Battletoads is mostly about pattern matching. If you try to react to the speeder levels you literally cannot win because of the patterns and speed. But, over time, you learn the sequence and they are largely easy.
The bomb defusal levels in TMNT actually have fundamentally broken mechanics (there are plenty of youtubes out there). They are “fair” once you understand those, but it mostly results in a lot of deaths about 30 minutes into a run.
Two very different kinds of “Nintendo Hard” bullshit. Which is probably why I gravitated towards PC games at that age.
And honorable mention to Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden. Both of which are easier to beat if you rush or speedrun because of enemy spawn patterns making progression impossible if you take too long on some jumps.
I agree with your take, but none of these games are as frustrating as Bayou Billy. I wonder if some dev at Konami just hated Americans?
The NES version is harder than the Famicom version; enemies in the beat-'em-up stages are more aggressive and have more health, the player starts the shooting stages with less ammunition, and the driving stages have narrower roads. The driving stages in the Famicom version also give Billy’s jeep a health gauge, allowing it to withstand collision from enemy vehicles and road hazards, a benefit not available in the NES version.
I understand that changes like this were to do with the rental market, which was much bigger in the US compared to Japan; the idea being that if you made your game stupidly difficult but still reasonably compelling, people would just keep renting it until they finally beat it. Pretty cheeky move.
Exactly. Battletoads isn’t unfair, its just extremely hard (not different from Dark Souls). It’s different kind of hard, compared to Turtles, which had bad controls in example.
There are definitely control issues with like the sticky walls level. Some of the jumping has like completely bullshit edge detection and the rocket riding is way harder than the turbo tunnel, but you never hear anyone complain about it because no one ever makes it there.
Glad you like it. He always does this in-dept technical explanation, which sometimes is too technical for me. I noticed it wasn’t even the video I wanted to link and updated the reply with the additional link about the water level specifically.
I very much disagree on the Dark Souls comparison. It is a large part of why there has increasingly been the distinction between “Nintendo Hard” and “Hard but Fair” with (From) Souls games very much being the latter.
In a From-Souls, every boss short of the later DLCs (and puzzle bosses) have multiple viable paths. You can carry a tower shield or use ranged attacks or whatever.
Whereas, in the god awful speeder sequence especially, there really is one real path and it is to memroize the pattern and enter in the specific sequence.
The closest From-Souls got was Malenia and needing to know how to counter her Water Fowl attack. There was still the way to stagger her to death, but that was very build specific and a LOT of that game has the Dark Souls 2 problem of enemies with way too much poise. Combine that with dodging her dive bomb in phase 2 and she was VERY “sequence-y”. Which is why she got nerfed pretty heavily over the first few patches.
I guess honorable mention to most of the back half Sekiro bosses where people tend to learn how to bait the AI into sequences to exploit. But that is mostly a “failing” on the player. The most egregious example is main path
spoiler
Ishin and that is actually a REALLY bullshit trick by From. You fight him in a field of tall grass. But if you run about twenty meters back, you fight him in an open field and can now see his legs and identify all the attacks and react and punish accordingly.
This level is 1,000% trivial compared to the work it takes to get deep into battle toads. I never considered this that hard as a kid compared to what comes later.
Yes, the pattern matching is important. There was a sequel to Contra on PS2 (I think) that my friend and I found pretty hard. We learned the patterns of where to be and where/when to aim. Then, we kicked butt. We turned it up to the hardest setting and didn’t really need to adjust much. So, it ended up being really easy at that point. We loved playing that game after we learned the patterns.
Lion King was ten times worse than Battletoads. The developers were told by Disney to make it impossible to beat during the rental period. That game was the first time I rage quit.
I’m not 100% certain as I only ever had it on SNES, but I’ve heard that the way the frame timings worked on SNES made the jumping in levels like Just Can’t Wait To Be King much harder. YMMV
I distinctly remember my cousin and I beating Battletoads. The worst part was the boss where you had to throw the adds at the screen to hurt him. Otherwise I have very rosy recalls of the game.
What?
I remember this game, and this wasn’t anything compared to the time I rented Battletoads for a weekend.
That game taught kids failure
Battletoads is mostly about pattern matching. If you try to react to the speeder levels you literally cannot win because of the patterns and speed. But, over time, you learn the sequence and they are largely easy.
The bomb defusal levels in TMNT actually have fundamentally broken mechanics (there are plenty of youtubes out there). They are “fair” once you understand those, but it mostly results in a lot of deaths about 30 minutes into a run.
Two very different kinds of “Nintendo Hard” bullshit. Which is probably why I gravitated towards PC games at that age.
And honorable mention to Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden. Both of which are easier to beat if you rush or speedrun because of enemy spawn patterns making progression impossible if you take too long on some jumps.
I agree with your take, but none of these games are as frustrating as Bayou Billy. I wonder if some dev at Konami just hated Americans?
I understand that changes like this were to do with the rental market, which was much bigger in the US compared to Japan; the idea being that if you made your game stupidly difficult but still reasonably compelling, people would just keep renting it until they finally beat it. Pretty cheeky move.
Exactly. Battletoads isn’t unfair, its just extremely hard (not different from Dark Souls). It’s different kind of hard, compared to Turtles, which had bad controls in example.
There are definitely control issues with like the sticky walls level. Some of the jumping has like completely bullshit edge detection and the rocket riding is way harder than the turbo tunnel, but you never hear anyone complain about it because no one ever makes it there.
Here is a very good technical video about this topic: The Bad Jump Design and 30 FPS Gravity of TMNT (NES) - Behind the Code
Edit: I linked the wrong video. Here is the one I wanted to link, from the same guy:
The Broken Water Level of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES) - Behind the Code
This was a great watch. Thanks for posting it!
Glad you like it. He always does this in-dept technical explanation, which sometimes is too technical for me. I noticed it wasn’t even the video I wanted to link and updated the reply with the additional link about the water level specifically.
Wow! What a cool video! And what a cool channel! I’ve watched a few now, thanks for pointing it out!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
The Bad Jump Design and 30 FPS Gravity of TMNT (NES) - Behind the Code
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I very much disagree on the Dark Souls comparison. It is a large part of why there has increasingly been the distinction between “Nintendo Hard” and “Hard but Fair” with (From) Souls games very much being the latter.
In a From-Souls, every boss short of the later DLCs (and puzzle bosses) have multiple viable paths. You can carry a tower shield or use ranged attacks or whatever.
Whereas, in the god awful speeder sequence especially, there really is one real path and it is to memroize the pattern and enter in the specific sequence.
The closest From-Souls got was Malenia and needing to know how to counter her Water Fowl attack. There was still the way to stagger her to death, but that was very build specific and a LOT of that game has the Dark Souls 2 problem of enemies with way too much poise. Combine that with dodging her dive bomb in phase 2 and she was VERY “sequence-y”. Which is why she got nerfed pretty heavily over the first few patches.
I guess honorable mention to most of the back half Sekiro bosses where people tend to learn how to bait the AI into sequences to exploit. But that is mostly a “failing” on the player. The most egregious example is main path
spoiler
Ishin and that is actually a REALLY bullshit trick by From. You fight him in a field of tall grass. But if you run about twenty meters back, you fight him in an open field and can now see his legs and identify all the attacks and react and punish accordingly.
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This level is 1,000% trivial compared to the work it takes to get deep into battle toads. I never considered this that hard as a kid compared to what comes later.
Yes, the pattern matching is important. There was a sequel to Contra on PS2 (I think) that my friend and I found pretty hard. We learned the patterns of where to be and where/when to aim. Then, we kicked butt. We turned it up to the hardest setting and didn’t really need to adjust much. So, it ended up being really easy at that point. We loved playing that game after we learned the patterns.
Lion King was ten times worse than Battletoads. The developers were told by Disney to make it impossible to beat during the rental period. That game was the first time I rage quit.
Were you playing it on Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis?
SNES. Was there a difference between the two in regards to gameplay?
I’m not 100% certain as I only ever had it on SNES, but I’ve heard that the way the frame timings worked on SNES made the jumping in levels like Just Can’t Wait To Be King much harder. YMMV
deleted by creator
Oh god that Lion King game. That wildebeest sequence was the first time I experienced tunnel vison. What the godamned fuck Disney?
My favorite was ghosts and goblins, beating it just to find out you have to beat it twice to actually win. That was rough one.
And with a very specific weapon that has limited range, and other weapon pickups show up along the way. Grab one, you’re screwed.
I distinctly remember my cousin and I beating Battletoads. The worst part was the boss where you had to throw the adds at the screen to hurt him. Otherwise I have very rosy recalls of the game.