Tecmo Super Bowl
First NFL-licensed game with real teams and players.
Tecmo Super Bowl, an American football game for the NES, hit shelves in 1991 as the follow-up to Tecmo Bowl from 1987. It made history as the first title to secure licenses from both the NFL and the NFL Players Association, letting players control authentic teams and real-life athletes together. Earlier games could only offer one or the other. This cartridge became a massive hit, spawning sequels across later consoles. Decades on, its original NES version still commands a devoted following, with tournaments and fan-made roster updates keeping it alive. Critics often rank it among the finest NES titles, top sports games, and most influential video games ever.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Tecmo
- Director
- Shin-ichiro Tomie
- Programmer
- Akihiko Shimoji; Tomonobu Itagaki
- Artist
- Kazushige Tomita; Yoshitaka Mizushima
- Composer
- Keiji Yamagishi; Ryuichi Nitta
- Series
- Tecmo Bowl
- Platforms
- NES
- Super NES
- Sega Genesis
- PlayStation
- Genre
- Sports (American football)
Facts from the source article.
Overview
Tecmo had previously obtained an NFLPA license for Tecmo Bowl in 1989, which included twelve teams and a reduced roster. The full NFL team license was unavailable at that time due to an exclusive agreement held by LJN for its NES game NFL. Although released in late 1991, the rosters and player attributes reflect the 1990–91 NFL season, so no rookies from the 1991 draft or team changes before the 1991 season appear. The game includes all 28 teams from the 1991 league, expanded rosters, larger playbooks, and statistical tracking with NFL records. Three players—Jim Kelly, Randall Cunningham, and Bernie Kosar—appear under generic names because they were not part of the NFLPA's marketing contract.
Reception
In the United States, Tecmo Super Bowl was the top-selling NES game at Babbage's for three consecutive months from October to December 1992. Its retail price of $54.99 made it the most expensive NES game released up to that time. In 1997, both Electronic Gaming Monthly and IGN listed it among the top 100 video games of all time. IGN ranked it 53rd in its top 100 NES games, and GamesRadar placed it 22nd on its list of the best NES games, noting it may be the only NES football game still widely played. PC Magazine ranked it 10th among the ten most influential video games, and ESPN called it the greatest sports video game ever.
Legacy
Tecmo produced several direct sequels to Tecmo Super Bowl, along with other games using the Tecmo Bowl engine. 16-bit versions for the Super NES and Genesis were released in 1993, reflecting that season's rosters and attributes, and fixing many bugs while adding features such as improved graphics and sound, official NFL team logos in end zones, user-controlled touchbacks, punt blocking, in-game playbook changes, a running back dive play, a designated return team, statistical achievements during games, and three weather conditions (sunny, rain, snow) that could occur randomly in Season mode. Accelerated fifteen-minute and ten-minute quarters were available only for Exhibition and Pro Bowl games, and the game could play three consecutive seasons (1991–1993). Sequels titled Tecmo Super Bowl II: Special Edition and Tecmo Super Bowl III: Final Edition followed for the Super NES and Genesis. A PlayStation version released in 1996 introduced a player editor for unlimited trades, jersey number changes, attribute edits, name changes, and portrait swaps, along with a play-by-play announcer, formation selection before plays, alternate camera angles, instant replay, and adjustable AI difficulty. This was the last series entry with NFL and NFLPA licenses, reflecting the 1996 season. A Sega Saturn version was in development but never released. Later entries, such as Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff for the Nintendo DS in 2008 and Tecmo Bowl Throwback for Xbox 360 and PS3 in 2010, used generic players and teams because Electronic Arts had obtained exclusive NFL and NFLPA licenses in 2004 for the Madden NFL series.
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