When I first got Tecmo Super Bowl for the NES I just couldn't believe how good it was. We had full season tournaments in my dorm room where everyone was assigned a team and we played out one season per semester. The game was a quantum leap forward in sports gaming at the time.
Man a FULL SEASON TOURNAMENT.... I'm so jealous right now, HAHA! But yes a QUANTUM LEAP is a great choice of words. Especially for those youngsters who don't know what we had before the Tecmo Bowl series.
Tecmo Super Bowl really stood head and shoulders above most other sports games on the NES; it was a spectacular game. It really wasn't until the 16 bit era, particularly on the Sega Genesis, that sports video games entered a golden era.
Tecmo super bowl III is one of my all time favorite games and I still play it all the time. Rebuilding a team through free agency and trading keeps it fresh and exciting
Yeah it probably has the most replayability of all the Tecmo Bowl Games. It's a shame that most people only remember the originals. TSB III holds up really well today, and I think it was under appreciated at the time that it came out.
@@broncosbreaks ROFL... paper route money... that takes me back. I never had a paper route, but I mowed lawns to get my games and spare change. The 80's and 90's were a great time to be a kid!
For sure, it gave any team a chance to dominate. You could simulate 5 or 6 seasons with one team and, through free agency, end up with a pro bowl squad. To top it off, you could win the SB with the same team 3 years in a row and unlock some all-time greats in free agency. Imagine Joe Montana, Barry Sanders, Jim Brown, Jerry Rice, Lawrence Taylor, Reggie White, Bruce Smith and Rod Woodson on the same team!
@@TheBrett04 yup! Unlocking the all time greats was a blast. Utilizing free agency and creating players made the game unique in a way madden never matched. On the downside, if you were good, you could win with any team, any time, at any place
Tecmo Super Bowl may be the greatest NES game of all time. Definitely the best football game on NES. Tecmo Baseball was also really good, but doesn't really get much love. I remember when we'd love playing Tecmo Bowl, and then, when Super came out, it was SOOOO much more amazing.
Yes, the Original Tecmo Bowl was already some fire, and then TSB was just bonkers. As far as Tecmo Baseball, I did a video a while back in regards to Top 10 Arcade Style Baseball Games (console versions). And Tecmo Baseball did not make the like, but it was pretty close. Definitely an underrated game.
Wish I could get as hyped about something as a boomer like I did the first time I played Tecmo Super Bowl. Seeing my Tampa Bay Bucs with actual logo, colors and players blew my mind. 12 years old and sneaking up late to pick off passes with Wayne Haddix and sling touchdowns with Vinny Testaverde. Nostalgic bliss.
Boomer was a great player!! One of my favorites. We're you not a fan? It's cool if you weren't but I'd love to hear why. Please let me know when you get The chance. Thanks
14:00...the Marcus Allen ad shot was just a preview. They always intended on using an actor and having them wear the uniform of whoever ultimately won the Super Bowl just like the NES version, which of course, turned out to be Dallas.
TecmoBowl was some of the best football you could play on console...I remember being hyped when ur RB or QB finally came back from injury during a season!!! And the editor in 3 was awesome... creating myself as a rb and dragging everyone on the field was awesome 😎
Well I've been surprised to find out since making this video that the SNES games had a cult following. That's pretty cool to know because mostly you only hear from the fanbase of the NES version.
3:10...you're exactly right. They hadn't finalized the NFLPA license agreement. And if you look in the screenshot of the game, the workaround had been to use the real players first names (i.e. 16-Joe for Montana on San Francisco) as opposed to their last name. So on scores, it would literally just be the first name. The delay was because a few players, most notably Eric Dickerson, were upset at their lack of compensation for their likeness being used. That's why the initial Tecmo Bowl games with him included were initially semi-rare. He was replaced by Albert Bentley in the game as a result, and didn't appear in Tecmo Super Bowl despite still being on the Indianapolis Colts at the time. It is interesting that he wasn't made to be RB Colts like Jim Kelly, Bernie Kosar, and Randall Cunningham, who famously became QB Bills, Browns, and Eagles when they opted out of the NFLPA agreement.
Man that is some interesting trivia there. Dickerson was someone who did buck the trend, so I guess it's not too surprising. It is funny that they didn't do like you said and us RB Colts to replace him though. These are the tid bits that are hard to track down now. Appreciate the sharing of knowledge!
@@aceassn716 He is, and I owned "Tecmo Super Bowl II: Special Edition", and I think he's in that game, or at least as 1992 "RB Raiders" or 1993 "RB Falcons", I'm no longer sure. My first copy of "Tecmo Bowl" had no Eric Dickerson, but my 2nd copy (out of a bin from Funcoland) did. In the 1980's, I knew a kid named Jesse who had the game with Dickerson.
Thanks for making this video its been long overdue!! The fact theres still Tecmo Bowl tourneys going on speaks volumes to this games longevity Personally I’ve always loved Tecmo III the most, it has the best gameplay, create a player and free agency, once we win a few Superbowls Legendary players were available as free agents. Loved how power backs dragged tacklers and could break free (Ironhead Heyward anyone) Barry Sanders with his spins, jukes, hurdles.. a pain to catch let alone tackle to say the least, even on plays we picked that would be an all out blitz!! TSB on Genesis&Snes to me Segas was better it felt much more challenging, snes was too easy Yes im fully aware of how tough the AI gets in postseason haha Thats when we have to be at our best! How many have also cringed when we didnt pick the Wr reverse play, knowing it was huge gain or TD everytime?!?
It was my pleasure... just happy that everyone enjoyed it. TSB III is way underrated. I've found out since making this video that it has a hard core following, which is awesome to know. It was under appreciated for it's time, but holds up great today.
One interesting feature i didn't see discussed about the DS game was the fact you could use the stylus to throw to a receiver instead of cycling through. This feature was almost game-breaking.
Oh man... I do apologize. Being that I don't frequent the DS in general. When I do I don't use the stylus. I'm definitely a novice in regards to that console. I do appreciate you sharing as that sounds like an awesome feature!
If i remeber correctly if typed in old players name they would come up with stats . Same with tecmo basketball the NBA 50 greatest players are on there.
I still play my copy of Tecmo Super Bowl on the NES, that was given to me by my uncle. I recently got into emulation and started playing the other versions from the SNES. Thanks for such an amazing video I really appreciated the time and love you poured into the video.
The PS1 game was right up there with Baseball Stars 2 as one of the biggest disappointments that I ever purchased at full price upon release!! Like you said, they killed the series with that release.
I never bought PS1 Tecmo Super Bowl, mainly because the ratings for that game were terrible (and I didn't own a PS1 until spring 1999). I can relate though - your statement reminded me of PGA Tour '96 for the Genesis. What a disappointment that game was after playing the excellent PGA Tour II and PGA European Tour.
@@chipmillard5043 well I didn't care about what others thought I just wanted to give games a fair shake and give my own opinions and it isn't the greatest game but its playable.
I love Tecmo Super Bowl. As a kid, I didn’t know it was the second game. I went to a friends house to stay the night once, and he had Tecmo Bowl. Felt like a step back, haha.
The Tecmo series was awesome. I remember getting the Tecmo Super Bowl 🏈 and being so stoked about season long stats, player injuries, and other cool little extras. When Tecmo released Tecmo Super NBA 🏀Basketball🏀 I bought it instantly and I wasn't disappointed at all! I remember wishing, hoping that Tecmo would do a MLB Baseball game. Tecmo was ahead of the curve on these games! And I loved them all!
There are no exact words to say how much I loved Tecmo Super Bowl when it came out.......full seasons, real teams, real players, full playoffs, stats for days, playbooks......it was like we'd died and gone to football heaven. I remember summers where I'd just set the game to simulate all 17 weeks, come back to my room 30 min later and pick team to run the playoffs with.....good times
Tecmo Super Bowl on the NES has the record for how many times I rented a game. I should've bought it, for how much I spent on rentals for it. I managed to buy Tecmo Super Bowl II - SE and I made the mistake of selling it after college. I didn't realize how rare or limited it was.
I remember reading shortly after it was released that Sega Genesis version of Tecmo Super Bowl also only had 15,000 copies made. I had (and still have, though I haven't played them for many years) NES Tecmo Bowl, NES Tecmo Super Bowl, and the Sega Genesis Tecmo Super Bowl II. (I was very lucky to get TSB II; I remember seeing two copies at a local KayBee Toys in I think summer 1995, and my brother and I bought those last two copies. I think that was the only time I saw them new in the store. I was also fortunate to get NES TSB a few months before most people; my mother saw it at a local department store about 2-3 days after Christmas in December 1991 when I was working during my college semester break and picked it up for me. Most people weren't able to buy copies of the game until spring 1992.) My younger brothers had the Sega Genesis Tecmo Super Bowl and Sega Genesis Tecmo Super Bowl III, so I played those games a little bit too. I personally liked TSB II better than TSB III because the latter played a little too slippery and didn't have as good of control as TSB II. Both TSB II and TSB III did play significantly slower than NES TSB, but TSB II was still a lot of fun. I also preferred the NES Tecmo Super Bowl over the original Sega Genesis Tecmo Super Bowl; I felt the NES version played a little better. IMO, and I think most people's opinions, Tecmo Bowl was definitely the best football game on the NES before Tecmo Super Bowl was released. (Of course, Tecmo Super Bowl quickly blew Tecmo Bowl out of the water after it was released; it was a dramatically better game.) Most other football games on the NES, like NFL Football by LJN, John Elway's Quarterback, and the early 10 Yard Fight, were trash. The only other reasonably good NES football game besides the two Tecmo games IMO was NES Play Action Football, which wasn't as good or fun as Tecmo Bowl but was a solid, worthwhile game.
This was a really great video! I didn't grow up with the series, and only seriously starting getting into sports games in the late 90s when my favorite NY teams (Mets, Giants, Knicks, Rangers) were either still good or were starting to get good. Within the last year I began to feel a desire to get back into sports games, so I starting picking up titles that I missed the first time around. Seeing a number of Tecmo Super Bowl videos on RU-vid convinced me to give that series a shot, and I'm so glad that I did. It almost makes me wish I could go back in time and somehow convince my younger self to get these games, because I would've had the time of my life with them. Besides that, I have to say again that this is a great video, and the attention that you put into it would've gotten me hooked on Tecmo even if I had never tried the games before.
Thank you very much. Yeah this was a passion video as you could probably tell. This game meant so much to me as a child that I really can't put it into words. As a NY fan going back and playing as LT has got to be fun as heck though I'd imagine.
Thanks for doing this. I really enjoyed it. I'm a fellow 49ers fan, and it was definitely an awesome time in the 90's when they were so good in addition to playing this game.
The Tecmo Bowl series rocks and really need to be brought back with the full NFL licenses, some thing E.A. needs to share and also the 2 point conversions came into play back in 94, i remember when they added them.
@@originalconsolegamer8572 Yes it would, it would give the Madden series some healthy competition, some thing that hasn't happened since NFL Gameday was still around.
@@Grandtheftauto1998 Nfl 2k was also in the mix, it wouldve been interesting to see what each series couldve added going forward.. All Pro 2k8 is still the best playing football game even without Not Fair League license
would always take the kick off and punts and down them on the 1 yard line. this way we could do 99 yard passes and runs. and i have every one of those nintendo powers too.
HAHA... same!!! I want EVERY yard possible. You have to sacrifice leading the league in Kick Return average to maximize your total yards from scrimmage.
Before we were gaming to Goldeneye, we were all addicted to Tecmo Bowl. I still have all my copies of the games and even the NES Classic. Even my daughter enjoys playing them!
Terrific video! We all know the original TSB is legendary ( and should be higher on lists), but I have a tremendous amount of love for III as well. Between the CAP you can improve by playing well, and the historic players you can unlock and sign in FA, I've logged many hours playing it. Subbed and will check out more of your vids from the past. ✌
Thank you, yeah those 16-Bit versions are underrated in my opinion. I wish they would have continued to improve on the arcade style gameplay instead of try to go more simulation on the PS1.
It warms my heart endlessly that this video (and the comments below it) consistently and correctly call the game "Tecmo Super Bowl" and not "Super Tecmo Bowl". Thank you and nice work 👍
HAHA... don't forget the 4 receptions for 127 yards. Just another day at the office for Barry. Lions were always my #2 team, so I played much more as Barry than as Bo.
I remember my uncle's family coming down to our house during the Christmas holidays and my cousin had Tecmo Super Bowl. He played it all the time as a member of the Giants. It was the 1990 roster but had the 1991 season. Either way, it blew my mind seeing the real players and how competitive the game was. All I knew was my brother and I begged my parents for one and we got it a few months later. We played it religiously . I know Madden gets all the attention, but THIS is where kids got their first exposure to playing football games.
I played most of the Tecmo Nintendo and some of the Sega versions as I got older games and spent many years of my life playing these games. Thank you to my parents and uncles. One of the greatest sports franchises of all time.
I cannot find Tecmo Super Bowl 2 on The Sega Genesis anywhere. I remember having it as a kid. I just want it because it has Joe Montana on The Chiefs lol.
It does come up on eBay pretty often if you are patient. I found a good deal on a cart and manual, but then it took me about another 6 months to find someone selling a case and cart that wasn't $100+. In the process I did end up with an extra loose cart. If you don't see a listing on eBay in the next week or 2, then post back here and I will either post mine on ebay as a Buy it Now or you can just straight PayPal me and I'll ship it to you. Whatever you prefer, but a loose cart should go between $20-$25 shipped. But I'm a Niners fan and my best friend is a Chiefs fan, so I can get where you are coming from.
Great comprehensive look at the series. I played TB and TSB religiously on NES (and enjoyed TSB on SNES and Genesis). However I do not have fond memories of TSB II and TSB III, but your coverage has made me want to go back and give them another look. (I do remember buying the PlayStation 1 version and hated it as well. 😂) Thanks for the trip down memory lane with your well-made video. Terrific job!
Each NES console release had tremendous replay value, but TSB and TSB 3 were off the charts. They did a great job making quality upgrades with each release.
It’s not fair how fast our childhood went by. The 80’s and 90’s were truly magical times and I wish I’d have known then that it was going to be my peak time of happiness because I would have tried to take in the moments more. I am blessed to have babies of my own now and I love them unconditionally, but I would be a liar if I told you I don’t often think back to being a kid with a longing nostalgia.
I thought I knew everything about Tecmo Bowl. Thanks for the education. Never knew about the Gameboy, Part 2! That Blew my mind and The DS version. Never saw the Arcade cabinet growing up or just didn't notice it. Thanks again
TSB and Baseball Stars were the two sports games I sunk the most time into. Even today whenever I visit my brother we will play through a season of TSB using the same team and passing the controller back and forth between games.
I still remember playing Tecmo Super Bowl at my grandma's house. She lived near the eagles stadium only few blocks away and when it was nice out with the windows open I could hear the crowd when something good happened.
My buddy had it at college-it was awesome. Then we tried the ps1 version and it was just depressing...the first super tecmo was just so perfect. I’d play that over any Madden of that generation
Great video, glad I found this. I'm also glad you covered the ill-fated Wii reboot that never was. I worked on that game. I was the original designer, when we were all still in the primary office in Missouri, and then later I worked remotely as an animator for the Austin studio that developed it (I was still in the Missouri office). I was so excited because I was a big sports video game fan, really the only one at my studio, and I really loved the old Tecmo Bowl franchise. I was thrilled when I got a first glimpse of our first playable build. It was rough, but it was fun. With more polish I thought it could be a really awesome game. However, when the next build came out that we were going to show to the publishers, while it was improved graphically with new models and animations, the game play had fallen behind and it was extremely laggy. It's what happened in most of our projects at that studio---we pushed to get more features in at the expense of gameplay because the publishers generally wanted it. Well, Tecmo was way more savvy than the other publishers we'd worked with, and I'm guessing they saw that new version and saw the decline in quality, and wanted out. I don't know the whole story, but something happened between the leadership of our studio and the Tecmo brass, and shortly after that they cut the schedule down, tried to salvage some of the work we put in, and rebranded it as Family Fun Football. None of my animations made it in the game, and hardly any of my design was used. The game was a flop, and my big moment as a game developer -- working on an iconic franchise -- was once again dashed. Incidentally, it was a cautionary tale against remote work, or at least remote work done poorly. Had I been there and seen more of the daily development, I could have sounded the alarm. Not that it would have made much difference.
I just started playing this series again after 25 years. Wow I'm old. But I haven't enjoyed a Madden since Madden 12 and I loved NFL 2K5. After watching this I was moved to hook up the old Genesis. Works like a charm. More fun than I've had in years. I enjoy NBA live 95 as well.
My favorite football game of all time is 2k5 but up until it came out it was Tecmo Superbowl 3 I would create a whole team and see how far I could take them.
My cousin had Super Bowl on Super Nintendo. Had no idea it was a port. We’d play for hours and I would even watch him play a full season. Didn’t have that much fun again until NFL Blitz on Dreamcast.
T3 final edition on the snes is one of the greatest football games ever made. Me and my friends played countless seasons. There was some kind of glitch we found for a punt returner. It was a player from the Steelers (not woodson) that was fast as lightning and he had bum stats. The 3 trade opportunities you got every season. Also, we would sim the first 3 seasons and made sure one team would win 3 straight Super Bowls to unlock the all time greats. Fun times........
My friend had purchased other Tecmo games, and one of them came with a poster for upcoming games in development. At the time, Tecmo Bowl was called Gridiron Fight.
As a kid we were at the store and they had both Tecmo Bowl and John Elway's Quarterback. For 10 year old me, the choice was easy. I hadn't played either one, but the grittier-looking face on the Tecmo Bowl cover looked way more appealing than the smiling John Elway...Goes to show how much cover art can sell a game!
Man I remember it like yesterday. I would rent Tecmo Super Bowl for the nes and my friends would have a sleep over and play an entire season. Good memories.
The one I spent the most time on was the DS version. I edited all the teams and players and uniforms to match the years I played. I remember liking the second NES release until I realized no matter what you did you top player would always get injured at some point. I would reset the game when that happened and made it through 1 season as the Lions with Barry Sanders at 16-0. I never played it on the PSX or the Digital version. I would love a Tecmo compilation on the Switch as that system seems to have the most releases of retro games to date in physical form. Great video glad it was suggested.
Burned through 2 Nintendo’s and 2 cartridges ...smashed one of each from the frustrations of losing to the cpu lol. I played Bowl and Super Bowl until my thumbs were blistered. And yes I had it for Gameboy too! Wow. The opening screen for TSB. Memories. Thanks pop , RIP💯💙
@@originalconsolegamer8572 LMAO! Pops told me the same thing lol...I was 8 when I got TSB...once Tecmo lost licensing rights to the players, it kind of messed things up. I have the original TB on Wii U but players’ names are edited out. (Doesn’t matter I know them all anyway lol) I also bought TB for PS3 back in 2010...it was a decent throwback but, again, without the actual players, it takes the fun out of it. On a Sidenote, yeah, once madden hit its stride (first one I played was Madden 92) it was pretty much a wrap from there. Game day 96 was a dope game for PS as well. I also loved Montana sports talk 94...I still have a genesis so I still rock out to it...damn, I’m becoming a gamer again now that I think about it lol. Thanks for the video, cool blast from the past.
@@NeoNittyNo problem.. thanks for coming to hang out! I'm working a complete series review of the Joe Montana Sports Talks Football games. Hoping to have it out in the month of April.
Tecmo Super Bowl 2 SE, I remember sitting there for I bet an hour or so trying to get Emmit Smith on the 49ers. I finally did it, that season was just fun!
Tecmo Super Bowl 3: Final Edition for Super NES is my favorite of this series, with Tecmo Super Bowl for NES being a close second. I played and loved both of them so much. Also, I didn't mind that TSB3 didn’t have music during games; the quiet ambience was nice and moody especially during snow and rain games. It made the game feel serious, which was good. It did have iconic music at the intro when you first boot up the game and the menu screen music was also very good.
Also Tecmo II was the first game where you couldn't take a down lineman and dive through the line right when the ball was hiked and sack the QB. Tecmo Super Bowl III had a tap feature that would allow you to toss deep bombs high and slow. This was a feature most hardcore players hated as some where in the habit of tapping the button for a fast pass, not intending a long slow pass.
I used to keep my own stats for this game in Tecmo 1. Every team had a run or route that was unstoppable even if the defense picked your play if you threw the ball when the receiver was at the right point in his route, or if you jiggled the running control just as the defense approached, you could wiggle through them and they would run past you. One of my favorites with Payton. Tecmo 2 kept stats. 180 Sacks a year for the NT or the sacks would start counting up after 200. We never banned the nose tackle, there were a handful of plays which made the NT move a liability. We ran shotgun formations or sweeps to negate the move. I've also seen videos showing the OLB on the bottom almost never gets blocked by the computer, so he's basically a free runner to the ball. My favorite thing to do was put a fast WR at RB if the RB was too slow. Ricky Sanders was a 2000 yd rusher for Washington lol.
One feature of Tecmo Super Bowl that is not mentioned enough is that each game only took about 15 minutes to play. When me and two other friends would play an entire season in a single day, you never had to wait too long before it was your turn to play.
Thanks for making this outstanding in depth review video!!! NES Tecmo Super Bowl was all I played when I got it for Christmas in 1992. I played this after school, stayed up late Friday nights trying different teams to play against the game, so I knew who would be the best to play against my friends. I grew up in Dallas, so my friends wanted to be the Cowboys all the time, because they were winning games and went on to win the Super Bowl that season '92 and '93. But they could never beat me, because the top teams in my opinion were the 49ers because Montana was money all the time with Rice, Taylor or Jones. The Lions because Barry Sanders was unstoppable. The Bears because Neal Anderson and Brad Muster just bulldozed over tacklers and their defense was great, but Harbaugh was horrible. The Raiders because Allen and Bo Jackson were the best RB tandem and Greg Townsend and Howie Long were the best DE tandem. And the Dolphins because Marino was accurate, Offerdahl and Louis Oliver were tackling machines. No to brag but no kid on my neighborhood block could beat me.