Walkers return here as do their useful appendages, there’s even a new Turbo Tunnel, mostly notable for being absurdly easy compared to its predecessors, though combat is now possible while riding one.
Going inside the rat ship for level two isn’t much different, though we now get to see how the game features enemies and elements from both series at once. And for all intents and purposes, the game is only five levels long! Play begins on the tail of the Dark Queen’s rat ship, where players have plenty of time to get a feel for combat against the new enemies and use the new hanging ability. While the first two stages are mostly devoid of the usual Battletoadsbullshit, the margin for error afterwards becomes quite small and though not having to restart at checkpoints as often is nice, your lives will really start to evaporate after that and few will manage to beat this game without cheating. If these much-needed alterations give one the impression that this game is somehow fair or more reasonably balanced than the original, guess again. You can even get them from juggling ravens in level 3, though this has been made much more difficult to do, to the point of being practically impossible in all but the SNES version.
You also can get extends at 100,000 point thresholds as well as in certain sequences by collecting or destroying a number of objects consecutively.
Pick-ups now appear in item pods that litter the stages and can range from score boosts, 1-Ups, full health-refills, and occasionally temporary invincibility. The rather long levels are divided up into two or three sub-areas, but you’ll only respawn at these checkpoints if you have to use a continue. Notably, you now respawn in place whenever you lose a life, no matter what the circumstances. Most of the levels are set up like the typical belt-scrolling beat-em-up: screen stops, you bash some guys, then continue onward. The general flow of the game has also been altered from previous entries in the series, taking after what the original Battletoads might have been without all of its gimmicks. Otherwise, the game engine is the same as the original but applied to the retooled mechanics: the only concession to Battlemaniacs is the choice of 2-player games A or B, where B will prevent you from harming your partner. In fact, there’s only one level where you can even fall to your death, most of the time you’ll simply end up hanging over the side, useful for attacking enemies that approach in that manner though leaving you vulnerable from overhead attacks. For starters, combat takes the fore while platforming and vehicle gimmicks take a back-seat, so that challenge is now almost entirely derived from handling enemies rather than memorizing movement patterns or completing precision jumps. Though some familiar elements do return, they’re implemented in a new way when they do, rather than appearing in a better-looking, slightly more complex coat of paint like in Battlemaniacs.
More importantly, this is the first game since the original to introduce entirely new level ideas and a fresh take on the series’ formula. BT&DD is the first Battletoadsgame where all three Toads are playable characters, in addition to the Lee brothers, though the choice is largely inconsequential aside from the Dragons’ getting a jump kick. Fittingly, the Battletoads team up with Billy and Jimmy Lee to put a stop to this.