Cleaning the streets: Toxic Crusaders

A classic genre plus a forgotten show make for a fun brawler.

‣ Toxic Crusaders
From: Retroware
Platforms: PC
Release: Coming Soon
Steam Page • Demo Video • Developer Site

Get ready for an old-school brawler smackdown featuring a team of cheeky teenage mutants… humans, and at least one dog. This is not the four ninja turtles, but keep them in mind — specifically, their side-scrolling fighting games, which remain the genre’s nostalgic benchmark. Replace the turtles with a ragtag roster from the Toxic Avenger franchise, and you’ve got Toxic Crusaders.

Side-scrolling brawlers, also called ‘beat’em ups’, used to be the triple-As of their time, peaking in the Nineties. The appeal is obvious: they are loud and vibrant, featuring a player on the rampage and stomping groups of thugs as they progress along the level.

Mutant Crimefighters

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games were part of peak brawler, and Toxic Crusaders unabashedly fashions itself from a piece of TMNT cloth. In the game, you and up to three other players can couch co-op as Toxie, the mop-wielding toxic crusader, and an assortment of six other characters (the demo has four).

They team up to beat through an invasion of baddies, ranging in the demo from attackers wearing radiation suits to an assortment of villains from the movies. Dish out the pain with melee combat, working through larger and more threatening packs as our heroes make their way across Tromaville, culminating in a boss fight.

This is technically the second Toxic Crusaders game, the first launched in 1992. But the new Toxic Crusaders is an entirely original game. Visually, it has all the retro pixel art charm, though made for modern hardware. The storyline is what you might expect from a Nineties-era Saturday morning cartoon, complete with outlandish characters and some excellent voice work.

The family-friendly Toxic Avenger

In fact, a nineties cartoon is exactly what you should expect — this game follows from the short-lived Toxic Crusaders kids cartoon circa 1991. It seems crazy that Toxic Avenger was turned into a kid’s cartoon, game, and toy series. The original movie is a low-budget, gratuitously violent cult film — a fun watch, but not for children.

• 📽 Best Demo Moment: Take the fight to them!

But don’t worry; this game has no torn limbs or crushed heads. Toxic Crusaders is based on a PG cartoon — not that you must watch it to know what’s going on. Bad people are attacking, and you unleash a dose of (cartoon-appropriate) whoop-ass. The fighting system lacks combos, which can feel a little limiting. But it’s very satisfying with other players. The game includes local co-op and supports Steam’s Remote Play Together feature.

Quality beat ’em up games don’t arrive as often as they used to thirty years ago. It’s great to see a very modern yet old-school arrival, and it’s a bit startling that the inspiration is a family-friendly Toxic Avenger cartoon show with its own teenage mutants. To think, in an alternate world, it might have been Toxie instead of the turtles…

Toxic Crusaders is coming soon to PC.

Explore The Game with Youtube Chapters:

• 📽 00:25 Choose your fighter
• 📽 00:38 Stop Dr Killemoff’s goons!
• 📽 01:40 Have a car in your face
• 📽 02:08 He’s got a knife!
• 📽 04:04 Let’s get serious
• 📽 05:17 Into the diner
• 📽 07:00 A new bruiser
• 📽 09:05 To the junk yard
• 📽 12:06 Don’t mess with the Crusaders!
• 📽 14:00 It’s boss time
• 📽 17:01 Next on the Toxic Crusaders