Play by Play - Battletoads and Double Dragon - The Ultimate Team
By Brian • 10 August 2026
- Year
- 1993
- Platform
- Super Nintendo
- Notes
- Also released on Sega Genesis, NES, and Game Boy
Sometimes I forget the mission of this blog is to cover my journey through games. It doesn’t matter if I finish them, or even if I enjoy them—I want to discuss them here. But, most of the time, I have it in my head that I should only cover games I finish. This is not one of those games. But, I started Bad Enough Dudes to chronicle the journey, good or bad, so here we go.
I have a thousand games to play, and somehow, I landed on Battletoads and Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team. My heart was in the right place. What’s not to like? The Battletoads! The Double Dragons! Together at last in an unprecedented video game crossover! Yes, before Super Smash Bros. brought all of our favorites together for the video game mashup of the century, and before North America could possibly be aware of the likes of Konami Wai Wai World, we got our video game crossover kicks from this bizarre amalgamation. It’s (allegedly) The Ultimate Team™, but that’s only because it was the only team in 1993 or whenever this game came out.
Listen. I know I sound like a jerk and we’re getting off on the wrong webbed foot with this entry, and that’s not how I normally do things. To be clear, I love a good crossover/team-up. Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue? It’s schmaltzy as can be, but where else can you find Garfield, Miss Piggy, and Michelangelo on the same show, solving the same problem? Or what about that time the X-Men were on Spider-Man and their character models looked all weird? Also concerning the X-Men, while I’ve never read those books where they meet the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew, I know I would enjoy them. Or hey, remember when Hulk Hogan and “Macho Man” Randy Savage joined forces as the Mega Powers? Or even the MLB All-Star Game encapsulates this brand of excitement. (Well, not this year, anyway.) There’s something magical about a bunch of disparate good guys coming together to solve a problem. But can Battletoads and Double Dragon bring these two franchises together for a solid punch-and-kick adventure? Let’s talk about this supposed ultimate team-up and find out for ourselves!
I played the Super Nintendo version of Battletoads and Double Dragon by way of Nintendo Switch Online. However, I’ve had previous dealings with this game. I rented the NES version from an old grocery store called Shop ‘n’ Save in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, when I was nine or ten years old. It was a doomed rental—I never got past the second level, so if the developers ramped up the difficulty on this bad boy to combat the rental market, it worked. Granted, I’ve never made it past the third level in any Battletoads game, so as far as difficulty goes, this game is comparable to the rest.
From what I can tell, Battletoads and Double Dragon is a direct sequel to the original NES Battletoads. The Dark Queen seeks revenge for her defeat at the hands of the ’Toads on Ragnarok’s World, joining forces with the Shadow Boss and his Shadow Warriors and turning her ire on planet Earth for absolutely no reason! This, of course, necessitates a team-up between the ’Toads and the Dragons to defeat their collective enemies and save Earth.
Facing the character select screen for the first time, I chose Billy Lee as my avatar. While I find the Battletoads to be perfectly cromulent video game heroes, the Lees and I adventure together often in the first two Double Dragon games on the NES, so I thought I might feel a little more comfortable accompanying one of them into the fray. Although, according to what Nintendo Power told me about this game in a random issue I had when I was a kid, The ’Toads overpower the Dragons just slightly in this affair. I dunno. I was a little offended by that, even when I was nine. To be fair, this is a Rare-developed game, and they did create the Battletoads, so maybe they’re justified in giving their own characters a slight advantage. I just have an affinity and familiarity with the Lees, is all.
Taking on the first level—battling on the exterior of a spacecraft (which is super cool, but also raises some questions)—I instantly got the absolute crap kicked out of me by these robot henchmen. Their powerful chops stun-lock the good guys, and a full combo eats away half of a healthbar, so the player can only afford to be fully beaten up one time without dying. Maybe the queen finally figured out that putting the toughest minions in the first level of the game, as opposed to the last level, saves a ton on overhead and level upkeep. Hey, do villains split their diabolical compounds into “levels,” too, or is that strictly video game terminology? Anyway, the Queen is out for blood after her previous defeat, so Battletoads and Double Dragon is intensely difficult. I wonder if that decision impacted sales? Have you ever considered what a balancing act it must be for video game villains to make things tough on the heroes, but not so tough that the game doesn’t get played or sell enough copies to perpetuate the series? Does a villain want the game to sell? Does the villain like sequels? Sequels give the villain an opportunity to hatch another insane scheme, but also give the heroes the opportunity to thwart them yet again. These are the questions I consider when I haven’t spent enough time outside lately, and now they are your burden, as well.
Robots aside, the first level also has these hands! I did not play Battletoads and Double Dragon looking to get these hands, but I got them, anyway. I found that I could dodge the hands by luck and luck alone—the hit detection defies all logic and rational explanation. I feel like I can stand ten feet away from these things (in-game feet, real life feet, It doesn’t matter) and still receive the smacking of a lifetime. The same applies to the aforementioned robots. Perhaps some crazy force fields or tractor beams are at work here? It is a spaceship, after all. It’s probably the same reason why the heroes can breathe and perform martial arts in the vacuum of space.
On the occasion that I survived all of that, the boss of the first level is my old and deeply personal nemesis, Abobo. This guy is always a menace no matter the game in which he appears, whether or not I have to fight two of him at once, or whether or not he wears a wig, which doesn’t seem to negatively affect his ability to back-bodydrop me out of the open door of a helicopter. The dash attack appears to be the only move I can execute against him without getting punched into next century, so as my pro-gamer tip, I insist players zestily and vigorously spam the dash attack to defeat Abobo and bust inside the spaceship. Don’t get fancy—cheese your way to victory!
The second level, while more palatable, ultimately brought my adventure to an end. Some Shadow Warrior goons patrol the ship corridors, along with the occasional big guy who stands behind a door hucking dynamite at our heroes. None of these guys pose much of a threat, so if the robots didn’t get the job done in the first level, the has-beens on the inside of the ship probably won’t, either. The dynamite throwers can be dispatched by picking up their own dynamite and tossing it back into the room with them.
I also wanted to mention the spindly yellow walkers. These are returning enemies from the original Battletoads, and they rule. Defeating them knocks one of their legs off, which the good guys can then pick up and use to bludgeon other enemies. It’s such a novel thing, but it adds so much satisfaction and weight to the fighting experience. I can’t wait for one of these things to show up so I can tear off a leg and beat everybody around me to death.
Did I mention there’s a turbo tunnel segment in level two? To my surprise, especially considering how hard this game has been thus far, the turbo tunnel feels pretty tame compared to the one in the original Battletoads, so appreciation goes out to Rare for toning down the ludicrous difficulty. Not as long, and the speeder bike doesn’t accelerate out of control, so dodging and jumping obstacles is actually possible!
Sadly, my success in the turbo tunnel only delayed the inevitable, as the level two boss, Big Blag, finished me off in an unfair fight. He attacks with a butt splash, a la Earthquake from the World Wrestling Federation (lord, another pro wrestling reference?). The first butt splash crushed me, and just as I stood up, Blag squashed me with a second, mightier butt splash, leaving me no time to evade the flattening embrace of death. After a few rounds of this seemingly unavoidable attack, I called it quits. Still haven’t made it past the third level in a Battletoads game.
I don’t normally give up this easily. However, I think Battletoads games require a certain degree of resilience that I don’t currently possess. In a better mental state, in a less exhausted state, perhaps! But not now. I also think I made the mistake of going into this game with the idea that I would be playing a Double Dragon game, when it is, in fact, a Battletoads game guest-starring the Double Dragons. I can’t depend on flying knees and spinkicks for crowd control like I can in other Double Dragon games (moves I can only get to work half the time, anyway)—combos and special moves work differently here, and I was woefully unprepared for operating as Billy Lee under Battletoads mechanics. The Dark Queen wins this round.
So, that’s Battletoads and Double Dragon! The Ultimate Team? Eh, maybe? Your mileage may vary. I’m not counting this game out—I feel like there must be some enjoyment here that I haven’t unlocked yet. In the right time and place, it feels like it could (and should) be really fun. Maybe I will play this during Extra Life this year? Hmmm....
Thanks for reading, and see you next mission!
Sources: MobyGames and the Battletoads Wiki
