Battletoads first arrived on consoles in 1991 courtesy of Rare, but the arcade version — developed jointly with Data East and released in 1994 — brings that cartoonish violence to the hit-and-advance formula for up to three simultaneous players. The mutant toads turn their arms and legs into maces, drills, and all kinds of improvised weapons to face the Dark Queen and her army.
Unlike the demanding console platformer, the arcade version feels closer to Golden Axe or Turtles in Time: less surgical precision and more cooperative chaos, built to empty pockets of coins in arcades rather than to test pure platformer reflexes.
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