I slept on it, hoping that when I woke up there would be news that they were joking. I don't think they are.
Dlala studios artist bio explains everything, "I think annoying my teachers with doodling and wanting to do cartoony things rather than oil paintings paid off!" She didn't care enough in school to listen to her art teacher and learn the basics and it shows in the game's awful animation and art direction. Battletoads is clearly not being made by people who played the original games, and the animator is just doing her own thing, paying no respect to the fans of the original nor it's style. What they showed was unnacceptable. I don't expect Cuphead levels of animation from this studio as Chad & Jared Moldenhauer (MDHR) really went all-out. They went as far as to employ the same techniques and tricks that Max Fleischer used in the 1930's. Respect was paid to the art they were inspired by and the result was incredible. What they showed of Battletoads was beyond disappointing
What's been done with Battletoads is nothing new though. For a few years at least, beloved old franchises have been getting reboots that are absolutely awful, all with terrible art styles and none sharing the feel or style of the original. These new shows are being created by people that didn't grow up with the originals, but are creatively bankrupt so they rely on re-hashing other people's ideas for their own grotesque creations.
Take Thundercats for example, it was an American cartoon with art done by a Japanese studio. While the cartoon was typical 80's fare made to sell toys, it had a certain charm that still holds it up today. In 2011 it received a reboot with great animation and the feel of the original but with a bit less 80's camp, but nobody knew it existed so it was cancelled. Fans of the original liked it and wanted it to continue but it soon disappeared just as the 2002 He-Man reboot had before it. That He-Man reboot brought back all the original characters, great animation and design, and fleshed out the backstories for even the c-tier characters. It was a great example or a reboot done right, but unfortunately they missed their target audience (people my age at the time) and it was cancelled just as they revealed Hordak and the extent of his power.
Recently Thundercats was brought back again as Thundercats Roar. It's terrible in every sense of the word and nobody likes it. It's offensively bad.
Teen Titans is another example similar to Thundercats. While the original TT wasn't the best thing in the world, it did have it's own style and the characters were fleshed out over the course of the series. The animation was typical weekly cartoon fare but again, there was at least something there. It amassed a fan base and many of the characters became /b/ and Deviantart favorites ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°). Then came Teen Titans GO which made light of everything all the time, turning the franchise itself into a joke.
Soon after that She-Ra got the same treatment. Now She-Ra was originally a direct branch from He-Man and featured the same art style, themes and many of the characters from He-Man would make their way into the show in cameos (
Skeletor's appearance in the Christmas special was one of the best things ever) The new recently released version is insufferable featuring bland character design that pays no mind to the original show, an apparent fear of drawing the shape of breasts on the female characters. For good measure they made several characters overweight or made them into tomboys.