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Zitz, Rash and Pimple... what kind of names are these for a super-hero? Apparently created like some sort of a joke at the expense of the already-popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the battle-maniac Battletoads have had their share of influence over the video gaming industry, too. The Battletoads look like the Turtles, but the gameplay in their games is almost entirely different. A few trademarks are the insane difficulty, the incredible diversity, a very cool arcade game which should have been ported to home consoles, and extremities that swell up to gigantic proportions as you deliver the fatal blow to each one of your weird enemies.

At first, the NES had the 2 awesome games Battletoads and Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team. These were both ported over to the Genesis. When NCS released the SNES Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, however, the Genesis was well past its prime; so it never got a port of BiB. Instead, Tec Toy and Sega (and Rare, Tradewest, Virgin Interactive Entertainment, Williams Entertainment and Syrox Developments Ltd. -- see the ending for the last one) decided to release a port for the Sega Master System, on the Brazilian market. Just like the Genesis Battletoads and B&DD are slightly up-dated versions of the NES originals, the Master System BM is a slightly down-dated version of the SNES original.

This time, the first player controls the brown toad (I always get their names confused and, seemingly, other reviewers do, too). The second player controls one of the green toads, and they can't be switched. The game has a very nice menu, where you can pick from '1 Player', '2 Player A', '2 Player B' and 'Options'. The game senses when one has only 1 controller plugged in, and makes the 2-Player features temporarily unavailable. In the 'Options' menu, you can choose your difficulty (number of lives), between 'Easy' (5), 'Normal' (3) and 'Hard' (1).

Both the number of stages and the stages themselves have been shortened. There are only 6 levels now (7, including the confrontation with the Dark Queen), and the map showing the stages is gone, too. The first stage is a beat'em-up, like the first stage in Battletoads; the second one is a vertical-scrolling level, only instead of a Wookie hole, you fall down a tree. Similarly, stages 3, 4 and 5 correspond to stages 3 ('Turbo Tunnel', but with only 3 courses), 6 ('Karnath's Lair', where you have to ride the snakes, and still the hardest stage, in my opinion) and 11 ('Clinger Wingers' -- the roller-coaster stage, where you only use the directional pad). The last level is sort of like stage 10 ('Rat Race') of the original BT, but it takes place in the Dark Queen's Tower. After diffusing the 2 bombs consecutively (if either of them is touched by Spazz, the rat who races you to them, you must re-start the whole stage), you finally face the evil Queen. There are also 2 bonus rounds, after stages 2 and 4, during which you have to knock down bowling pins and avoid other obstacles, but they make you lose life, rather than gain.

The difficulty is not too high. The hit detection is a little off in the first stage, but it's easy to learn when to punch in order not to get hit. The insects and crocodile (?) heads in the tree cannot be passed so easily without being hit, though. The turbo tunnel is easier and shorter now, but the snakes level is as tough as in the NES Battletoads. One could find the 5th stage a little hard to beat with the SMS directional pad, but the fact that straight lines now help your toad to gain ground (BT players know what I mean) is a definite advantage. The rat races aren't hard; the hardest part is figuring where exactly you have to stand to kick the bomb. Even though you have to beat the Dark Queen before losing a full life (5 hit points) or you start the fight again, the final battle is not the toughest point in the game.The best thing is that when you crash into a wall, hit a spike, or get knocked off the roller-coaster, you don't lose a life, but only a hit point.

Sound isn't anywhere near perfect. Some tunes are nice, but there are parts in the game, like the tunnel and the bonus stages, where there is no music, only effects; and sometimes, not even those. Also, there are glitches, especially on the snakes stage -- a particularly bad one is in section 3 of this level: if you die at a certain point, 2 snakes get mixed up and the one you need to ride doesn't pop out at the right moment. Also, if you continue in the turbo tunnel, you only have to repeat section 3. (No complaints there!) This, and the very lame ending, confirm that this game seems to have been, indeed, only 95% completed.

If you have the SNES version, and you're not a BT collector, then there's probably no need to buy this one. But this is a worthy 8-bit follow-up to the original NES game and, if you have a Master System, I suggest getting this, too. However, do buy this from a Brazilian seller, or you'll get ripped off!

- Swordlord