Original Release: Technos, 1992, SNES
A basic and comedic bowling game that was designed for multiplayer.
Super Bowling (SNES, Technos, 1992)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: SNES Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
With Super Bowling Technos surprisingly wades into the bowling arena, and even more surprisingly doesn’t use their Kunio characters in any way. It’s more of a copy of the Neo Geo game League Bowling. As with that game, it’s very heavily focused on multi-player competition, with little to offer the solo player.
There are only two modes of play, with four characters to choose from as your bowlin’ avatar. The game seems to be pure score attack – you can choose from standard bowling with two different rule sets, or a “golf mode” where you have a par to hit different pin groupings.
It could have just been my unique SNES bowling technique, but I played enough of this to feel that the game is rigged to almost always leave just one pin standing somewhere no matter how well you toss the ball. The controls are less precise and a bit more confusing than other bowling games, making it pretty difficult to accurately hone in on just one particular pin.
I surmise that whole structure was an intentional design; it’s the same sort of thing a lot of multi-player hot seat party games do, where the controls are intentionally a little slippery and hard to manage and there’s a lot of random luck tossed in the mix to keep everyone going wild. Unfortunately, when that’s all that is on offer, it renders the game pretty much useless for a single player. So this might be worth looking at if you’re planning on playing with someone else all the time, but if you’re looking for a bowling sim you can dive into on your own this is definitely not the right title.
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