That new Battletoads game looks pretty bad

Gamescom 2019 - The return of TMNT knock-offs Battletoads caused lots of excitement at E3 2019, especially after the huge years-long silence at Microsoft. But maybe this one should've died off.

Battletoads is coming back this year, but it's not the same hard-as-nails beat-em-up platformer mashup from your NES childhood. It's something different, something that looks like a cheap imitation, a nostalgic cash grab the world might be better off without. It's a 3-player beat-em-up that stars Rash, Pimple and Zitz, sporting a kind of drawn animation that reminds me of Stick It To the Man. Overall the visuals are just too busy and the enemies blend way too easily with the backgrounds.

The new Gamescom 2019 trailer shows brings up some significant worries. The hit detection looks atrocious, and the enemies are just...it's like they've already quit before the game started. The punches and attacks are delayed and combat itself just looks very, very off. It looks like you fight the game itself more than you fight enemies.

Someone made a comment calling Battletoads 2019 "Game Pass filler". I think that's incredibly apt. It exists to try to recapture excitement around an old game that pissed off millions of people. Maybe that was the goal all along with the new Battletoads, to make it as authentic as possible by frustrating players.

It's worth noting the new Battletoads isn't developed by RARE, but an indie studio called Dlala.