The Wonder Years 5.08.08: Week 54 - Battletoads & Double Dragon

Posted by Owain J. Brimfield on 05.08.2008

A teaming of some of the greatest ass-kickers the 8-bit generation ever knew.

Welcome to the column where all gamers of a certain age come to wallow in 16-bit nostalgia. I'm your host, Owain J. Brimfield, and I'll be discussing some of the hidden gems and instant classics of gaming's golden era. Some of these games may crop up on the Wii's Virtual Console or Xbox Live Arcade at some point, some may be consigned to the annals of history. Either way, they're worth tracking down if you missed them first time round, or replaying if you were lucky enough to catch them. Let's take a trip to:

Battletoads & Double Dragon

(Rare, Genesis & Super NES, 1993)

Cast your mind's eye back to the turn of the 1990s, when the side-scrolling beat 'em up was the genre du jour. Two of the finest exemplars of the genre could be found on the NES - Technos Japan's Double Dragon series, based on ports of the acclaimed arcade fighting games which combined in-depth game mechanics with an almost RPG-like sensibility, had reached it's third installment, DD3: The Rosetta Stone, and was running the risk of shunning its traditional fanbase with development shunted to a third-party. On the other side of the coin was Rare's Battletoads, latching onto the pop-culture phenomenon of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and ripping-off homaging the license closely along the way to become regarded as one of the most legitimately challenging titles the 8-bit system had to offer. Where next for both franchises, as the 16-bit generation took an ever-increasing hold? The answer, according to Rare at least, was to combine forces and create a game that provided the best of the Dragon and Toads worlds.

And thus, once publishers Tradewest had seen fit to bequeath the DD rights to Rare (at least temporarily), Battletoads & Double Dragon was born. Developed in-house by Rare, and apparently named by the least imaginative person on the planet, the concept of the game was simple. What usual reason do heroes have for teaming up into an über-force? Why, when their arch-nemeses themselves join forces in an attempt to enslave the Earth, of course. Thus, the story goes that the Battletoads' nemesis, the Dark Queen, retreats into deepest space and returns at the command of an Executor-style spaceship named the Colossus, effectively neutralizing the combined might of our planet's military forces. And wouldn't you know it, she's teamed up with the Dragons' own primary antagonist, the Shadow Boss! Unfortunately, Rare played it pretty fast and loose with the Double Dragon license and apparently didn't realize that Shads isn't actually a bad guy in that series. Still, points for the effort I suppose. Anyway, in accordance with the logical laws of the gaming universe, where a world's worth of armed forces fail, five kung-fu mercenaries must succeed, so in go the Battletoads and the Dragons to sort some shit out.

Gameplay itself is ridiculously straightforward. Choosing from one of the Lee brothers or one of the Toads (who are comically named Rash, Zitz and Pimple - man, that joke is neither old nor tired!), you have to bash your way through a disappointingly small number of levels in order to dethrone the Dark Queen. It's staggeringly simple to get the hang of - while the Toads and the Dragons have slightly differing characteristics (the Toads being stronger and more durable, the Dragons being faster and more agile), they have relatively similar movesets, which are limited to basic punches and kicks, a running attack and a combo attack. Rare were patently going for an arcade sensibility when they developed this title (as further evidenced by the speeder bike interludes and the Asteroids-style intermission on the fourth level), and it shows - unfortunately, what success it has in recreating the successful Battletoads formula is counteracted by its dumbing-down of the Double Dragon series. Still, if you don't plug in the cartridge expecting some sort of revolutionary fighter to be unleashed on your humble gaming mind, it's undoubtedly good at what it does, with some frantic set-pieces and undeniably tough boss fights, as long as you don't take the cheap way out and spend all the battles jump-kicking your opponents while staying out of harm's reach.

Graphically, the game is a neat progression from the NES titles of yore - an evolution rather than a revolution, as the hideously contrived saying goes. The backgrounds and environments are about on a par with 1990-era Apogee Software shareware titles, which I suppose is an improvement on the NES's pixel-o-vision graphical stylings but does seem a step below what the 16-bit consoles had to offer. On the other hand, the main character sprites are lovingly drawn, with some cute and impressively detailed facial expressions. Sonically there's not a whole lot to write home about - the SNES version has an arguably higher sound quality, but there's not much in it, with the effects in general being of not much higher MIDI quality than the 8-bit incarnations. Perhaps the one genuine innovation, although that is admittedly much too strong a word, is the implementation of the two-player co-operative mode, which manages to remain decently challenging via the use of a shared continue system - if one player dies, both have to return to the start of the level, which makes for a much more suspenseful run-through, and possibly some strained friendships by the end of the game.

It's surprising to learn that neither of the game's antecedents have as yet been re-released, although given the ongoing Rare/Microsoft/Nintendo love triangle it's probably no surprise that the original Battletoads hasn't seen the light of day. B&DD would seem, on the surface at least, to be a shoe-in for inclusion on the XBLA roster at some point given that it was never exclusive to a Nintendo console. It would probably find its perfect audience there, too - both franchises have faded into history sufficiently for a new generation of gamers to be able to treat this as something almost brand new. God knows how you might go about obtaining a copy of the original game in this day and age; I'd imagine the Double Dragon movie would probably be easier to find. Nonetheless, this shouldn't damage B&DD's limited appeal - it's a solid game and performs competently at everything it sets out to achieve, and for the older gamer there's always the nostalgia factor of revisiting some of your old favorite franchises.

Battletoads & Double Dragon trivia

• The title was originally developed for the NES, but ported to the 16-bit consoles as well as the Game Boy in the same year.
  
• Due to Technos' non-involvement with development outside of providing the Double Dragon license, a significant number of the characters from that game are misrepresented here.
  
• The next Double Dragon game was a spin-off the execrable movie, whose only redeeming feature was the dual presence of Mark Dacascos and Rob Patrick in the cast.
  

The Videosphere

Let's take a look at this week's video highlight. Here we have an introduction to the game, and once you see the third toad's motto, you'll get the idea of the game's ethos. "When brain power fails, brute force prevails" indeed.




And finally…

As always, reader feedback and suggestions are welcome, I respond to everything so just drop me a line or leave a comment. You can also check out my science fiction column "The Flux Capacitor" over at 411 Movies. Next week in "The Wonder Years" - a journey to a forgotten coin-op world. Until then - keep it real, keep it retro.