Battletoads Soundtrack (Arcade)

Battletoads Soundtrack (Arcade), David Wise, 1994

The final entry in the Battletoads franchise also happens to be one of its lesser-known ones. Electronic Arts made a rare foray into arcade publishing, releasing Battletoads as a three-player coin-op beat ’em up. It is hard to say how successful the game ultimately was, but no home ports ever materialised. And so, three years after the original NES Battletoads, the franchise was laid to rest – at least until E3 2018.

The fact that the arcade Battletoads seems to have made so little impact is a bit of a shame. According to both contemporary reviews and reactions to its inclusion in 2015’s Rare Replay, this may well have been the strongest entry in the series. In a departure from earlier Battletoads titles, the arcade game abandoned all genre-hopping – no platforming, no speed-bike sections – and focused entirely on brawling. The result was less adventurous, but more coherent. It also came with striking visuals that pushed the cartoon violence long present in the franchise much further than before. Rare was clearly pleased to be working outside the constraints of Nintendo’s content policy. The result sometimes feels like a dry run for Conker’s Bad Fur Day, complete with blood, swearing, and crude humour.

Naturally, David Wise’s soundtrack follows this exaggerated aesthetic. The result is music that stands almost at the opposite pole from the original NES score. That soundtrack had a knack for undermining action-scoring conventions through its jittery tension and frayed nerves. The arcade Battletoads score, by contrast, is the most testosterone-fuelled in the franchise. It offers few real stylistic surprises, but it does exactly what it needs to do in underscoring the game’s cartoonishly exuberant mood.

The opening track, “Vulture – Robotic Rabble – Bonus Round”, wastes no time establishing the soundtrack’s direction. With its speed-metal-influenced staccato riffing, it is easily the heaviest Battletoads cue to date. Wise takes the hard-rock basis of the SNES Battletoads & Double Dragon soundtrack and simply pushes it into overt metal territory. The guitar tone is hollower than on the SNES game, but the track is so varied and so full of indomitable energy that its slightly muddy sound matters little. And between the sledgehammer riffing, Wise still finds room to weave in several rousing guitar leads.

“Big Blag’s Stronghold – Scores” sits closer to the melodic mid-tempo riffing of Battletoads & Double Dragon. Wise immediately lands on a memorable riff and rides it for all it is worth. Once the track’s rock-solid groove is properly in place, he chooses exactly the right moment to layer in anthemic synth fanfares. These synth lines add cinematic drama and raised-fist defiance through a proud, catchy melody. “Boss 1” is a more straightforward metal piece, pitting a galloping rhythm section against howling guitar figures. The drumming drives relentlessly, but thankfully never becomes monotonous – a failing “Boss 2”, unfortunately, does not entirely avoid.

Like Battletoads & Double Dragon, this soundtrack is built around heavy rock guitars, with a few stylistic detours and experiments thrown in for variety. There are slightly more of them here, which gives the arcade Battletoads a somewhat more colourful overall feel. “Arctic Caverns” is less surprising than its NES namesake, but still works as a playful and effective evocation of its setting. Wise has evident fun pitting hammering ten-ton riffs against chiming Christmas bells and the expected bouncing rhythms. For all its jaunty synth melodies, though, “Arctic Caverns” never slips into outright parody. It remembers, above all, to keep rocking.

Other tracks that venture outside the standard hard rock / metal mould also revive parts of the franchise’s musical history. “The Dark Queen’s Battleship” feels like a more focused reworking of the synth-pop / rock / New Jack Swing mixture heard in “Roper” from Battletoads & Double Dragon, with an insidiously catchy beat that, despite relatively little variation, is strong enough to carry the whole piece. “Hole”, meanwhile, recalls the carefully paced orchestra / rock blend heard on the SNES Battletoads in Battlemaniacs soundtrack.

This time, however, Wise pulls that approach off much more successfully. Despite its length, “Hole” never meanders. It has a clear sense of progression, built on constant rhythmic motion. Those rhythms help the cue develop an impressive sweep in slow, steady fashion as the claustrophobic atmosphere keeps thickening and heavy melodies force the music forward, though only with obvious strain. One could certainly call the track repetitive, but it is repetitive with purpose, repeatedly hammering home its defiant melodic material against mounting odds.

To close the musical history of the Battletoads franchise – at least for now – Wise ends on a more celebratory note than in previous entries. “Ending – Credits” opens with a beautifully layered brass fanfare, already hinting at the orchestral assurance that would power several highlights of Donkey Kong Country 2. More intriguing still is the cue’s B section, an expansive violin melody accompanied by delicate woodwind counterpoint. It is a style not heard on any previous Battletoads soundtrack. So while this arcade score may play things more straight than earlier franchise entries, it still retains an appetite for musical surprise – preserving a proud tradition that began with the 1991 NES original.