A fun Retread
Battletoads was a giant fistfull of freshness when it released onto the NES, and later ported to the Genesis. It was a solid mix of beat-em-up, platformer, and racer. It had great graphics and a wide variety of animations when you finished an enemy, or died yourself. The game was extremely hard, having a wide variety of instant kills, demanding much practice and patience. The game also had a great sense of humor, and in my opinion definitely influenced later gems like Earthworm Jim.As far as I remember, all the gaming mags at the time praised Battletoads. I (obviously) loved it. Rare had added its biggest notch on it's belt, proving that at least back then, they could create GREAT original IPs without dipping into the Nintendo well...
So it makes sense (but was still very disapponting) that Battlemaniacs is essentially the exact same game, but with bigger and more colorful sprites, and more elaborate animation (all expected with the jump to 16-bit). Some tweaks notwithstanding, even the levels were the same as the NES original. Instead of repelling down a chasim in level two, you floated down in hoverpods. Of course once you get to the end, level three is once again the dreaded hovercar obstacle course. Fortunately (or not) this version of stage three is much easier than the 8-bit original. Its a theme repeated throughout the game. Rare obviously toned down Battlemaniacs' difficulty.
This would be the last hurrah for a proper Battletoads title. There was the forgettable arcade version, turned into a mostly cookie-cutter sidescroller (TMNT, SImpsons, Final Fight, ect.) and the sad attempt to revive two dying franchises with one stone in the crossover Double Dragon games. Neither did well, and Rare's far-reaching path of mediocre collect-athon platforming titles was beginning. This is why Battlemaniacs is is in my opinon a piviotal game. It not only killed the BT franchise, but signaled a dramatic decline in originality from Rare.