Hello friends, Tim here again from Super Mayhem, bringing you some more Game Genie Hijinx to blast your NES off your TV screen!
So straight up, I had never played Battletoads before this video, but I had heard about its notoriety.
From prank calling the pawn stars asking for Battletoads, to its intense difficultly level, I knew I was getting into something special here. Not to mention the games pumping tunes on the pause screen!
Released for the Nintendo Entertainment system in June 1991 and developed by the highly acclaimed Rare, Battletoads is a kind of beat em up platformer game that stars three frogs with names like Rash, Zitz, and Pimple. What was the reason behind these names? I’m not sure, maybe the developers had some serious skin problems and needed a dermatologist or something, or maybe it was just the 1990’s and everything had to have outrageous names.
Anyway here is a quick overview of the story of the game. Just a note though, spoilers ahoy so if you don’t want to know what’s going on in this game, skip forward a couple of minutes and we will get into the game hacking action.
Basically, you are a frog, or frogs if you are playing 2 player, and off you go escorting Princess Angelica to her home planet using their spacecraft, the Vulture. However all doesn’t go well, when Pimple and Angelica decide to take a leisurely trip on Pimple’s flying car, they are ambushed and captured by the Dark Queen’s ship, the Gargantua. Yikes! Naturally Pimple then sends out a distress signal to the frogs ship the Vulture, alerting Professor T. Bird, Rash, and Zitz about their conundrum.
From this, Professor T. Bird learns that the Gargantua ship is hidden beneath the surface of a nearby planet called Ragnarok’s World, and flies Rash and Zitz there in the Vulture to rescue them.
During the game’s 13 levels, the Battletoads are faced with the Dark Queen’s minions like Big Blag, Robo Manus and Major Slaughter as bosses, and then in the end they face the Dark Queen herself at the top of the Dark Tower. If you manage to defeat the queen, she claims it will not be the last they would see from her, turns into a whirlwind for some reason and flies off into space, “retreating into the shadowy margins of the galaxy to recoup her losses” as the game explains. With Pimple and Princess Angelica rescued, the four are brought back into the Vulture and the game ends.
As noted however this game is known to be hard as nails, so much so that even in 2012, Yahoo! Games stated that the game was still widely recognised as one of the most difficult games ever made, particularly noting the chance of players accidentally killing their partner in two-player mode.
So how can we make it a bit easier? That’s right folks it is time to dust off the old Game Genie and get up to some Hijinx to beat this beast.
Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like there are too many custom made codes floating around for the game. However there are a number of stock standard codes for Battletoads. Some are useful and some not so useful.
For example the code PENVZILA starts off the game with 1 life, which is really not that helpful. On the other side of this is the code GXXZZLVI which gives you infinite lives, which still makes the game near impossible to beat but certainly does help. Once your life bar hits zero you will still be reset to save points in the later stages, so this isn’t really a true invincibility code or anything, just infinite lives. There are a few codes in between for X amount of lives, but they aren’t that interesting other than to say they increase your number of lives to 6 or 9.
If it’s making the game easier you are after then the following codes will hit the spot nicely, and no that wasn’t a pimple joke…or was it.
Anyway, the code GXEILUSO make enemies easier to kill compared to regular play. What usually takes 4 or 5 punches now decimates the enemies in just 1 or 2. This naturally makes the game a ton easier and you can breeze through the first few levels without too much trouble. Flexing those froggy muscles all the way, oh yeah.
You can combine this with the super-fast punching code AEUZITPA and you are in for one sweet day at the NES office. Plus it just looks amusing, look at that little bugger go. This code is just fun on it’s own and almost has the same effect as the easier to kill enemies code in a way, but it still takes longer to take care of bosses and tougher enemies.
Another code that is meant to help you, although I question its helpfulness, is EYSAUVEI which gives you the Mega-jumping ability. I’ll note that this does not help you at all in level 5, surf city, at all, which is where I tried this code first. The code itself kind of reminds me of the codes from the Super Mario NES games which also allow you to jump super high or even moon walk as they call it. It’s not super useful but if you are getting your butt beaten then you can make a smooth get away.
There are only really 2 more codes that will help you with the game play itself, and they are AOUKXNAA which will give you double the energy from eating flies and then YXUKXNAE which will give you maximum energy from flies. There isn’t a lot to say about these 2 except that they exist and I can see how they would be helpful whilst playing through the game.
The rest of the stock standard codes are warp zones, which do at least let you see other parts of the game if you are stuck in a part of the game like that annoying level 5 Surf City!
In a nut shell, here are the codes for the different levels:
ZAXAALAA Start on level 2 — Wookie Hole
LAXAALAA Start on level 3 — Turbo Tunnel – Looks like a giant brain and has hard to see pits
GAXAALAA Start on level 4 — Arctic Cavern – throw snow balls at snowmen
IAXAALAA Start on level 5 — Surf City – Hit logs and die a lot
TAXAALAA Start on level 6 — Karnath’s Lair – A weird snakes level that is annoying when you miss the snake
YAXAALAA Start on level 7 — Volkmire’s Inferno – Boxing Kangaroos, dodgy log jumps and you get to fly a jet
AAXAALAE Start on level 8 — Intruder Excluder
PAXAALAE Start on level 9 — Terra Tubes – You know it’s a good level because you get zapped in the nuts by an offscreen robot straight away.
ZAXAALAE Start on level 10 — Rat Race – I died just as I saw the rat that I was meant to be racing.
LAXAALAE Start on level 11 — Clinger Winger – No idea what you are meant to do here, this weird ball keeps killing me.
GAXAALAE Start on level 12 — The Revolution – I didn’t get very far but it seems like a genuinely good idea for an NES level!
There is actually one custom fan found code that is flying around, and that is YAOVYIAP TTEEIYVT
This game genie code changes the title screen music to some unused song in the game. It’s pretty funky but doesn’t change anything other than the opening title screen.
Further to these interesting game genie codes, there are actually a few built in cheats in the game you can access without any peripherals like the Game Genie. For example you can start the game with 6 lives by holding down A and B simultaneously and then press start at the title or continue screen. If the cheat works you will hear a neat little 8 bit sound and off you go with some extra lives! The game genie cheat code TENVZILA will have the same effect as this cheat.
You can also become immune to electric shocks in a 2 player game by picking up your partner and placing them in an electric field area while still holding him. If your mate does the same to you then you will both won’t be affected by electric shocks.
There are also a number of warp zones in the game but admittedly I am not skilled enough to get to them so I wasn’t able to record footage, but they do exist apparently.
Anyway enough waffling on from me so that’s it for today friends! I hope you enjoyed doing some hacking of Battletoads on the NES with me. Don’t forget to subscribe if you are new, leave a like if you can it really helps and tells me you are enjoying the content, share this video with your video gaming friends on Facebook and Twitter and wherever else and I’ll catch you soon!
