Battletoads is a beat 'em up platform video game developed by Rare and published by Tradewest for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

[7] While the levels of Battletoads vary greatly in gameplay style, the game is generally presented as a "beat'em up", in which players progress by defeating enemies while avoiding the hazards in the environment.

[10] For example, while hanging on the Turbo Cable in the second level, the toads gain access to a kick, with its Smash Hit variant called "Swingin' Size Thirteens", a giant punch similar to Kiss-My-Fist, named the "Turbo Thwack", and "BT Bashing Ball" in which the character shape-shifts into a wrecking ball when hanging next to a wall.

[10] After an enemy is buried by Nuclear Knuckles, the toads can use "the Punt" which involves repeatedly kicking their head,[10] ending with its Smash Hit version, named the "Big Bad Boot".

[13][10] Certain objects can also be used as weapons,[14] such as legs from defeated Walkers,[15] beaks from ravens,[12] pipes on the walls of Intruder Excluder,[16] and flagpoles from the Dark Queen's tower.

[18][19] Professor T. Bird and the three Battletoads, Rash, Zitz, and Pimple, are escorting Princess Angelica to her home planet using their spacecraft, the Vulture, for her to meet her father, the Terran Emperor.

Learning that the Gargantua is hidden beneath the surface of a nearby planet called Ragnarok's World, Professor T. Bird flies Rash and Zitz there in the Vulture to rescue them.

[30] Ride levels include the third stage, the Turbo Tunnel, where the players dodges stone walls while riding on a Speed Bike and having to use ramps to get across long gaps;[31][32] the fifth level, Surf City, where the player bounces on water surfaces on a "Space Board" while dodging logs, whirlpools, mines, and spiked balls;[33] the seventh stage, Volkmire's Inferno, where the 'toads fly on the Toad Plane in a fire environment going through Force Fields and dodging fireballs and rockets;[34] and level eleven, the Clinger-Winger, where the toads ride on the stage's titular unicycles while being chased by a hypnotic energy orb, named the Buzzball.

[39] Level six, Karnath's Lair, is a set of rooms that each consist of only one exit and multiple snakes moving in varied, twisting rectangular patterns that serve as platforms that the toads must traverse while also dodging spikes.

[32][40] Intruder Excluder, the vertical-scrolling eighth stage, is a platform-oriented level involving several jumps on platforms, springs and through electric barriers between moving gaps in the platforms, avoiding obstacles such as rolling Big Balls, Snotballs, suction valves named Suckas and poisonous gas guns named Gassers.

Its only beat 'em up consist of encounters with Sentry-Drones,[41][42][43][32] The player must get from the bottom to the top of the level, where a boss fight with the Queen's genetically modified biogen Robo-Manus takes place.

[44][41] Level nine, Terra Tubes, is a mixture of a platforming and underwater stage, and the only instance of the toads swimming in the game; it involves the player going through the piping into the Gargantua, with sections including encounters with Mechno-Droids[15] and Steel-Beck duck creatures that guard the tubes,[45] chases from the Krazy Kog,[15] and rivers infested with spikes, sharks, electric eels named Elctra-Eels, and instant-attacking Hammerfish.

Rare founders Tim and Chris Stamper created the series in response to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles craze of the early 1990s.

[54] To create a contrast to the popular media franchise and other beat 'em ups of the time, Rare added extra mechanics in the game to help separate it from these genres, such as racing stages and climbing courses.

[55]: 55 According to Rare artist Kevin Bayliss, the characters of Battletoads were conceived in order to "produce merchandise" on a mass scale, in a similar vein to Tim Burton's Batman.

[55]: 55  Rare attempted to create variation through shifts in gameplay between levels, and intentionally made Battletoads "crazy hard" in order to increase its longevity.

Bayliss frequently heard the team's programmer Mark Betteridge scream in anger after failing to complete levels he had assembled himself.

[77][32] Rob Bright of Nintendo Magazine System explained that "progress isn't slow, but then it isn't a breeze,"[32] and Julian Rignall of Mean Machines wrote that it's "brilliantly designed to allow you to get just a little bit further each time you play, and give experts the potential to hone their skills and rack up enormous amount of bonus points.

"[77] Chris Bieniek appreciated the simplicity of the controls of its multiple speciality moves, particularly how attacks triggered by the B button change between levels.

[145] Hardcore Gaming 101 writer Eric Provenza analyzed Battletoads to be unlike other video games known for their difficulty, such as Ninja Gaiden (1989) and Adventure Island, in that it does not get harder gradually; there are different mechanics, enemies, and obstacles for each section, with no opportunities for players to familiarize themselves with them due to limited continues and lives and the absence of a password system or save feature.

The game starts as "a quirky beat-em-up before rapidly shifting into high-speed obstacle courses and manic action platforming with very little cohesion.

[151] A pilot episode for a Battletoads TV series was also produced by Canadian DIC Entertainment, in an attempt to capitalise on the popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

[152] In July 2020, Megalopolis Toys announced a partnership with Rare to release a line of six-inch action figures based on the games.

[158] Tim Chaney, European CEO of Virgin Interactive, purchased the Master System rights for Battletoads from Tradewest after the game found popularity in the United States and had planned to release a version for that console in 1993, but it never materialised.

[164] Rare Replay was released on August 4, 2015,[165] featuring a fix to a bug in the original game that made the eleventh level unplayable for player 2.