Konami is a bizarre company. In the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, it created many amazing and iconic games. Then, in the late 1990s, the company started to fall off as the cost of developing games rose, and the company focused on lower-cost ways of making money.
Blades of Steel is one of the series that reflects how Konami would eventually fall off. I had no idea there was a series of games; I had thought it was a one-off game in the arcades that was ported to the NES. Which it was for a little over a decade.
In 1999 and 2000, Konami brought Blades of Steel back with an NHL and NHLPA license. It also made the awkward transition to 3D, which every series did around this time. The reviews weren’t kind to the 1999 and 2000 games.
The NES game is a decent arcade-style sports game. It is a ton of fun. NHL Blades of Steel 1999 was released on the N64, and NHL Blades of Steel 2000 was released on the PS1 or PSX.
The three games were also released on the Gameboy and Gameboy Color (GBC). NHL Blades of Steel 1999 and 2000 were both GBC exclusives. They are what you should expect from Gameboy games. They aren’t great, but they did capture the experience of playing the console games.
The Arcade Game
Konami released Blades of Steel in the arcades in 1987. It was then ported to the Famicom Disk System, NES, and a few home computers. The arcade cabinet looks pretty cool and uses a control scheme many arcade sports games use.
Blades of Steel and Tecmo Bowl share many similarities. Both are two-player games that don’t try to simulate sports. Hockey is an easier sport to recreate in the arcade. It is like basketball, where all you have to do is throw some or all of the rule book out the window.
The arcade cabinet isn’t anything special. The player moves around using a trackball, and there are buttons for passing, shooting, and punching. You don’t need much more than that for an arcade game.
The NES Version
This is the game that I remember the most from this series. I played it with my friends when I was little, and it is one of my favorite games on the NES. It is easy to pick up and play, and it can be a lot of fun.
The fights are what I remember the most. They’re also in the arcade game, and I remember being excited for them when I played with my friends. This was also the only way to get a power play in this game.
This game does not have a player or league license, like Tecmo Bowl and other arcade sports games. Instead of team and player names to let you know who you’re playing, Konami used city names and colors. Some colors match up with NHL teams, but others are off.
There are three difficulty settings and a few game modes. It isn’t too different from the other arcade sports games on the NES. Blades of Steel is a simple and fun arcade game on the NES. Konami didn’t release a Blades of Steel game on the SNES or Genesis, so we skip to the late 1990s with the PS1 and the N64.
Return and Disappearance
The nest two games of the series abandoned what made the first game good. Konami acquired licenses for the National Hockey League (NHL) and the National Hockey League Player’s Association (NHLPA). In theory, this would’ve given the game some name recognition. Unfortunately, it didn’t make the games good.
In 1999, Konami brought Blades of Steel back, but only in North America. It would be released in the region as NHL Blades of Steel 99. In Europe, the game would be called NHL Pro 99. Was there an NHL Pro 98? Not as far as I can tell.
This game is compatible with the N64 Controller and Rumble Packs. The Controller Pack is the stupid name that Nintendo gave to their memory card, while the Rumble Pack shakes the controller. At the time, controllers didn’t shake automatically out of the box.
The game featured the 27 NHL teams then and used the rosters from the 1998-99 season. There is also a create-a-player mode, and you can play a single game, season, or playoff tournament. Sports games were moving towards being simulations and away from being arcade experiences.
Based on the reviews at the time, NHL Blades of Steel 99 wasn’t well received. The transition from arcade action to a sports simulation didn’t go well. The biggest issue that reviews had was with the controls. This is never a good sign, and I don’t think it is due to the N64 controller, which has been much maligned in retrospect but was fine back in the 1990s.
The N64 game wasn’t received well, but that wasn’t a big problem for Konami. All they had to do was regroup, learn from their mistakes, and try again. Since we’re talking about Konami, you know that didn’t happen.
In 2000, the final installment of the game was unleashed on the unsuspecting public who weren’t asking for it. While the game has PS1 and GBC versions, an N64 game was planned. That version of the game was canceled, but Game Informer reviewed it in January 2000.
There is less information about this game. It was reviewed quite a few times in 1999 and 2000, but that is about it. I was hoping to find the N64 ROM, but it doesn’t look like it has been dumped. This isn’t a huge loss, but I was curious to see if it existed.
There isn’t much interest in archiving 20 to 30-year-old sports games as far as I can tell, which is fair, but it makes looking up information for these retrospectives a little tricky. Things get even harder when it comes to an obscure and poorly received sports game that wasn’t released.
Looking at reviews for the PS1 game can be hilarious. The reviews in several magazines savaged this game. My favorite came from GameFan, which encouraged the company to give up on sports games, something Konami seemed to take to heart when it came to Blades of Steel.
I had considered splitting the handheld games into their own section, but there wasn’t much point. The reviews of those games match those of their respective console games or are slightly higher. The games were released on the Game Boy and Game Boy Color.
Final Thoughts
This is where our story ends. The first game was a classic on the NES, and the next two games are forgettable. The arcade game was interesting, and it isn’t surprising that it exists. Many of the early NES games were based on arcade games.
When the series made the jump to 3D, it struggled. It is odd that Konami would resurrect Blades of Steel in the way it did. I think it would’ve been better had they gone the route of NHL Hitz.
I have fond memories of the first game, which is one of my favorite NES games. The other two were a mystery to me, as I had no idea they existed. Now that I know about them, I’m left to wonder why they exist and if Konami will be dumb enough to try again.