GameSetWatch has an interesting piece up this morning regarding information on a canceled Rare project that would have brought the Battletoads back for a new generation of gamers. Information regarding a canceled Gameboy Advance version of the game has become public recently courtesy of RareWare Central, including a prototype ROM us the unfinished game. After seeing the footage below of the project, I can say that I am pretty happy that the project got canceled.
The original Battletoads game, and its numerous sequels, holds a special place in the hearts of many gamers. The games were not only incredibly fun and overly violent, but also incredibly difficult. Sometimes the difficulty managed to snub out any trace of enjoyment found in the experience. Personally, I always had a fondness of the original arcade release of the game which was definitely much grittier and bloody that the NES ports of the title.
The updated release of the game depicted below appears to take all of the grittiness out of the series and replace it with Cyber-punk / skater versions of the classic threesome. The project would also take the difficulty level of the game down dramatically and create and entirely different experience. That just isn’t acceptable to any card-carrying Battletoad fan. When discussing the canceled project with a former Rare employee, RareWare Central learned that an Xbox version of the game was also in the cards, but it didn’t go nearly as far as the GBA version.
Perhaps they can just forgot about remaking everything and release the original arcade version on the digital platforms. That sounds good to me.
