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1993 · SNES · Super Famicom
| Region | Date | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| North America | Nov 1993 | Tecmo |
| Japan | 26 Nov 1993 | Tecmo |
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It is the NES game's fast, simple football, made bigger, with the 1993 rosters. The 16-bit version keeps the heart and fills in around it.
The list of additions is long. Better graphics and sound. Official NFL team logos in the end zones. You can take a touchback yourself, or control a player to try to block a punt. Change plays in a team's playbook during a game. A running back dive play. A dedicated return team with defensive backs on it. Statistical milestones during games. And three kinds of weather, sun, rain and snow, which can turn up at random in Season mode.
Exhibition and Pro Bowl games can use shorter fifteen- or ten-minute quarters, and the game can play three seasons in a row, 1991 to 1993.
Tecmo's NES Tecmo Super Bowl of 1991 was the first video game licensed by both the NFL and the players' association, so it could use real teams and real players together. It was a major success. In 1993 Tecmo released 16-bit versions on Super NES and Genesis with that season's rosters, fixing many of the NES game's bugs. The Super Famicom version came out in Japan on 26 November 1993.
Tecmo Super Bowl II: Special Edition and Tecmo Super Bowl III: Final Edition followed on the same consoles, then a PlayStation game in 1996, the last in the series with both licences. After Electronic Arts took the exclusive NFL and players' licences in 2004 for Madden NFL, later Tecmo Bowl games had to use generic teams.
It plays like a cleaner, fuller version of the NES game: quick, readable, and more about guessing your opponent's play than managing a roster. Rain and snow in Season mode add a little luck to the long haul.
The NES original is the one with the cult and the tournaments. Pick this one if you want the same game with fewer rough edges and more to do between kickoffs.
Tecmo Super Bowl is a game people play together, across a couch or in a tournament hall. Durkheim called the charged energy of people gathered in one shared activity collective effervescence, and said it binds them. A game day with friends is that, in its small way: a ritual with its own rules, its own heroes and its own groans.
The 16-bit version added weather and seasons to the ritual. The point stayed the same: two people, one ball, and a reason to come back next week.
You have been training these without noticing. Here is how to do it on purpose, and where it pays off away from the couch. All the skills games teach →
In the game. You can change plays in a team's playbook during a game, and run three seasons back to back, 1991 to 1993.
Do it on purpose. Before a season, set your playbook on purpose for your team's strengths. Halfway through, check what's working and swap one play.
Off the couch. A plan you check halfway beats one you never look at again. Budgets, training blocks and uni semesters run on the same rule.
In the game. Rain and snow can turn up at random in Season mode and add a bit of luck to the long haul. You can't control the weather, only how much you bet.
Do it on purpose. When the weather turns, play one quarter safe and the next one bold. Note which got you more points.
Off the couch. Life throws weather at you: a job falls through, the rent goes up. Sizing your bets so one bad week can't sink you is the whole of sensible money.
In the game. There's a dedicated return team with defensive backs on it, and you can take control of a player to try to block a punt. Football is eleven jobs, and you do one at a time.
Do it on purpose. For one game, try to block every punt. Watch where your blockers go and what gap they open for you.
Off the couch. On a footy team or a work project, the person doing one small job well, every time, is the one everyone wants back. Nobody remembers the one who tried to do everything.
Verdict · 7/10
The NES classic with its bugs fixed and its sleeves rolled up. Not as legendary, but just as quick to love.
