Rash (Dave Shar) is the "cool cat" of the 'Toads. He is an extrovert and a show-off and loves to crack puns. Rash is the smallest but the fastest and most agile of the 'Toads. He always wears his trademark sunglasses and spiked black kneepads. In early artwork he was presented wearing red armbands, but these armbands were never visible in any of the games, and by Battletoads/Double Dragon the armbands had been eliminated entirely, though they were restored in his Killer Instinct appearance. His profile in Battletoads Arcade reveals his height to be 6' 3". Rash's skin has changed in appearance once at the beginning of the series. He began with a medium shade of green, just like the other two 'Toads, and appears that way on the original game's box art for the NES (with dark spots in the Sega Genesis version).[7] In every game he appears in, his skin is a bright green. In the 2020 reboot, Rash is depicted as the most self-important member of the team, seeking fame and recognition for their heroics.
Dark Queen Vs Pimple Toad Full Version
Pimple (George Pie) is the muscle of the 'Toads and prefers to fight instead of talk. Pimple is the largest and strongest 'Toad. He wears spiked black kneepads and spiked black arm braces. Early artwork depicted him wearing a spiked black belt, but he was never seen wearing this belt in any of the games and later artwork eliminated the belt. According to his profile in the arcade Battletoads, he stands at a height of 7'4". Pimple's skin has changed in appearance a few times over the course of the series. He began with a medium shade of green, just like the other two 'Toads, and appears that way on the original box art. In the first game itself his skin was a darker shade of green, matching Rash but not Zitz. His skin was later changed to a light tan before finally being presented with a brown color for his skin, which is now considered his official skin color. He appears with his current color in Battletoads/Double Dragon and Battletoads Arcade. In the 2020 reboot, Pimple is the most easygoing and peaceful of the team, contrasting his muscular appearance, but is prone to violent outbursts when pushed too far.
All three Battletoads also appear in a few comic strips published in Nintendo Power. They make a guest appearance in the Xbox One and PC versions of the 2014 platform game Shovel Knight.[10][11]
Professor T. Bird and the three Battletoads, Rash, Zitz, and Pimple, are escorting Princess Angelica to her home planet using their spacecraft, the Vulture, for her to meet her father, the Terran Emperor.[16] When Pimple and Angelica decide to take a leisurely trip on Pimple's flying car,[17][16] they are ambushed and captured by the Dark Queen's ship,[18][19] the Gargantua.[20] The Dark Queen and her minions have been hiding in the dark spaces between the stars following their loss to the Galactic Corporation in the battle of Canis Major.[16] Pimple then sends out a distress signal to the Vulture, alerting Professor T. Bird, Rash, and Zitz. Learning that the Gargantua is hidden beneath the surface of a nearby planet called Ragnarok's World, Professor T. Bird flies Rash and Zitz there in the Vulture to rescue them.[16] Between levels, the toads receive briefing comments from Professor T. Bird, along with teasing from the Dark Queen.
The tenth level, the Rat Race, is one of two levels in Battletoads to be located in the Gargantua,[43] the other being the eleventh level, Clinger-Winger.[32] Rat Race is a downward-vertical-scrolling with the same hazards and enemies as Intruder Excluder.[44] In the stage, the Dark Queen sends fast rodent Giblet to activate three bombs in the ship for it to explode, and the player must self-destruct them before the rat makes it to them.[22][44] After the bombs are successfully switched off, a showdown with the Queen's least quick-witted commander, General Slaughter who only attacks with his head, ensues.[45]
AllGame acclaimed Battletoads as a mixture of a "great sense of humor (especially in the two-player mode) with a surprisingly good storyline and near-perfect gameplay," also praising its "smooth and responsive" controls "fluid" character animation, and the stages being "huge, gorgeously rendered and full of surprises."[53] In a negative retrospective review, Spike ranked the game's ending as the sixth biggest letdown in video game history.[123]
In 1997, Nintendo Power ranked the NES version as the 89th best game on any Nintendo platform.[124] In 2010, UGO included it on their "Top 25 games that need sequels"[125] also featuring the Arctic Cavern level on the list of "coolest ice levels".[126] Topless Robot ranked Battletoads as the number one "least terrible Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rip-off" in 2008,[127] also naming it as one of ten best beat-'em-ups of all time in 2010[128] and as one of ten video games that should have gotten toys in 2011.[129] In 2012, it was also listed among ten "classic videos games that deserve an HD remake" by Yahoo! News.[130] GamesRadar ranked it the 18th best NES game ever made, stating that "it was a fun game but its most notable element was its difficulty".[131] Jeremy Dunham of IGN listed Battletoads as the 40th best NES game of all time.[132]
A pilot episode for a Battletoads TV series was also produced by Canadian DIC Entertainment, in an attempt to capitalise on the popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The pilot originally aired in syndication in the United States on the weekend of Thanksgiving 1992, but it was never picked up as a full series.[149]
Due to the extreme nature of the original NES Battletoads's difficulty, almost all subsequent ports of the game went to varying measures to tone it down, in an attempt to make the game more accessible to casual players. This caused some of the more demanding levels to be modified, and some of them even removed altogether in certain versions of the game.[14]
Also in 1993, a Game Boy version of the game was released, titled Battletoads in Ragnarok's World. This version was missing several levels and featured single-player support only.[153] Tim Chaney, European CEO of Virgin Interactive, purchased the Master System rights for Battletoads from Tradewest after the game found popularity in the United States and had planned to release that version also in 1993, but it never materialised.[154][155]In 1994 Mindscape brought the game to the Amiga CD32 and released it together with the previously unreleased Amiga version. It had also planned ports for PC DOS and the Atari ST back for the originally intended 1992 release of the computer versions, but these two were never released.[156][145] A port for the Atari Lynx was also announced and planned to be published by Telegames, but it was never released.[157][158] The Mega Drive version of Battletoads features toned down difficulty, as well as providing higher definition and more colourful graphics as opposed to the NES version.[14][159] The Game Gear port features downscaled graphics, also removing three levels and the two-player mode.[145]
During E3 2015 it was announced that the NES version of Battletoads would be coming to the Xbox One as part of Rare Replay, a retrospective collection of 30 emulated classic games from Rare.[160] Rare Replay was released on August 4, 2015,[161] featuring a fix to a bug in the original game that made the eleventh level unplayable for player 2.[162]
Rash is a large, anthropomorphic toad-like creature with a very muscular build - despite this, he is still the smallest of the Battletoads. He has scaly, green skin with shades of yellow around his torso and face. He has bright blue eyes, warts around his shoulders and arms, and a big mouth full of white teeth. Each of his hands has four fingers, and he retains the amphibious webbed toes of a toad. He wears a pair of black sunglasses, spiked kneepads, and red bandannas around his elbows. Around his waist is the signature Battletoads belt emblazoned with their insignia. He also has a long, extendable toad tongue.
Pimple wears spiked black kneepads and spiked black arm braces. Early artwork depicted him wearing a spiked black belt, but he was never seen wearing this belt in any of the games and later artwork eliminated the belt. According to his profile in the arcade Battletoads, he stands at a height of 7'4", making him the largest toad. Pimple's skin has changed in appearance a few times over the course of the series. He began with a medium shade of green, just like the other two 'Toads, and appears that way on the original box art. In the first game itself his skin was a darker shade of green, matching Rash but not Zitz (as his skin color was yellow). His skin was later changed to a light tan before finally being presented with a brown color for his skin, which is now considered his official skin color. He appears with his current color in Battletoads/Double Dragon and Battletoads Arcade.
When the game was released on the Game Boy Electronic Gaming Monthly awarded it the scores of 8,8,8,7 saying, "...one of the best Game Boy games I've ever played". The Game Boy version had the same basic theme found in the NES adventure, with the toads using all of the same fighting moves. The levels and bosses however were entirely original.
Despite these concessions to the player, Battletoads for the NES has a reputation as being virtually impossible to finish, even among hardcore gamers. The Mega Drive/Genesis version tones down the difficulty considerably, rewarding the players with more lives and generally featuring more forgiving controls and gameplay than the NES version. Contrary to an otherwise common trend of Japanese releases of games being more difficult than their American or European counterparts, the Famicom version of Battletoads was also made significantly easier than the American NES release. 2ff7e9595c
Comments