Battletoads

The arcade Battletoads is the console series' Forgotten Cousin: Rare's toad trio - Rash, Zitz and Pimple - in a 1994 coin-op brawler published by Electronic Arts, trading the NES game's infamous difficulty for three-player mutanthuman-smashing spectacle with a cartoon art style far bigger than the 8-bit games could afford.

The combat keeps the series' gimmick: finishing moves that transform your fists and feet into oversized blunt instruments - a giant boot, a boulder fist - to end weakened enemies with a flourish. Three-player simultaneous was the arcade selling point, and the enemy roster (the Dark Queen's robo-corp, the pork-controlled pig army) plays it all for laughs. It never received a home port, which made the coin-op a collector's entry for years; modern re-releases finally changed that. As a brawler it is solid rather than revolutionary, but as a Battletoads product it is the best-looking the toads ever got in the era, and the transformation finishes remain the reason to try it.

• ▸Rare's arcade take on the toads - never ported in its era
• ▸Signature transforming finishing moves as the combat hook
• ▸Genuine 1-3 player simultaneous brawling
• ▸1994 sprite work and humor the NES games could not match