Jeremy Parish

NES Works 107: Tecmo Baseball & Tecmo Bowl (Patreon)

Published:

2023-08-16 11:25:13

Imported:

2024-04

Tags:

nes nes works tecmo tecmo bowl

Content

Confession time: As an avowed hater of American football, I find anything to do with the sport utterly insufferable. Hell for me is a Super Bowl party where I'm not allowed to slink off to a quiet, hidden corner and read or something. And yet... Tecmo Bowl is pretty fun. Compared to every other football game I've ever had to play for this project—experiences I would compare to having low-grit sandpaper rasped across my gums for an hour—I didn't hate Tecmo Bowl. At the end of my recording session, when I pulled out a narrow victory against an increasingly unsubtle CPU with two yards to spare, it was even kind of... exciting?!

Don't tell anyone, though. They'll make me go to their sports parties this fall. God. Can you even imagine.

As for Tecmo Baseball, well, it has an exhibition mode that allows me to record an all-CPU match, and that makes it another masterpiece, as far as I'm concerned.

Files

Rookie season: Tecmo Baseball & Tecmo Bowl | NES Works 107

Tecmo made a strong debut on NES in 1987 with several of the console's more memorable early exploratory titles... and then, inexplicably, they sat out all of 1988. Maybe the company decided to regroup and rethink its North American strategy, because they return to the scene here at the start of ’89 with a pair of games crafted specifically for the U.S.: Tecmo Baseball, which (despite the Famicom audience's seemingly insatiable appetite for all things pro yakyuu) never even shipped in Japan, and Tecmo Bowl, by far the best console adaptation of the American gridiron to that point in history. It would eventually be eclipsed by the game's own superior sequel, but here at the beginning of a new year, Tecmo has arrived in force. And this isn't even the high point of their early ’89s titles! Production notes: Video Works is funded via Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/gamespite) — support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its YouTube debut! Plus, exclusive podcasts, eBooks, and more! Why watch when you can read? Check out the massive hardcover print editions of NES Works, Super NES Works, and Virtual Boy works, available now at Limited Run Games (https://limitedrungames.com/collections/books)! Look forward to SG-1000 Works: Segaiden Vol. I in August and Metroidvania: The First Decade in 2024. NES footage captured from Analogue Nt Mini. Video upscaled to 720 with xRGB Mini Framemeister.