January 13, 2009 - By summer of 1991, the lion's share of industry buzz was transferred to the 16-bit generation. The Genesis was entering its second year on the shelves and the Super Nintendo was about to debut in America with the anticipated pack-in title Super Mario World. However, smart developers were not about to ignore the millions of original NES systems that were still regular fixtures in living rooms. The NES was still a viable system in all territories and people were buying games for it.

Rare, one of the most prolific developers for the NES, was still a gun-for-hire in 1991. Nintendo would not purchase its 49-percent stake in Rare until 1994, on the eve of the wildly successful Donkey Kong Country. The developer was enjoying a solid bottom line by creating a slew of licensed titles or arcade ports for a variety of publishers, such as NAR, Double Dare, and Marble Madness. Rare was not without its own original fare, though. One of the firm's best known pre-DKC hits was Battletoads, an answer to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles phenomenon that played similar to Double Dragon.

The Battletoads logo from the NES game.

Appreciably, Battletoads makes few bones about its inspiration. Rare was aping TMNT. Each of the toads has a specific style, which is very similar to the turtles employing their own signature martial arts weapon. The Battletoads are hit with "extreme" names, too: Pimple, Zitz, and Rash. Names like this are also relics of the era, when videogames were starting to test the waters of taste. These names seem tame now, but the Battletoads' names were just part of the gross-out humor epidemic that was hitting kids' pop culture.

What made each of the two Battletoads you and a friend controlled -- Zitz and Rash -- special were Smash Hits that finished off an enemy. For example, Battletoads grew enormous, cartoon-ish fists to flatten an enemy after peppering it with normal punches. But even though the emphasis of the game was on fighting, Rare added some extra mechanics to help separate Battletoads from games like TMNT and Double Dragon, such as racing stages. These racing stages weren't actual races, but more like obstacles courses that demanded fast reflexes; and if you didn't have those, at least a keen ability to memorize obstacles. A wall or ramp would flash for a second on the right side of the screen, giving you a slight warning that it was coming up. The underwater maze in stage nine (Terra Tubes) was a personal challenge. You had to avoid spikes while swimming through a labyrinth. That wasn't too bad, but sometimes you had to grab a lift that yanked you quickly through the water and if you didn't react fast enough, it pulled you right into spikes.

Battletoads (NES)

Although Battletoads is memorable for its strong production values during the sunset period of the NES, its difficulty is perhaps the biggest influence on its enduring reputation amongst hardcore gamers. Simply put, Battletoads is a beast to complete. Rare was very stingy with extra lives and continues. You had only three continues to complete the game. If you failed, you were sent all the way back to the first level. There was no password feature, either, which was actually a common element in games at the time as an alternative to save files. Hardcore gamers are likely thinking: Three continues should be enough to finish a beat-'em-up with considerable practice. But the game's difficulty is actually compounded in two-player mode (which was encouraged by most beat-'em-ups, Battletoads included) since you can actually injure your compatriot toad. If you are not careful and in constant communication about which enemies you are going to take, you can accidentally drop a friend.