There’s something to be said for polish. Sure, innovation is great, because it lays the groundwork for everything that comes afterward. But when that innovation leaves vast room for improvement, sometimes that improvement can feel like water in the desert.
The original Tecmo Bowl was a smash and critical success, introducing a fast, arcade-like feel to the game of football. Playing fast and loose with such trivial concerns as physics or the rules of the game, the decision to go this direction was without question a good one, as it upped the fun and general sense of chaos beyond what they might have achieved with strict adherence to those guidelines.
The challenge for the sequel was to improve on the original game’s limitations while also preserving the original’s “feel.” While it wasn’t the lone NES sequel to be charged with such an enormous task, it was absolutely among the most successful at rising up to said challenge.
Tecmo Super Bowl
Genre: Sports
Released: 1991
Platform: NES
IGN’s Top 100 Games: No. 24
The first Tecmo Bowl, released for the NES in 1989, provided fast, frenetic gameplay, wild momentum swings, and an all around good time. This style has come to be known as “arcade style,” as it often levels the playing field for the player and his/her opponent. “Control” of the game is less important than competitiveness (and silliness).
I would argue that a more competitive game makes for more drama late, upping the tension and adrenaline, and it ultimately makes for a better experience. Sure, if you can find an opponent of equal ability in a simulation game, you’ll still achieve late drama and fun. But you’re dependent on that factor … finding an opponent of equal skill. More often than not, you won’t find that person.
The problem with the first game was its lack of, well, a whole hell of a lot. First among the problems was a lack of players on the field. The game of football is a fairly complex game of strategy with eleven participants per side. Tecmo Bowl, for technical purposes, gave each team only nine on-field players, drastically changing the strategy and geometry of the field in the process. The strategy of the game was mostly about guessing correctly — figuring out what the opponent was running and either blitzing them into submission by literally guessing the same play the opponent had chosen, or by reading formation keys to understand pre-snap what play was coming, and prepping one’s defense accordingly. Offensively, the opposite was true — try to select a play you think might work, and then run it was well as you can.
What made this concept tough for an offense was a lack of plays to choose from (merely four). If the defense guessed which of the four you’d picked — and they had a 1 in 4 chance of doing so — you’re getting stuffed into the back of a garbage truck.
Think about the implications here. If roughly one out of every four of your called plays is a trash disaster, well, it becomes difficult to string together enough good plays to score on a long drive. This means you’re reliant on big plays to score — great in concept, and mostly great in practice, but the negative plays still occur at a high frequency … such a high frequency that they grate on the nerves.
Released in December of 1991, Tecmo Super Bowl brought EIGHT plays to the table and had the horsepower to deliver 11 players per squad, changing the dynamics a ton. You could still go for the home run on every play as desired, and indeed that was still your best strategy with a not insignificant chance you’d have those disaster plays still blow up your drive, but you also had the option to slow it down, be conservative, win with defense, and so on. It opened up one’s options, and since the best strategy remained to go big or go home, it didn’t hurt the arcade-like, boom-or-bust atmosphere of the game.
Other additions included a regular season/playoff mode that more resembled an actual season, every NFL team (including the real licensed logos etc.) instead of just a handful of teams, roster management (including player conditioning, substitutions, and injuries), stat tracking, and fun little perks like a proper game ending and a Pro Bowl mode.
In short, Tecmo Super Bowl improved on the original in nearly every way without sacrificing any of the magic.
Of course, you’ll never make everyone happy. Some folks still prefer the original game, either because of nostalgia or a genuine preference for the style of game play, which is just different enough to remain noticeable. But for many people, this sequel gave them the game they always wanted.
To wit, Tecmo Super Bowl endures in popularity today, thanks to a cult following of fans who mod and re-release emulations of the game with updated team and player rosters. There are versions of the game with rosters of teams from two decades ago, rosters for this season, college versions of the game … pretty much anything a fan of the original design could want.
Why? It’s because that design itself is so timelessly fun. As a player, you always had a one in eight chance of losing big, but a seven in eight chance of busting a nice play (or even a huge one). And even for fans of defense, taking control of the right player against the right play could stop that play dead in its tracks. So yes, high-scoring affairs were the norm, but yes, defense could also rule the day. And you didn’t have to understand complicated coverage schemes or remember what your R1 button did as opposed to your triangle button or what have you. Just run the play and try to score.
To have a bit of fun, that’s all you really need.
So what makes it worth playing today?
There’s that big rabbit hole I mentioned of the modding community, and sure, that can be a lot of fun on its own, but I can honestly say that even without those options available to a person, the original version of Tecmo Super Bowl has never once gotten boring for this writer.
The controls and game play are perfectly sublime.
Again, credit the design and programmers of the game for that, but also credit its roster of playable stars. Guys like Bo Jackson (dubbed “Tecmo Bo” by some due to his sheer dominance in this series of games), Barry Sanders, Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, Jim Kelly, Boomer Esiason, Christian Okoye, Lawrence Taylor, Randall Cunningham, and on and on and on are GIANTS of this sport. And maybe this is where I reveal my own nostalgic biases by saying so, but it’s amazingly fun to take control of that specific generation of players because they all seemed so bigger than life.
I played this game relentlessly along with my brother after he acquired it in early 1992. Years would pass, and rosters would change, but this game endured. Many a game was won or lost on a hail mary or other final gun play. We tracked stats and Super Bowl winners by hand. We humbled one another continuously with spectacular physics-defying plays. It was a glorious time.
So yes, nostalgia or a healthy curiosity of a different era will make this experience better, but by any token, even without those things, the game still rocks. There’s a reason people still play this while very few people play the older versions of Madden or other football games. I think among sports titles, Tecmo Super Bowl is probably the best of all time, due to its fun factor, its enduring popularity, but perhaps most importantly, due to its accessibility. Pick it up without any sort of experience or indoctrination (perhaps just a basic understanding of the rules of the game), and you’ll be having a blast with it within 5 minutes.
Anyone can play this. AND they can play it right away. AND what’s better is they’ll have fun doing so.
So give it a go, weave your way down the field with “Tecmo Bo” and you’ll know what it is to feel joy.
Dave’s Score: 10/10
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How to play
- Original hardware (NES)
- That’s it. That’s friggin’ it.