The NES is one of the consoles of the 80s and 90s that has marked many players of yesteryear, due to multiple factors such as its excellent games (although some were really bad), but what was really relevant among them was its difficulty, something that the developers of the time did with every intention, due to the little space that the memories of the cartridges had to include content. One of the games that represents the great difficulty of those years is, without a doubt, the one we will see next, Battletoads.
The original idea of creating Battletoads was something surprising, as it was a response by the developers to the great fame that had one of the American animated series of that time, The Ninja Turtles, that's how the artist Kevin Bayliss created the main characters, plus he had a taste for nature and animals (including frogs and toads).
The Rareware team (programmer and developer of Battletoads) wanted to make a game that was different from the rest, because something that had the titles of yesteryear was that, despite being difficult, always had the same style of play, as an example we can cite Ninja Gaiden, a very difficult game, but if you master very well the movements of the character, you will have a great advantage.
It is for this reason that in the development of the game it was decided to include different gameplay modes, in order to offer the player different difficulties, in addition to having the need to adapt to the new level to complete it, this was something risky, but in the end, the result was excellent, becoming one of the most complicated games of all time.
This is why in all the levels we can notice several differences if we compare between them, however, they retain a common style with respect to the gameplay. At the beginning we are shown the classic Beat 'em up where we must eliminate all the enemies that appear on screen, with some platforming inclusions, but when we reach the next level we realize that several things change.
The star level that many remember and is the reason why players gave up on Battletoads is the third one, but something that many people don't know is that this one, in its original version, was much more complicated and difficult. Among the team of developers the only one who could complete it was Gregg Mayles (game designer), but none of his colleagues could pass the last section, where the pillars appeared too fast, so the decision was made to lower the speed to reduce the difficulty.
Something that surprised many players at the time was the Famicom edition, which for some reason has a lower difficulty than in the West, this reminds us of the case of Super Mario Bros 2, but the difference here is that the game was not changed, respecting all its levels, the speed was reduced in such a way that it was much easier for the player to complete the game.
Battletoads is considered one of the games that squeezes the most out of the technical capabilities of the NES, this was thanks to the fact that it was one of the titles developed in the final stage of the console. The music is another aspect to highlight in this game, this was the work of composer David Wise, very famous in the area of video games for composing the OST of games like Donkey Kong Country.
If you are a player of recent generations and want a challenge of yesteryear, Battletoads is the right one, as it will make you squeeze the most of your patience as a player, however, once you manage to complete it, you will feel one of the best satisfactions, you will know that you have finished one of the most difficult games, and surely you will tell your colleagues about it.
