What Battletoads Actually Are & Where They Came From
In the early 90's, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reigned supreme. Trying to find an alternative to the turtle quartet, Rare Studios developed their own side scrolling beat 'em up staring a new group of amphibious anthropomorphic fighters, Battletoads. The game reached cult fame for its brutal difficulty, witty writing, and Saturday morning cartoon-esque leading characters. While they may not have reached the same popularity of Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Donatello, Rash, Pimple, and Zit were fan favorites. Battletoads went on to win Overall Best NES Game of 1990 at the Nintendo Power Awards. A sequel, Battletoads: Battlemaniacs, was released in 1993, but there wasn't another official entry in the series until this year with the recently released game of the same name, Battletoads.
Considering near 30 year gap between games, there's an entire generation of gamers who missed out on the mayhem that is the original Battletoads. Although the newest game in the series is a sequel, it doesn't touch on the lore of the original games and the Battletoads as a group. Most of the original game's backstory comes from a comic series, so there's a lot that's left out of this sequel, like how the Battletoads were at one time human.
Rash, Pimple, and Zit were originally human video game testers for Psicone Corporation. Their real names were David Shar, George Pie, and Morgan Ziegler, and they were each around 20-years-old. The three were testing the original Battletoads — because of course — using state-of-the-art virtual reality technology, which allowed them to become each of the Battletoads within in the game. After their test, the three are approached by Piscone General Executive, Alexei Vakuse, as well as the game's chief technician, Silas Volkmire. Vakuse suggests to the trio and Volkmire that they should tweak the difficulty of the game in order to lure more fans to the game. Volkmire took this request as permission to do something much more evil with the game.
Back at their home, after their encounter with Vakuse and Volkmire, the trio decide they can no longer trust their bosses. They decide to break into the Psicone Corporation under cover of night in order to learn more about what's actually going on. At the same time, while working on some code for the game, Volkmire accidentally summons the Dark Queen, the antagonist of the original game, into his home. The two then agree to team up to destroy their mutual enemy, the Battletoads.
After breaking into Psicone, the three decide to dig around Vakuse's office to get a sense of what might be going on. It is then that they realize the game generator has been stolen. The three are able to track down the stolen game, but notice that it's already on and running. They decide to test the game to make sure it hasn't been tampered with. Soon after entering the game, they notice Volkmire and the Dark Queen together. Volkmire reveals his plan to team up with the Dark Queen in order to destroy the Battletoads out of jealousy for all the praise they receive. The Dark Queen, on the other hand, reveals that this world isn't actually a game, but a parallel universe that the game generator opened a portal to. She had ruled this universe unopposed, until the Battletoads showed up. The two then tell the trio that they've injected a virus into the game, trapping them in this parallel world and permanently transforming them into the Battletoads. From there, the Toads are rescued by Professor T-Bird, who becomes their coach and mentor as they try to defeat the Dark Queen.
While this background doesn't have much to do with the newest game in the series, it should serve as a nice introduction for those who have never played, or even heard of, this series. Plus, it's always nice to recount the lore of a colorful cult classic.
Battletoads is currently available for Xbox One and PC.