Battletoads (Too Fucking Hard)

[Forgotten Sin]

The only port I have currently is the NES one, and I can only get past the turbo tunnel. The ice level murders me every time.

[SpaceFlea]

Perhaps they should have toned down the difficulty when they ported it to the Genesis.

The funny thing about your statement is that they did tone down the difficulty by quite a bit.

In fact, the US NES version is the most difficult of them all - primarily because there are a few bugs in the game that hamper the players ability to get through certain levels. They were removed in the later JP and EU releases as well as the remakes including the Genny port.

[N.Saibot]

Everyone who dislikes the ice level: just use the warp in the end of the jet ski part. The game is
beatable, there are just few levels that require unfair amount of memorization like snake lair. I think it's
one of the best games in the too-hard-to-endure category, certainly worth playing. I could only beat it
on emulator with save states though.

[Smii]

I played this game a handful of times, never got past that stupid jetski level. Not that I particularly care, since a "battletoad" is merely a very impoverished man's ninja turtle.

[csgx1]

So has anyone actually beat Battletoads without cheating? Seems impossible to me. I used infinite lives and still had a hell of a time beating this game. The snake level was the hardest for me to get passed. Maybe my game skills suck but, this game is so hard that it's not even fun.

Battletoads has great controls, decent graphics/music, and very innovative level design.....but why the hell does it have to be so freakin' hard!?

[Forgotten Sin]

So has anyone actually beat Battletoads without cheating? Seems impossible to me. I used infinite lives and still had a hell of a time beating this game. The snake level was the hardest for me to get passed. Maybe my game skills suck but, this game is so hard that it's not even fun.

Battletoads has great controls, decent graphics/music, and very innovative level design.....but why the hell does it have to be so freakin' hard!?

There's often a belief that it was so that it would be rented often, considering it's a game you likely won't be beating over the course of one weekend. Actually, I believe that was one of the cases for plenty of hard video games of the 80's-90's.

[j_factor]

I've beaten this game before. It's not THAT hard. In fact, the Genesis version is significantly easier than the NES version. The only levels I have much of a hard time with are Terra Tubes and The Revolution. The "speeder bike" part is pretty easy IMO -- especially on Genesis, because you move faster.

[molotovwars]

There's often a belief that it was so that it would be rented often, considering it's a game you likely won't be beating over the course of one weekend. Actually, I believe that was one of the cases for plenty of hard video games of the 80's-90's.

Doesn't seem likely. The only one who would profiting from that would be the video rental stores. Its not like someone would rent a game, find it extremely difficult, and while renting it a second time think to themselves "Wow, this game has such great replay value and I like the company because of it."

[N.Saibot]

So has anyone actually beat Battletoads without cheating? Seems impossible to me. I used infinite lives and still had a hell of a time beating this game. The snake level was the hardest for me to get passed. Maybe my game skills suck but, this game is so hard that it's not even fun.

Battletoads has great controls, decent graphics/music, and very innovative level design.....but why the hell does it have to be so freakin' hard!?

A good friend of mine has beaten the PAL version of both Battletoads games on NES.
He stated the game wasn't that hard and he didn't lose more than 3 or 4 lives
throughout the entire game. I do not know how long he trained to be able to show off
like that though ; )

But that was back in our early school years and now he couldn't get to the space
level on Battletoads vs. Double Dragon, he doesn't like retro gaming at all and the
only older games he plays are Resident Evil and UMK3.

[SpaceFlea]

A good friend of mine has beaten the PAL version of both Battletoads games on NES.
He stated the game wasn't that hard and he didn't lose more than 3 or 4 lives
throughout the entire game. I do not know how long he trained to be able to show off
like that though ; )

You must take into consideration though that both the JP and EU versions on the NES were easier than the US version. They fixed some glitches and made things like the jet bike level easier by removing a few of the more difficult obstacles.

[ItellYaHuat]

Plus there are less spikes in the Snake pit in the EU and JP versions. I'm not totally sure if the Clinger Winger glitch (the one where the second player can't move) got fixed in those versions but the US version has it for sure. Therefore, it's impossible to beat the game on 2P mode unless you level skip past the Clinger Winger to the Revolution.

[old man]

I have the NES version and with the help of Nintendo Power made it all the way to the second rat race stage when I was a kid. That's the stage right before the last I think. I reached the limit of my skill there and quit. I got good enough though that I could keep racking up lives in the 2nd level slashing those crows.

[N.Saibot]

You must take into consideration though that both the JP and EU versions on the NES were easier than the US version. They fixed some glitches and made things like the jet bike level easier by removing a few of the more difficult obstacles.

While that is true, Battletoads is one hell of a game on the NES, even in Europe. All I wanted to say
is, the game is beatable. It is beatable to an extent, that some hardcore people could attempt a 1-life run.

[StarMist]

While that is true, Battletoads is one hell of a game on the NES, even in Europe. All I wanted to say
is, the game is beatable. It is beatable to an extent, that some hardcore people could attempt a 1-life run.

It is a hell of a game, for a few levels at least; that's why so many people are annoyed with its difficulty. Ghosts and Goblins draws fewer complaints because, whilst it's echt arcade/Nintendo gaming, it's less creative. The other reason they're annoyed is that its difficulty from lv 4 onwards is largely unfair. I think lv 4 fairly easy, but its deaths are all of the instant kind, and some are due to lack of scrolling (eg you can jump up into a ceiling of spikes without having seen them from a standing-screen position. Pretty much the same happens on downslopes). The snake lv takes that to another dimension where, in a situation that works very much like the sprocket-conveyors in Sonic 2's mech stages, you can't even scan to see what's above or below as Sonic and many others can. It also has defective jump trajectory, which I described earlier. And the tubes lv is full of blind instant kills. As for beating games on a single life, that's a measure of tenacity and timewaste. I might be able to do that with Chameleon Kid if I practised a few days straight, whilst in Hagane, a game some people deem dreadfully hard (it's not) I'm beginning to suspect I could beat it without taking a hit if I really wanted to master the SNES's delayed button input.

[16bitter]

I don't think this game is all that hard.

It's just an NES game. That generation was different on difficulty, period.

You can see the evolution and the change in balance: now pace is defined more directly by the technology-as-showpiece, whereas NES era stuff was paced and defined by the adrenaline rush of twitch gameplay.

In some action-heavy contexts, the sad and telling part is that today's games actually struggle to be as consistently involving because they're produced as audience-friendly rather than gamer-intensive software.