Sports were very popular in the 80s, and still are to this day. Back then though, many "simulation" sports games had arcade-like qualities to them and played like you were Gerome Bettis running through a schoolyard. Either way, many arcade retro sports games were fun to play and offered excitement to the gamer. That's where a company called Tecmo came in to play. Tecmo was a smaller company that mainly developed sports games for almost every sport out there. They pretty much had a game for each sport, but it seemed like most of them sucked except for their football ones. One of their greatest games ever, Tecmo Super Bowl was a huge hit. However, the game behind the entire creation was Tecmo Bowl. The problem with Tecmo is that they never really had licenses for official players of each teams. So rather than having the real Washington Redskins, you'd have a team called Washington and they'd have red and white colors.

Either way, Tecmo Bowl was the perfect football game for us retro NES gamers. To start off, the graphics for Tecmo Bowl are somewhat primitive, however match the realistic size they would be from a blimp. There's nothing that will blow you away, but the graphics are much better than your typical Atari game. For the most part, there are different animations and angles of your players so you'll be satisfied to the extent in playing the game. Also, between scoring points, there are various cutscenes of two players slapping hands and even a newspaper showing you win. For the most part, you'll notice an occasional flashing of a player, but the graphics were composed very nicely for an underrated football game.

So the graphics are decent, and so is the music. While I'm not to impressed by the repeating theme song and constant "du-du-du" song, it doesn't annoy you in the head and make you hear little gremlins running around. For the most part, Tecmo did an excellent job in creating the music since it really has a nice, serene tone to it. Plus, you'll hear an occasional introduction song, and sound effects. The sound effects aren't that great, but they were distinguished to an extent so you could tell the difference between them. There's not much to say about the sound anyway, since you'll be more concentrated on the screen.

I'm going to be honest, Tecmo Bowl is the most fun for a football game I've ever had in quite some time. For how primitive the game is, you'd think it'd be a bore, but it isn't! I seriously could sit down and play it all day. To start off, you only have a selection of four different plays. Usually, there are two running and two passing plays. However, depending on your team, you may have three passing and a running play. For example, San Francisco has three passing plays since they were dominated by the ultra-disco Steve Young era. After the offense selects a play, the defense must select a defensive play based off of the offensive team's playbook. So if your defense matched the offense's play, there's a 75% chance that they're going to have a loss in yardage. Enough for the strategy, you also can punt or kick a field goal by pressing A+B. So you get the idea, the game is basic in the playbook, but fun on the field. As a QB, you can change your passing targets by pressing A, and pass the ball by pressing B. On defense, you can dive for a player by pressing B, and speed up by holding the control pad in one direction. Overall, Tecmo Bowl has excellent controls and will make you feel like Ricky Williams plowing down the defensive line. You also have the options to play a 1-player season, a 2-player head-to-head game, and a coach where you pick the plays and the computers go at it.

Tecmo Bowl is an extremely appealing game. Right before writing this review, I played as Washington and beat the pink-colored Seattle team. This game is highly addictive since it draws you into passing deep, and taking the risk of an interception. If anything, this is the perfect game for the sports loving gamer.

So if you're looking for a highly addictive, fun, and exciting football game that rocks the NES, I'd recommend Tecmo Bowl. Aside from the lack of detail, Tecmo Bowl is the underrated original of Tecmo Super Bowl, and you can get it much cheaper too.

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