Review: Tecmo Bowl Kickoff (DS)

Reviews, Sports — By Jeffrey L. Wilson on May 15, 2009 at 11:38 am

I’ll be frank: If your beady lil’ eyes are focused on reading these here words, you shouldn’t thank me, or your ISP of choice, for the opportunity to digest these words of wisdom – - you should thank Tecmo.

Yes, Tecmo. The company that nowadays is most famous for the Xbox Ninja Gaiden games and bringing “bounce physics” to a generation of hornball gamers via the Dead or Alive series. Between bringing the slicin’ and dicin’ and the wiggle and jiggle, Tecmo released a digital love letter to fans of its classic Tecmo Super Bowl series in the form of Tecmo Bowl Kickoff , an updated take on the classic pigskin franchise. And it is pretty good.

We 2D sports gaming nerds (yup all 14 of us) who still play the living crap of Tecmo Super Bowl eagerly awaited the day when this new series entry would arrive and breathe new life into a franchise that lay dormant for a decade. But as the reviews rolled in, there seemed to be a definitive lack of understanding of what Tecmo Bowl Kickoff is about – - and 2D gaming in general.

Some reviewers harped on the “tiny” and “outdated” graphics; others ragged on the “lack of features found in current generation gridiron games”; still more dismissed the “ancient” gameplay. Bullocks on these naysayers say I, and why I decided to launch 2D-X (peep the manifesto).

Tecmo Bowl Kickoff sure ain’t perfect, but it’s a fine old school-style football game that will make long-time Tecmo fans feel as though they were 15 again and dropping back 50 yards to release a bomb to an open receiver.

If you’re one of the many Gen Xers who feel in love with 8- and 16-bit sports titles during the late ’80s and early ’90s, and still fire them up occasionally, Tecmo Bowl Kickoff is made for you. It’s not for your younger brother, it’s not for hi-res, 3D graphics whores, it’s for you.

The visuals are straight up 16-bit; small sprites kamikaze smash their way into one another, while colorful, nicely-detailed cut scenes are interspersed to out you up close and personal to the action (or highlights an in-game achievement).  The endzones are blander than a Ritz (no logos, no team names) and the half time shows are only about 2 seconds long, but it’s no big whoop.

Gameplay-wise this is classic Tecmo. In fact, I bet if you took a microscope to the cartridge, you could zoom in close to see some of the original code that powered Tecmo Super Bowl to legendary status back in the day. On offense, there are still four run and pass plays in each team’s playbook. Defense works the same as it did in the original titles; if you correctly guess your opponent’s play, your squad executes the infamous “Tecmo Blitz” that’s damn near impossible to avoid unless you’ve created a QB Eagles-type character courtesy of the full-editable rosters.

The running game is strong, the passing game is tight, and feels oh, so right. The only downside is that some of the same oddities that lived in the original Tecmo Super Bowl games live on here (such as the familiar out of bounds glitch), but die hard fans are used to these quirks. And in some cases, may welcome them. Nostalgia is a helluva drug.

New to the franchise are Super Abilities that give players superstar features. For example, giving a back the “Tug Boat” power will allow him to drag tacklers an extra three yards; “Rocket Pass” gives QBs canon-like arms that are impossible to intercept. Unfortunately, these powers are all offensive in nature, which shifts the game in favor of the team with the ball. However, they appear to be activated when certain in-game criteria are met, which is good. Otherwise, the Super Abilities would’ve broken the title. Completing the season earns more character attribute points and Super Abilities for powering up your team between seasons. You can challenge other player to a game over Wi-Fi.

The greatest issue with Tecmo Bowl Kickoff is its horrid, horrid stat tracking system that displays numbers in reverse. Most football fans are used to seeing passing stats shown in a completions-attempts format (for example, Peyton Manning going 10-14), but Kickoff shows them as attempts-completions (14-10), which is a freaking nightmare to read and decipher. Even worse, the sports nuts can’t meticulously track the numbers of their favorite players because there’s no way to view stats of individual players. How Tecmo allowed this meteor to slip through a Grand Canyon-size crack is beyond the scope of this reviewer, as yards and sacks totals were a huge part of the older titles.

So is Tecmo Bowl Kickoff worth the asking price? No doubt. It’s a fun, high-octane title that’s lends itself well to portable gaming with its simple control scheme (I hate to throw the “M-word” into this, but Madden is way too bloated to make for a fun-filled mobile game). Kickoff isn’t flawless, but it does what it does quite well: deliver an excellent arcade experience that’s remarkably easy to pick up and play. Hardcore Tecmo heads will be disappointed that theres a lack of NFL license (due to EA Sports exclusivity deal with the league) and the crap stat tracking, but more casual Tecmo players and retrogamers will eat this up.

Thanks, Tecmo, for bringing the warm fuzzies back.

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2. Interview: Mike Fahrny, producer, Tecmo Bowl Throwback
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4. The Greatest 2D Sports Video Game Athletes: Buffalo Bills Edition
5. Review: NBA Unrivaled (XBLA)

Tags: madden, nfl, nintendo ds, tecmo bowl kickoff, tecmo super bowl