The worst games are not those everyone knows are bad, it's those that fool everyone into thinking it's good!
When you move in any direction the game uses only 1/4th of the screen to show where your going and the other 3/4ths shows what's behind you which is very annoying when enemies attack you with projectiles off screen or a moving or projectile instal kill trap is just beyond view which you'll undoubtedly run into and lose one of your hard to come by extra lives. This happens a lot in the 3rd ice stage where snowmen toss snowballs at you, sliding spike objects move around on the floor and platforms which you need to jump on that are over insta kill spiked floors go quickly in and out of view before you can jump on them. You end up having to rely COMPLETELY on trial and error level memorization to get through the bulk if not all of the levels in the game with reaction time playing little to no part in keeping your froggy avatar safe from harm. There were even times when the screen issue hid quick moving enemy sharks out of view of you, but the shark sure can see you clear enough, with latch on and repeatedly attack you in one area and before you know it your dead again. One level is even one big joke around that snake eating apples mini game people might be familiar with in which your running around and climbing up the different snakes' bodies to avoid falling to your doom and avoid running into more insta kill spike traps which require perfect jumping ability to avoid in parts and not simply memorization.
After the jet bike level there's a surfing level and a jet level in which they seemingly try to throw almost every possible object in context to the area at you that can kill you instantly and pretty much makes your health bar worthless which much of this game seems to do. Another level worth mentioning is an elevator shaft level in which you start off going up with many insta kill death traps set around the area. As you go up, the screen scrolls up with you, if you fall down the screen doesn't scroll back down to compensate and instead the bottom of the screen now becomes a death pit so the whole time your climbing up you have insta kill death traps above and an insta kill death pit below...the game doesn't give you any help of any kind and it becomes very obvious that the game REALLY doesn't want you to see the ending in your life time.
If by some obsessive compulsive miracle you do get past the insta kill traps, cheap death insta kill bosses, the vehicle sections and the portions where the screen hides enemies and traps from your view, finally complete lvl 15 and get to fight the Dark Queen you are treated with.....the most pathetic boss fight I've ever seen in relation to the entire game with an equally crap ending that will make you tear your hair out and scream loud obscenities that you actually bothered to complete this pile of garbage fairly. They didn't even bother to give The Dark Queen more than 3 different frames of animation and right after the condor guy says something about bottling the Dark Queens charisma and making a fortune sarcastically, the screen blacks out for a moment and it's back to the SEGA logo. This. game. is. HORRENDOUS! Not just because of what I told you in this review, but also because there are many nostalgia nuts out there who will say this game is awesome when I doubt they ever got past lvl 3 on the NES or lvl 4 on the Genesis. Even the AVGN is foolish enough to actually say this game is good when in his 2 player video review of the NES version he never got past lvl 3 as with over 90% of america (I'm guessing more like 98%).
This game should be destroyed and exposed for the horrible waste of time piece of crud it actually is. The developers made a game hard for the sake of it being hard just to keep you playing as long as possible and they never actually thought anyone would get to the end so they didn't put any effort into it. The NES versions ending is better but at least everyone seems to agree that one is horrible too.