Gameplay-wise, "Battletoads" was praised for its diverse gameplay styles, addictiveness, and motivating challenge level. Rob Bright of "Nintendo Magazine System" explained that "progress isn't slow, but then it isn't a breeze," and Julian Rignall of "Mean Machines" wrote that it's "brilliantly designed to allow you to get just a little bit further each time you play, and give experts the potential to hone their skills and rack up enormous amount of bonus points." Chris Bieniek appreciated the simplicity of the controls of its multiple speciality moves, particularly how attacks triggered by the B button change between levels. The platforming bits, however, were criticized for having poor collision detection that result in cheap deaths; reviewers from "Sega Force" also noted this problem in the Mega Drive port and called the game a "run-of-the-mill" platformer with unresponsive controls, "random" difficulty between levels, very little surprises, and "menial" objectives.