What’s the story?: Anyone who owned an NES and enjoys the great game of Football knows what Tecmo Super Bowl is all about. Fun…and Football! The original NES Tecmo Bowl was monumental in its release for including such featuers as the real names of real NFL Players, nabbing the “NFLPA” license. Tecmo Super Bowl for the NES took another giant step for sports games by allowing for the saving of gamers’ statistics, seasons, and the use of the “Team NFL” license - allowing for real NFL team names and logos.

So what’s new in this Super NES installment? Some bugs found in the first two were fixed and NFL team logos were added to end zones. Gamers could play “season mode” for three seasons straight and choose weather conditions (rain, clear, snow). An automatic “dive play” was added for leaping over the pile for that tough one yard. Oh, and, of course, gamers were able to experience updated 16-bit graphics and sound for Nintendo’s new system. As far as actual gameplay, there are no major changes. Hey – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The Tecmo Bowl series has a certain knack for being simple, yet incredibly addictive. On offense – choose a play out of a selection of eight (four runs, four passes), snap the ball, switch receivers by pressing “A” and fire a pass with “B”. If you chose a run, simply snap the ball, find and opening run through it – jam on the “A” button to break tackles, or, if you’re using Barry Sanders, just run.

TSB for the SNES follows its predecessors by including both the NFL and NFLPA licensees – this allows for the use of real NFL teams and players (except for Joe Montana). Being the only game at the time, this was a huge selling point for the Tecmo Bowl series. Going through every team to see how your favorite NFL players were ranked in the digital sports world of TSB was as addicting as playing the actual game.

What’s not to like: Throwing down-field in TSB is “a shot in the dark”, as you can only see about 30 yards of the field. With the game being played horizontally, there’s really nothing Tecmo could have done about this. Of course, they could have made the game zoom out, expanding the field of view, but this would have change gameplay drastically, and was definitely better left untouched.

One more negative – If you have a buddy that doesn’t play fair, your QB will be on the ground more often than not. You see, all a dishonest friend would have to do is take a quick look at your thumbs when you’re selecting a play. It’s fairly easy really. An exact match of plays will result in some seriously bad news for the offense. You must protect against this by “shielding” your controller from the cheater’s sight – selecting a play with the controller at face level seems to work best.

Check out some offensive domination TSB style in the video below. B. Sanders, Novacek, Marino, and even the great J.J. Birden wreak havoc in this one. Enjoy, and happy Super Sunday.

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Overall
Without a doubt, the first two Tecmo Bowls changed Football games forever. By the time this SNES version was released, the series had some pretty intense competition (especially from EA’s flagship title – John Madden Football). But this really doesn’t matter – the arcade feel and simplicity found in TSB, gives it a fun, “pick up & play” feel that just can’t be matched. Squatty players and all, TSB is a true American classic worth all the hours you will spend playing it.
User Score: (2 votes, average: 9.50 out of 10)  Loading ...