by Joel Meeks

Created on: August 09, 2009

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs is one of the hardest, and most entertaining, side-scrolling brawlers available on the SNES and, perhaps, on any console.

The game opens to Northern Tibet, where the Toads are visiting the Gyachung-La Fortress, where Professor T-Bird is introducing Psicone's new virtual reality system T.R.I.P.S (Total Reality Integrated Playing System), which they call "The Gamescape." Unfortunately, during the demonstration, one of the monsters on the screen leaps out, and grabs Michiko Tashoku, the president of Psicone's daughter! Zitz attempts to save the girl, but he is clubbed and kidnapped as well, and both of them are taken back into the gamescape. Silas Volkmire appears, stating his evil intentions, before disappearing into the gamescape once more. Playing as either Pimple or Rash, depending on which controller you're using (I usually use the second player controller, to play as Rash), you "gatecrash the gamescape" and attempt to rescue both your Toad friend and the president of Psicone's daughter.

At the start of this review, it had been quite a long time since I'd last played Battletoads. To be quite frank, I forgot how hard this stupid game was. But one thing that I didn't forget is how hard it is to stop playing, because it's so fun. I have to juggle my time between my next sentence in the review, and the next set of insane obstacles on the level.

The first thing that you notice about the game, as I mentioned earlier, is that it isn't your average, run-of-the-mill, 'Crap,-I-missed-the-platform' hard, it's the sort of hard that makes you want to snap your controller in half and throw it out the window. The levels start out easy enough, with only a few enemies attacking you that are easily dispatched, but the difficulty quickly increases. You also soon notice the excellent soundtrack that really sets the mood for the action-packed brawling that the game is centered around. Not something that particularly jumps out at you, the music is still very enjoyable to listen to, especially with the accompanying noise of rampant violence. The action is, as you would expect it, thick and abundant, to cover for the overall lack of a deep story, as in most SNES games.

The difficulty curve starts out at a reasonable rate with the first few levels, the second one being a bit more challenging than the first without being too ridiculous. By the time you finish the bonus level, you start thinking to yourself "What's the big deal? This isn't

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