Well, RevAnt hasn't put up the Monthly Musings for December just yet (I'm assuming is forthcoming)...I thought maybe I could sneak this one under the radar of the astute readers of Destructoid, even though it's really the first of the month.



I read the title of November's musings and thought immediately of something that I'm sure nobody touched on, Battletoads. Ok, hear me out, 'do the wrong thing' shouldn't necessarily be doing evil or violence in order to push a story along, but for me it was what guys like me had to do with our limited game collections in the late 80s/early 90s.
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Ok so, Battletoads. Everyone who knows me, knows I have this massive video game boner for the game and anything else associated with the genre. Well, when the game came out on the NES back in 1991, me and my cadre of pre-teen gamers (about 5 of us if I recall) were one of the first people in our school to get our hands on this game.

I had no idea what I was really in for...but none of us really knew what to expect from this game, except for toads, battling, and whatever Nintendo Power told us through its short-lived comic series.

We powered up the NES that fateful Friday evening and began playing, only to have our asses handed to us within the first 20 minutes...scratch that, the first 5 minutes when we realized that you could actually fall off the face of the f*cking planet on the first level by walking too far down.

I swear we didn't put this game down until the following morning when it was time to shut off the NES to watch Saved By The Bell and eat Cap'n Crunch. Unbeknownst to us, there was another game in transit to our local arcade that weekend that would change the face of gaming forever.



Street Fighter II came on the scene around the same time as Battletoads, and you might be wondering what the hell the two have to do with each other...but we're getting to that soon, I promise.

Being the video gaming fiends that we were (some still are), it didn't take long for us to desire more and more time at the mall to play Street Fighter II. The fighting game bug had bitten us and we were powerless against its infection.

What were we to do with ourselves now that we wanted a fighting game experience and there was none to be had on the NES?!? You got it, we invented a Battletoads fighting league. Talk about doing the wrong thing...we started using the 'friendly-fire' that Battletoads had to beat the shit out of each other repeatedly.



It was glorious...and for some of us, BETTER than playing Street Fighter II! We'd start the game up and either proceed to pound on each other in the first level once you beat up the first set of pigs, or we'd go just a bit further and fight over the war-walker's leg to use as a weapon. We'd keep this trend going as far as the descent level where you're rappelling and you can still cause mayhem to your co-op partner.

Sure, it might not be evil, but there is something to be said about our gaming generation that had to make due with alternatives to the games we REALLY wanted to play. We may not have had all the fancy consoles and games we enjoy today, but god-damnit we loved what we had and still reminisce about the friendships they helped solidify. Right or wrong, sometimes doing the wrong thing can feel so right.