Tecmo Super Bowl (SNES)

[Herschie]

The NES was blessed with two Tecmo football games, but the SNES was treated to 3. This is the first of them. Tecmo Super Bowl ruled the NES, and beat Madden in the 16-bit era. Madden might have been king of the PS1 and PS2 eras, and been the only player in the game thereafter, but Tecmo won the 16-bit era hands down. The games are just more fun.

I remember many years ago being at my friend's house playing this being very disappointed that my options for the Patrtiots' quarterback were Scott Zolak or Scott Secules. Nowhere to be found was Drew Bledsoe. Bummer! Although it was hard to get much worse than my previous options between a Steve Grogan in the twilight of his career or Marc Wilson. Other than that, the rosters seem fairly accurate for 1993.

The gameplay is almost a carbon-copy of the NES version, though you do have a goal-line run play that you can call, which, if successful, nets you three yards. I like how you can add in rain and snow, though I haven't played enough to see if they had the presence of mind to disable snow games in Miami or Tampa Bay during season mode.

The only thing that bites is that the only friend I have who still plays this is light years better than I am.


New Bears' coach Dave Wannstedt told Harbs during the offseason that he WILL bulk up!


The snowy Astroturf at Riverfront Stadium where Cincinnati fans saw the Big Dead Machine finish 5th at 73-89 that summer, and now the Bungles turning in a miserable 3-13 season:

[Teddybear]

I have the Genesis counterparts (Tecmo Super Bowl, Special Edition and Final Edition) and simply put....these games will never become boring or stale. Vintage rosters from the golden era of the NFL (early '90's), easy to play and for those of us who are statistic nuts a very cool league leaders board. The injury feature does make you pay attention to your player's health condition. I also love how in the Special and Final Editions the CPU selects a league MVP.

And I love how a game takes 15-20 minutes to complete.

Every couple of years I try to play complete seasons of all three games. It is the only way my Detroit Lions ever win a Super Bowl.

[Herschie]

I have the Genesis counterparts

You know it's weird, I never cared much for the Genesis version, I always liked playing Tecmo Super Bowl on the SNES. However with Madden, I always preferred that on the Genesis for some reason. I just happen to be playing Madden '94 at the moment on the Sega console. Still no dang Drew Bledsoe!

[C64_Critic]

New Bears' coach Dave Wannstedt told Harbs during the offseason that he WILL bulk up!

Wow 'Harbs was seriously JUICING back in the day!

[Retro STrife]

Now we're talking. Tecmo Super Bowl for the NES might just be my favorite game of all-time, so I'm a big fan of the series. I've spent a lot of time with it since first getting it in the early 90s. Today the TSB fanbase is still going strong with tournaments around the country, online leagues, and yearly roster updates... pretty amazing for a 25+ year old sports game. Despite all their attempts to improve the series since then, the NES version is still best and the most recent attempts are miserable. The first TSB game on the Genesis/SNES is the second best alternative though. I definitely prefer it over TSB II and III on the Genesis/SNES.

I haven't ever played much of the 16-bit TSB games, except to try them out for a couple games. But that all changed this past weekend, as there was a free tournament for the Genesis version of TSB at a gaming convention that I attended. I knew nothing about the Genesis rosters, so I had to learn from scratch and play a few practice games. It seems like the Bills, Cowboys, and 49ers have the best teams and were the most popular to use. Despite being a Cowboys fan, I went with the 49ers, who seemed to have the best overall team. Steve Young can run and pass, Rickey Waters has decent speed at RB, and Jerry Rice is the best WR in the game, while Romanoski and McDonald are both solid options on defense. Fortunately, most of the techniques from the NES version carryover perfectly to the Genesis.

The worst part of TSB is the terrible AI (especially with passing and pass coverage), which forces you to play as the worst team in the league if you want to have a competitive season against the CPU. That's why it's nice to play tournaments against real people. I ended up winning at the convention, but unfortunately only 6 people signed up, so it wasn't much of an accomplishment. But I do have a newfound appreciation for the Genesis version after playing it a lot this past week.

[Gentlegamer]

For anyone who doesn't know: get roster updates by year from tecmobowl.org