਀ ਀ The other day, I read what must have been the twentieth Battletoads review I've scanned through since my maiden voyage on the Internet's banner-clad waves. And like all the other twenty reviews, this one's main focus was on the difficulty level of the beast. I remember playing this game in an electronics shop for about ten minutes when I was ten or eleven years old, and while it seemed pretty tough, I couldn't imagine it could be that hard. So I gave it a spin on the old emulator. Sweet Jesus in a monstertruck, I was wrong. I got to the level with the big glowing ball that crushes you the moment you change directions one nanosecond too early or late at any point. I remember standing up in a blaze of fury and shouting "The game cheated!" more than once in my childhood years, but back then that mostly meant Dr. Wily's life meter was replenished just when I though I had bested him or a glitch caused me to fall through a platform. Those were just twists and acceptable bugs. Not accepting human error as a part of the equation and dancing around while masturbating to one's own 8-bit superior brain? That's cheating. Don't bother sending an e-mail to inform me you finished Battletoads back in 1991, I'll just put your name on my big list of liars. Liar.਀

਀㰀椀洀最 猀爀挀㴀∀最瀀栀挀猀⼀最愀洀攀猀眀愀椀琀⼀琀椀琀氀攀⸀最椀昀∀ 愀氀椀最渀㴀挀攀渀琀攀爀㸀

਀ By the way, you can stop trying to figure out what "HY, ΠOTOAИ!" is supposed to mean. If you haven't made sense of it yet you never will. I sure haven't. I hear the cartridge this dump is from was found in Russia, which could explain some of the characters.਀

਀ There is a limit to how many flaws you can point out and make fun of when you're covering an unlicensed game. Yeah, the layout plans seem to have been delivered from the designer to the developer by a chain of retired people who whispered it to the guy next to them until it came out in the other end sounding like something close to 'Bug honey running prunes have your kids visited you lately'. Yeah, the graphics look like they were done on a solar cell calculator during an eclipse. Yeah, the music sounds like a couple of gnats digging through your tympanic membranes and straight into your brain to trigger your centers for Billy Ray Cyrus recognition and childhood trauma bottling at the same time. Yeah, the sound effects something about nausea and self-mutilation and retard monkeys and ending with a cartridge being shot into the center of the sun. I could do a hundred generic half-assed run-on sentences to describe every detail about this game, but the truth is that a) generic run-on sentences about sound effects resulting in self-mutilation and something being shot into the center of the sun get old really fast and b) all these elements are a given when you play a Chinese unlicensed game that might be Russian. You knew the graphics would be shit when you clicked the link that took you here, and there isn't much point in dwelling on it.਀

਀ On the first level, you'll find a skateboard. This helps you in no way whatsoever. Well, it lets you move faster, but you don't really want that. Unlike in Adventure Island, there is no ticking death clock over your head, and you can take all the time you want getting through the level. In fact, using the skateboard means you'll probably lose control and fall down a hole and die. But wait! You can only take three hits before you die in this game, and when you take into consideration that you get hit about once every twenty seconds and, like I said earlier, only have three lives and no continues, every little safety measure is crucial to your survival. Even when you're playing on an emulator. And since the skateboard can cushion one hit, it actually is necessary to use it to avoid losing all your lives in the first level. And speaking of shoddy controls:਀

਀㰀椀洀最 猀爀挀㴀∀最瀀栀挀猀⼀最愀洀攀猀眀愀椀琀⼀樀甀洀瀀⸀最椀昀∀ 愀氀椀最渀㴀挀攀渀琀攀爀㸀

਀ ਀ I'm sure there are more bugs in the controls, and I won't rule out the possibility that there are some more far-fetched sequences you can punch in to make things easier, but I have been experimenting for far longer than I can justify already. In fact, I'm ready to cap this off and never think about this game ever again. If you feel like I'm jumping from the train halfway to the station, I can assure you I'm not. This is all there is to say about this game. Bosses, you ask? No bosses in this game. Just run along and do impossible jump after damn impossible jump, sometimes in a little train or on jetski, until you reach the end and run off the screen and are rewarded with a picture of the rabbit in a spotlight against an impressively detailed backdrop. The wolf? Never seen again, except when you die and he comes along to eat your carcass. That's right, you have to cross the most hostile enviroment on earth, which probably will kill you, to avoid a guy who's not showing up until you're dead and probably would have left you alone if you just stayed put and alive. GREAT PLAN.਀