#206 Tecmo Super Bowl

Posted: 20th September 2016 by Jeroen in Games
Tags: , , ,

543rd played so far

tecmo-super-bowl-cover

Genre: Sports
Platform: NES
Year of Release: 1991
Developer: Tecmo
Publisher: Tecmo

Time for another sports game I don’t know much about! I’ll be watching the Superbowl at some point, but until then most of my knowledge of American football comes from the theory of how it’s meant to work, bits I’ve picked up from rugby and more.

These sports games make me wonder why it’s that one in particular. Tecmo Super Bowl is listed as a game that was a good, accurate simulation that isn’t too difficult to get into – the latter something that has thrown me with other sports games. I hope this will do it for me.

Our Thoughts

Tecmo Super Bowl works well enough. It feels simple enough that I’m not missing out on loads of systems that I just haven’t had explained. At the same time, the core of the game is about all these different plays, which are mostly unfamiliar to me – and where I’m not sure of my role during any of them. I realise that won’t make a difference for fans, but as a newbie to the sport, it didn’t help. I got my yards, but slowly.

I tried a few matches to get to grips with it, and it sort of worked. It never quite won me over, but played better than the later games that might look prettier, but also became more complex. It’s a bit of give and take, really, and if I had started playing this when it came out, I presumably would have done better.

Final Thoughts

This was good enough for a sports game. It was simple, without too many in depth systems, while still giving the impression it is close to the original game. Maybe at some point it’ll actually connect.