Original Release: Tecmo, Arcade, 1987
Other Releases: NES (1989), Game Boy (1991), Xbox (in Tecmo Classic Arcade – 2005), Wii (2009)
Tecmo’s football series would eventually become legendary, but the first branch was a little more hit-or-miss and experimental.
Tecmo Bowl (Arcade, Tecmo, 1987)
Where to Buy: KLOV, eBay
How to Emulate: Arcade Emulation Page
Review by: C. M0use
The arcade version of Tecmo Bowl was the very first game in the series, but it’s actually still the best-looking out of all of them! Sadly, it has nowhere near the features of the later games nor does it have NFL or NFLPA player licenses, and the gameplay isn’t nearly as refined as even the NES entries either.
It’s also expensive as all hell, even by modern standards! The game shipped with two side-by-side monitors to create a wide-screen view (similar to the slightly later and better-known X-Men six-player brawler from Konami), and apparently they decided to recoup the production and shipping expenses through sheer gouging — one quarter only buys you 30 seconds of playtime per player, and it’ll take six quarters to actually complete a game. If all four players (two per team) are involved, that’s $6 per game!
Of course, the price is irrelevant now, since you’re either playing it on one of the Tecmo Arcade compilation discs, the Wii Virtual Console or MAME. All of which do a capable job emulating the original two-screen setup on just one, some issues with black borders aside. But the gameplay definitely doesn’t hold up. Each game is a battle between Red vs Blue, no other team options … and amusingly each player position at the cabinet has some random name assigned to it like “Larry.” The gameplay is kinda sorta similar to the later games, but it feels like a much more unrefined beta.
For example, there’s no choice of plays whatsoever. You seem to line up in a random formation each play, and prior to the snap you commit to either a receiver or running back ahead of time by cycling through them then stopping on the one you want. Once you snap you can then only hand off or pass to the one you selected — no scrolling through receivers a la later games. The superfast computer will always run you down from behind, and it’s much harder to “tussle” your way out of tackle attempts in this one, though the computer gets to do it about half the time. There’s also no diving for insta-tackles here. Tussling seems to involve waggling the stick in this one too, instead of just mashing the button, which is more irritating.
This one was clearly meant to be a splashy spectacle game, drawing quarters out of the rubes for a year or two before becoming outdated and old news. As such it isn’t really worth revisiting. You don’t even get the usual boppy Tecmo tunes with this one, apparently the Rygar arcade composer did it and it’s in a very similar style — not awful music but kinda strange for a football game.
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Tecmo Bowl (NES, Tecmo, 1989)
Where to Buy: Amazon
How to Emulate: coming soon!
Review by: C. M0use
Here’s the story behind Tecmo Bowl, for the newcomers – not only was it the first really fun football game released, it was the first to have actual NFL players in it. Now, the teams they played for were a different story.
Licensing for sports video games was an entirely new thing at this time and the NFL wasn’t sure yet that they wanted to play along, though the NFL Player’s Association (an entirely separate entity) was apparently fine with it. So, Tecmo’s compromise was to include teams housed in a bunch of cities that just happened to correspond to those of current NFL teams, with strikingly similar jersey and helmet colors to boot but with different names and logos. For example, Miami now appears to be the Mutant Rats, Denver the Anime Schoolgirls, and Chicago the home of the Penguins.
In any event, you only got about half the teams present in the NFL and Seattle was oddly decked out in purple, but Joe Montana was at the helm of San Francisco, Walter Payton was running for Chicago, Lawrence Taylor smashing offensive lines for New York and etcetera. This is no longer true in the Wii VC and later versions but you can pretty easily infer who is supposed to be who from jersey numbers and the fact that they are running circles around everyone and scattering the opposing team’s carcasses all over the landscape.
In any event, there was absolutely no way that Tecmo could possibly make a realistic football game within the confines of the NES hardware. So, wisely, they did not try. They instead made a fun fast-paced arcade experience with peppy music and simple, intuitive gameplay.
The game offers two modes of play – you can play a quick match against the computer or a friend in 2 player mode, or play through a season solo with the aim of winning the Lombar Joker’s Cup. “Season mode” is pretty simple because there are no leagues or win-loss records; you just play each of the other teams one after another, defeat them, and eventually you are in the playoffs. Lose once and you’re out. You get a password at the end of every gamewith which to come back later and continue your progress. There’s also a “Coach” mode if you just want to call plays and watch things unfold.
The standard rules of football are pretty much all present here, though things are limited and simplified, and you’ll see a lot of stuff that doesn’t usually happen too often in reality. For starters, the game is played with nine men on the field. Each team has only two pass plays and two run plays to select from, which cannot be changed – exception of San Francisco and Miami, who have three pass plays and one run up the gut.
Prior to each play, the defense tries to guess which play the offense will call; do it correctly and the entire defense miraculously gains the speed and strength of 10 men, and swarms down over the offensive line like the armies of the devil himself. It’s very easy to rip off long runs and pass plays, especially if you have one of the “marquee” players like Jerry Rice or Walter Payton. Therefore, the games tend to be very high scoring affairs, and the only thing that stops them from getting up into the basketball score range is that the quarters are limited to a quick two minutes each.
Player collisions and tackling are very unrealistic and also very comical; when two players run into each other they will Tussle, and you must tap the A button at a sufficiently quick rate to win this grapple and cast your opponent away like the rubbish that he is. On the defensive side of things you can execute a diving tackle with the B button, which will automatically bring any foe to his knees on contact BUT if you miss, you’re out of commission for a good few seconds as your opponent sprints off down the field. Running backwards is generally a very poor idea in real football, but here players generate such a tremendous head of steam that circling back around your pursuers not only makes for an entertaining diversion but also sometimes an effective evasion strategy. When players are blocked or lose a Tussle they go flying and bouncing across the screen, landing in an embarrassing heap. Kicks and punts are all a simple matter of stopping a sliding power bar – the moving arrow seen in later games had not yet been figured out by Tecmo’s programming staff apparently.
It really is a tremendously broken game, and there is certainly a bit of noticeable jank. Certain teams (like Chicago) are far too good, it’s so ridiculously easy to block field goals and extra points that you may as well not even plan to use them unless playing the computer, and the collision detection isn’t always quite perfect. Compared to the later entries in the series this one has a slightly more slidey and sloppy feel. When you return an interception, the game doesn’t seem quite prepared for it and you must hit the opposite edge of the current screen before it starts scrolling back in the other direction. Characters have stats listed under their names, but the stats never increase during the game, so why are they there?
All those things said, it’s still a very cute and fun little game, though it does get tiring pretty quickly. Will we see a Tecmo Super Bowl on the Wii some day? If we do it’ll probably have to dump the team names, because EA apparently now has exclusive rights. Even if the team names could be used, however, the Player’s Association is another matter – most of these guys are retired and some are deceased, and negotiating individually with individuals and estates and etc. is such a mind-boggling and massively unprofitable enterprise that it can’t ever possibly happen. So Tecmo Bowl on the VC may well be the best we ever get as far as a series revival … but at this point, to keep you from becoming too melancholy, I feel compelled to tell you about the Tecmo Bowl Repository where some small beacons of hope may perhaps be found.
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