Tecmo Bowl (NES) Playthrough
166A playthrough of Tecmo's license-based 1989 football game for the NES, Tecmo Bowl.
In this video I play through an entire season as the New York Giants.
Tecmo Bowl was an instant hit when it came out in early 1989, blowing away any previous efforts at recreating the sport on the NES. This home conversion of Tecmo's popular 1987 arcade game is still thought by many as one of the best NES games ever made, and as far as 8-bit console football games go, it was only ever surpassed by its excellent 1991 sequel, Tecmo Super Bowl (https://youtu.be/IyHhFg3wod4).
It was the first NES game to feature an NFLPA license and it stars real players and stats based on the 1988 season. The selection of twelve teams is split evenly between the AFC and NFC, and though they're only referred to by city since the game lacked an NFL license, they're all faithfully represented.
The biggest draws were the fast pace of the arcade-style gameplay and its presentation. The action on the field is gleefully chaotic yet easy to follow, the downtime between plays is kept to a minimum, and the controls are easy to handle. The cutscenes that pop up during key gameplay moments and heavy use of digitized speech clips give it the feel of a TV broadcast. It's all pretty exciting to take in, and it blew people's minds back in 1989.
It's not difficult to see why an entire generation of players still place it on such a high pedestal. Tecmo Bowl was a revolutionary game, and it's just as playable and as fun now as it was thirty-four years ago.
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!