacs. The introduction of the game showed us Professor T.Bird teaching a new type of technology to the protagonists. But something will go wrong because a pig on a dragon kidnaps two of the spectators (Zitz and Michiko) and returns to the world from which he came. Without thinking twice, Rash and Pimple go after him to rescue their companions.

The story is not very original (remember that in the first Battletoads they kidnapped Pimple and Angelica) but it doesn't matter, at the end of the day we are facing an action game.

We press the Start button and after choose if we want player 1 and 2 to be able to hit each other or not (something very necessary and one of the great novelties and improvements of this game compared to the previous one) we will find our Battletoad in a volcanic world inhabited by pigs and skeletons.

How good 16 bits have been for Battletoads! It's the first thing I thought of when I saw the size and appearance of Pimple, who was now the default character for player 1, while Rash is for player 2 (if you want to play with Rash in 1-player mode, just start the individual game using the second controller).

The graphical improvement is not only in the character sprite, but in what (unlike in previous games and even some later ones) the two characters are totally different. Pimple is big, strong and attacks using many of the classic toad blows (horned headbutt, giant shoe, giant fist) while Rash is smaller and lighter and also debuts many blows (axe kick, Kung Fu slap...). This seems silly, but if we take into account that many games resorted to reusing the main character of another color without differentiating him in appearance or playability, you will understand why I am happy.

If you're left admiring the visuals, a few pigs and skeletons will give you a good beating, so it's time to punch the face of everything that moves, dodge fragments of lava thrown by a volcano, jump over strips that open in the ground and defeat a giant stone pig. That's how Battletoads do it!

Second phase… a hollow tree, our protagonists will go down through it avoiding carnivorous plants and robot flies. The screen is somewhat reminiscent of the second level of the original game, but the gameplay is quite different, since the disc on which we are standing can be used as a weapon to eliminate enemies. Once the phase is completed we find a Bonus level, ideal for gaining some lives.

And what comes next? Well, surely the last level that many children who bought this game saw: the motorcycle phase, the Turbo Tunnel. One more time, Battlemaniacs It resembles the NES game, making a third level much more difficult than the other two, and the phase is practically the same, except for some sections.

But if you are veterans, with practice and yelling at the television, you will be able to complete it and reach the fourth phase, which is... Snake Pit? Another phase based on one of the NES?

It's true, the snakes look great and the level development is different but... What happens in the Rare offices? Why do they repeat phases of the NES after a promising start? Can't you think of more levels?

And here we are going to leave the tracking by levels, since the rest of the phases of this game are new (or not so new) versions of the ones seen in the Battletoads from NES, with the only change that in this game there are fewer levels than in the 8-bit one (of course there are no Warps to skip phases either).

It is quite curious that after a total renovation of the graphic section (remember that the Battletoads Mega Drive/Genesis is a remake of the NES and its sprites are remade using the base of the 8-bit ones) we find ourselves with a game so lacking in playable inventiveness. I understand that they included one or two phases of the NES game to make us feel nostalgic (and hate) but... was it necessary to include 5 or 6? I don't think so, really.

The worst of all is that Battletoads in Battlemaniacs It is a nice, colorful and fun game, but The extreme similarity of its levels with those of the original game makes it look very dull and takes away its personality.. This similarity is accentuated a little more by the existence in this game of some of the most serious defects of the previous game, such as the non-existent difficulty curve that makes us go from an accessible level to an abruptly malicious and lethal one or the stupid fact that If you play doubles and one player loses all their lives, both start from the beginning of the level.

This reasoning leads me to ask myself: is it Battletoads in Battlemaniacs un mal juego?

No, para mí no lo es, tiene un apartado técnico muy bueno, su música es excelente (que bien le sienta la Super Nintendo a las músicas de los Battletoads), y disfruto mucho cuando juego o por lo menos disfruto hasta que mis habilidades como jugador chocan con la dificultad de algún nivel concreto. Curiosamente esa respuesta es la misma que daría en caso de que me preguntasen por el primer Battletoads de NES, lo cual me deja bastante confundido.

Parece ser que los de Rare, tras haber lanzado varios ports del Battletoads original para Mega Drive/Genesis y Game Boy y un par de juegos nuevos de la saga, que a su vez también tomaban prestados muchos conceptos propios del primero de NES para Game Boy y Game Gear, aun tenían ganas de continuar reutilizando las mismas ideas para un juego más, que quedaría como híbrido de los anteriormente mencionados, ni es un remake, ni es un juego totalmente nuevo, es una secuela tremendamente continuista.

Dicho todo esto, quizás os sorprenda que Battletoads in Battlemaniacs me parezca un juego muy recomendable y que lo que más me moleste sea su estúpida dificultad (algo clásico de la saga). La falta de originalidad con la que tanto me he explayado no es un problema demasiado grave, pero quería comentarla porque visto en perspectiva demuestra una cosa que a veces olvidamos y no nos gusta recordar: Rare, al igual que otras muchas compañías, era adicta a copiarse y repetir elementos en sus juegos y que en muchas ocasiones anteponía el apartado gráfico a las novedades jugables, con todo lo bueno y malo que ello conlleva.

In any case, recomiendo que los fans del Battletoads original echen una partida a Battletoads in Battlemaniacs de Super Nintendo pues son ellos los que más pueden disfrutar de este juego. Y si echan de menos los 8 bits, también pueden encontrar una versión reducida y recortada, desarrollada por Syrox Developments y lanzada para Master System en Brasil.