Battletoads review (2020).

The generous difficulty of Battletoads

The original Battletoads is known for its difficulty. Most players failed to get through the infamous speeder bike stage. And if you continued, the game only got harder from there.

Toads veteran fans are probably wondering how difficult this new game is. To my surprise, this game is surprisingly generous with players,

If your character dies, you can “tag” one of the remaining toads. And the “dead” toad can actually return to play after about 30 seconds. With a little practice, you can tag several toads and stretch the fights long enough to bring fallen heroes back to life.

Battletoads (2020) is also generous with its continuos. Not only do you get unlimited continues, but the game will automatically save during the different stages of the boss fights. If you eliminate during the fight, you will return to where you were instead of starting over from the beginning.

Finally, the raw difficulty isn’t all that bad compared to the standard difficulty, although you can crank things up for more challenges. However, a journey through the game’s new speeder bike stages will convince you that it’s nowhere near as difficult as the original.

And if it still gives you trouble, you can even activate invincibility to get through the more difficult sections.

Battletoads’ mix of humor

Battletoads has always had a streak of humor. That humor is alive and well in the most recent title, even if delivery is a mixed bag at times.

For example, the Dark Queen (a character known for her campy threats to titular toads) has surprisingly youthful jokes in which she begs enemies to “suck my ass”. She follows him leaning her butt and exclaiming “Beep beep, butt butt back up!”

Such teenage humor did nothing for me. But I liked the humor more “out there”, like a fallen enemy pondering the metaphysical implications that there was no life in the afterlife when he died. And there’s an ongoing gag about whether toads aren’t sure whether they’re siblings or not that has been fun all along.

Long story short, this game is long on the lines. Don’t expect to laugh at any of them!