Battletoads & Double Dragon (NES) Playthrough
260A playthrough of Tradewest's 1993 beat 'em up game for the NES, Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team.
Battletoads & Double Dragon was as unlikely a crossover as anyone could have imagined. At least, it might've been if anyone had expected anything of the sort in the early 90s. The concept of a crossover between different company's franchises was all but unknown in the western console gaming world.
Enter Rare, a trailblazing pioneer of NES-era software development. Licensing the rights to Technos' Double Dragon characters, Rare built a new Battletoads game that saw the dermally-challenged Zitz, Rash, and Pimple partner up with Billy and Jimmy Lee to take on the Dark Queen and her newly hired army of Shadow Warriors minions.
Just one look at the game is enough to tell you that Rare spared no expense in bringing the "ultimate team" to the NES. The original Battletoads was already a technical and artistic overachiever when it was released in 1991, but BT&DD pushes the envelope far harder. This is easily one of the most impressive games on the platform.
The characters are huge and have tons of animation: their eyes bug out when Abobo comes punching through a wall, they dance around in pancake-form after being squashed, and their blazing bodies are violently ejected from the screen when they're caught in a rocket engine blast. Neat stuff. The backgrounds pull some really cool tricks as well - check out the constant use of parallax effects, the faux 3D line-scrolling effects in the Turbo Bike sections, and the buttery smooth action of the space battleship fight. The game somehow manages to put on an even more accomplished show than the original Battletoads did.
The sound is right up there with the graphics, too, and the soundtrack is one of Rare's best on the NES. The tunes are hyper-catchy and drive a good beat, and the bassy sound effects lend some real weight to the over-the-top finishing moves.
But the gameplay is where Battletoads & Double Dragon really shines. It is very much a Battletoads game with Double Dragon characters tossed in - the controls, stage designs, and enemies are all pulled directly from the Battletoads design manual - and it comes together beautifully. The big boot/big fist/head smash combo finishers are all here and as exaggerated as ever, and the Lee brothers have been adapted quite nicely to the new style.
Even better, the difficulty level has been dialed *waaaaaaay* back from Battletoads. It's no walk in the park, but it's so much more reasonable. If you wanted to love Battletoads but had a hard time stomaching its difficulty, try this one! Rare listened to the critics of the first game and balanced this one to be far more accessible to the masses.
Battletoads & Double Dragon was also released on the Game Boy, SNES, and Sega Genesis, but the NES game was the original. That the 16-bit versions so closely mirrored this one speaks to just how well made the 8-bit game truly was. If you want a good beat 'em up on the NES, Battletoads & Double Dragon is an outstanding choice that arguably surpasses the classics it was based on.
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