ROMiniscing: Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team (NES)
[ Superior ] Epic Legendary
The genre-bending epics of contemporary games certainly have their place, but the success of Viewtiful Joe and similar games shows that side-scrolling action isn’t dead. Indeed, there’s something special about a side-scrolling, mook-stomping, “story irrelevant” adventure. This week’s ROMiniscing hearkens back to the earlier days of the genre: Rare(ware)’s Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team.
Let’s dispense with the obvious up front: this isn’t a top ten masterpiece game. Developed for the NES and ported to SNES, Genesis, and Game Boy, the graphics, music, and controls won’t be quite as refined as other titles of the same year. Furthermore, it’ll be obvious that the 2-Player mechanics weren’t fully tested. For example, the bosses lock on to one player at a time; if you hang off a ledge, the other player can pummel with impunity. Wonky mechanics aside, this game still kicks plenty of ass.
How? Because the normal enemies can be annoying pricks, so much of the game is distinctively silly, the boss villains are lovable foils, and getting killed by intentionally goofy hazard placement will always be funny. BT&DD even throws in a (poorly controlling) level of shmup for good measure! Maybe I’m biased because my friend and I spent weeks trying to beat this as kids – sure, there was Turtles in Time, Final Fight, Streets of Rage – but something about this game kept us replaying to this day. Hell, we even had fun finding and exploiting the glitches!
I’ll be honest – I probably wouldn’t register BT&DD as worth a post without my personal memories of a (not) wasted youth. Still, playing it gives you sense of how beat ‘em ups found their footing and started evolving from that foundation. So, send your brain back to a simpler time when humans and frogs could breathe in space without question, beams of electricity detached from their source and bounced on walls, sit down on your favorite bean bag chair held together with duct tape, and game like it’s 1993!
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Tags: beat 'em up, company-nintendo, company-rare, company-tradewest, emulation, erdtirdmans, full of humor, gameboy, genesis, multiplayer-cooperative, nes, reviews-try, ROMiniscing-superior, single player, snes