Part of the Battletoads series, the game was released in North America by Tradewest in June 1993, in Europe by Nintendo in October 1993 and in Japan by Masaya on January 7, 1994.

The game received its first official re-release on the Nintendo Switch Online service on February 21, 2024, as it was not included in the Rare Replay collection for the Xbox One.

The game follows two Battletoads, Rash and Pimple, on a quest to stop Silas Volkmire and the evil Dark Queen from ruling over the world.

[2] With nothing left to lose, Rash and Pimple enter the Gamescape to rescue their friends and stop Volkmire and the Dark Queen from fulfilling their plans.

Bird picks up Volkmire on his scanners and finds out that he is trying to escape using a teleporter, so the Battletoads leave the Gamescape and hop into the Battlecopter to chase after him.

[6] Battletoads in Battlemaniacs is an action-platform beat 'em up game that takes place inside the Gamescape, a fictional, virtual world where computer-generated villains created by Silas Volkmire run amok.

In addition, the game features a handful of boss fights, ranging from a massive stone pig named Rocky, who jumps high in the air and stomps the ground, to the Dark Queen herself, who teleports around her tower and shoots magic missiles at the player.

The game was ported in 1994 to the Master System by Syrox Developments and was going to be published in Europe by Virgin Interactive Entertainment with a slated July 1994 launch date.

[14] Retrospectively, the staff of GamesRadar ranked the SNES version as the 30th best game on the platform, praising it for having "some of the best graphics on the system" and offering "one hell of an experience," stating: "The bosses are massive, the music is rockin', and the ever-present '90s attitude is in full effect—who cares if it's a cynical knock-off of TMNT when it looks and plays this good?

Andy Smith from Sega Power gave the Master System version 72%, praising the game for its "varied types of action" and "occasional humorous touches", but criticizing it for its "mediocre graphics", "button-stabbing tendencies" and its high difficulty.