Tecmo Bowl holds a special place in my heart. It was one of the first football games I ever played, and something that I enjoyed with my friends when I was a kid. The second game in the series, Tecmo Super Bowl, was one of the few NES games that my family owned.
It was a Christmas gift back in the early 1990s. I want to say that we got the game a year after the NES, but my memory is a little fuzzy on when we received each game. What I do remember is playing this game with my brother.
For those that don’t know, this is an arcade football game that has the licenses for the National Football League (NFL) and the NFL Players’ Association. There are a few exceptions, but most of the players from the 1990 NFL season are in this game. It was a lot of fun to be able to play as my favorite team or my favorite players.
TLDR: The best football game for the NES. It is also one of my favorite games for the system.
Narrative
There is no story mode in this game. It offers a few game modes, one of which can be treated like a story or career mode. That is the season mode. It isn’t as elaborate as you might’ve seen in other games, but it was a huge improvement over the first game in the series.
Gameplay
There were a lot of improvements made to this game. You have more plays, there are more teams, and the developers got the licenses from the NFL and NFLPA.
Tecmo Super Bowl features more game modes. Here is a list of them:
- Preseason – Single Game
- Season – This lets you play a full 16-game season and playoffs.
- Pro Bowl – Another single game where you can play as either the AFC or the NFC’s best players.
- You can also edit the rosters of any team
There are a few players who didn’t give their licenses to the game. These characters appear as “QB Bills” and other names. I believe there are only two or three characters who appear like this. When I did my retrospective on the series, I tried to find out why, but couldn’t come up with an answer.
I have to mention Bo Jackson. His character in the game makes it a little unfair. You can stop him, but it is much harder than the other players in the game. Laurence Taylor for the Giants is very close to Jackson in terms of how dominant he is in the game.
Each team has eight plays in its playbook. You have four pass and four run plays. Just like the previous game in the series, if both teams select the same play, then the offensive line collapses. It is a fun little twist for an arcade game like this.
Overall, I love the gameplay. It isn’t as comedic as the first game, but it is a great experience. As long as you don’t have someone who keeps staring at your controller while you’re playing.
Visuals
Tecmo Super Bowl doesn’t look too different from the previous game on the NES. It is more faithful to the NFL because it has all the teams and most of the players in it. The team logos and colors are all in the game, as well as the team names.
There are little cutscenes in the game. They aren’t as good as you’ll see in other games, but they look wonderful. These are mostly still images or simple animations. The pixel art looks wonderful, and it is very detailed for the NES. You’ll see them during sacks, touchdowns, and the halftime shows. There isn’t a lot of variety, but that isn’t a big problem.
The stadiums look decent. Each stadium is basically the same, but the color schemes are different depending on which teams are playing. You can see the yard markers, so you’ll know how many yards you need, and it is easy to see where the ball is going when you have to pass or kick.
The players look good enough for the NES. The sprites aren’t very detailed, but that isn’t the biggest problem. Sprite flickering is the biggest issue for the graphics. This was a common problem for many NES games, and for a game like this with 22 sprites on the screen, it is something you should expect.
I like the graphics despite the few flaws that it has. Tecmo Super Bowl is a minor upgrade from the first game when it comes to graphics. There are a few things that I don’t like about it, but those are very minor.
Reviews at the Time
9/10. This is one of my favorite NES games. It doesn’t make it on my list of all time favorite games because the sequels are better.
Pros
- Great Controls
- Good Graphics
- Wonderful Gameplay
Cons
- Passing system can be rough
Conclusion
This was one of the more memorable Christmas gifts I got as a kid. I’m sure if I looked through all of my parents’ photo albums, I would find a few pictures of us unwrapping it. As I look back at when this game was released, I must’ve been in the first or second grade. It was the most memorable thing we got back in 1991.
Because I was the younger brother, I got to watch this game played quite a bit. I didn’t like playing with my brother, because he always cheated. There were a few times that he didn’t, or at least I didn’t catch him. When I look back at it now, this is one of the happier memories about playing this game.
Tecmo Super Bowl deserves its place as one of the best games on the NES. It appears on several top 100 lists, and I put it on my list of the top 15. It is one of the best sports games on the NES and has a cult following today. Tecmo Super Bowl still gets updates, which is awesome!
If you liked this post, check out some of my other posts about Tecmo games. Such as Tecmo Bowl or Tecmo’s Secret of the Stars.
If you liked this post, check out some of my other posts about Tecmo games. Such as Tecmo Bowl or Tecmo’s Secret of the Stars.
Peak football gaming for its time!