Luigi Mario

Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team

Developer: Rare   Publisher: Tradewest

Platform: SNES

Introduction:

The year was 1993 and the beatemup genre was pretty much dead in favor for the versus fighting games pioneered by the juggernaut Street Fighter series. Tradewest, having some type of loophole in it's contract to have the American rights and lisencing rights of the Double Dragon series, decided to yet again try to bank in on the series (whoring it is more like it) and contracted Rare, who is best known for it's Donkey Kong Country and Battletoads franchises, to make a game featuring not only the Double Dragons, but the popular Battletoads as well! The end result was a very mediocre and disappointing title to hardcore fans of the Double Dragon franchise...and the Battletoads' fanbase alike. The story goes like this; The Dark Queen and the Shadow Boss (who was NEVER in any Double Dragon game unless you count Jimmy Lee from the NES' game) team up and send a mysterious beam that's trying to destroy Earth and decimates it's military. The Battletoads know they can't beat their arch-nemesis alone, so they call the Lee twins aka Billy & Jimmy, aka the Double Dragons to help them take out thet evil doers and destroy their city sized ship....known as the Coloussus. Pretty stupid I know. Onto the review...

Reviewed By: Legend

Graphics: A  

I've got to admit, the graphics are very good! The character sprites are very colorful and detailed, as well as the backgrounds! Of all three console ports of this game (NES, SNES, Genesis), this version has the cleanest look! Altough, however, it is the cartoony world of the Battletoads since it's running on their engine...which is a good thing I guees. So for that reason, Billy & Jimmy have now taken a lighter, cartoony look...as opposed to the dark and serious mood from their series. Double Dragon devotees might be a tad disappointed by it though. I mean, Billy & Jimmy look even more cartoonier than what they looked like in the first and second arcade DD games for crying out loud! But nevertheless, the graphics are very topnotch...and it's always cool and funny seeing the character's eyes jump out of their sockets when they see an approaching boss!

Sound: B+  

The music tracks in BT&DD are very well done...for the most part. The only reason I gave it a B+ is because some of the tracks are just very mediocre (Level 2 anyone?). But overall, the music is very dramatic and a couple of songs have a really good guitar solo! It also has the urban night club feel (ala Streets of Rage 2) that was very popular during the early 90's!  Make no mistake, the music is one of the best parts about this game! The sound effects are very crisp too. Although I wish that the punches and kicks would sound different from each other.

Control: B  

The controlls in this game are good for the most part. However, they can sometimes be slow to respond too! I don't know how many times I would get mauled due to the fact that my commands wouldn't respond on time! Ugh! Plus, there's not really a big movelist (if a movelist at all), so all you pretty much do is punch, jump, and dash. And that's pretty much it. So as far as controlls go...tight,? Yes. Responsive? No.

Gameplay: C-  

Let me start off by saying this...THIS GAME IS CHEAP BEYOND WORDS! Ok, first off, it starts out easy and you think you're smooth sailing. Sounds nice right? But as you arrive in Level 3, you run into your first asshole cheap character...who is Linda Lash from the Double Dragon series. She swings her whip way TOO DAMN FAST that once it hits you, you'll lose two blocks of your life! TWO!! Also, good luck trying to fight her back when she's in a group because a group of Lindas will take you out in a heartbeat! So be prepared to possibly lose a life to her (altough a running dropkick does help take her out alot). You also run into stupid traps...like the tings that try to smash you in Level 3! They will hit you, even if you TRY to avoid them! So I recommend running past them at a right time. Then comes Level 4. Don't even get me started on this bullshit level! First of all, your spaceship is way too damn stiff (or sensitive depending on how you look at it) to control! I promise you that you will lose a couple of lives...if not all of them in this level! What the f@$# is up with that?! I found myself cursing quite often in this level! Next is Level 5. It's not too cheap unless you count the retarded fire puzzles that kill you instantly within one hit! I guarantee that you WILL lose a life at this part...unless you positon yourself perfectly. But that's also a problem in itself! Another thing that pissed me off in this level is that little annoying rat character, who's name is Scuzz! He's obviously from the BT franchise. Anyways, this jackass will catch you off gaurd quite often. And if he's in a group (two Scuzzes I mean) he will just punch you over and over until you lose a life (dropkicking him does help out alot too though)! Yea, you did a good job with the AI there Rare -_-. Next is Level 6...where you fight the Shadow Boss. He looks like a freaking heater mixed with some other household appliances! But anyways, he is quite easy...until he rolls hiself up in a spiked ball and goes back and foward over and over. He will kill you with that move within one or to hits! Now you can avoid that by jumping and hanging on off of the lights that's hanging from the ceiling...but that shit only works half of the time! Surprsingly, the final boss, the Drak Quenn, is pretty easy to defeat.

Now onto the good things...kind of. Since the game is basiccally a Battletoads game, there are some cool features like having one of the 'Toads tansfrom one of their body parts (like a footbal helment) to do some MAX damage. And a couple of the levels have some cool features like riding a hovercraft and doin some Indiana Jones-style wall climbing (though you're actually going down them, not climbing them). Also, the combo system is pretty cool too. The 2-player mode is very fun...if you guys can work really good together and actually have the patience (which I doubt anyone does) to put up with the cheapness of the game! Basically, someone else is joining you in your truoubles. What's so abd about the 2-player you ask? Well for starters, when the other player loses a continue, you guys have to start right back at the last checkpoint! Also, the damge you've taken (the player who didn't lose a continue) before that person died, will still be with you! So that basically means you're starting the level again taking further damage to your already dying character! When MattDDR and I played this game togetther, we cursed more than what Samuel L. Jackson ever wishes he could! That's how much we got pissed off about this game! Whoever thought of this retarded idea should be roundhouse kicked! And you might as well give up playing after the other player loses all of their continues...because afer all of the damge you took, it'd be impossible to beat the cheap game.

Overall: C-  

This game blows! Plain and simple. And I gave it a C- because of the 2-player! It's fun...but good luck making it past Level 4...or trying to beat the game! Why Tradewest decided to do this type of crossover still confuses me to this day. They're two totally different franchises for God's sake! But since I was little back when this game came out, I loved it and didn't really notice the cheapness...until I started maturing. Also, what pisses me off is the fact that Rare obviously had VERY little knowledge of the Double Dragon series...seeing how they mixed up half of the enemies names and just made all new ones! And Tradewest allowed it! This is a 100% Battletoads game! Billy & Jimmy are just there! It's nothing at all like Double Dragon and I'm very baffled why and how this even came about. Now I'm not hating on Battletoads...I really like the series honestly. But this game is just not one of the ones I like in the series. And you'll hate the ending! All it has is just still shots (from the character select screen no less) of the characters being gay and complimenting each other. I know SNES couldn't handle CGI and stuff. But come on, they could've done better than this! And people wonder why Tradewest is now defunct (good ridance!). Do a favor and avoid this pile of crap.