Tecmo Bowl

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Tecmo Bowl is a video game series based on American Football, released in arcades in 1987. It was later ported to the NES in 1989 (and ported twice again - once in 1991 for the Game Boy and again for the Virtual Console in 2007; albeit in the VC release, the players' names are removed and represented by their number) You can choose from 12 teams, a password option, and started a trend. In December 1991, a sequel was released called Tecmo Super Bowl. Nearly two years later, Tecmo Super Bowl was brought to the Mega Drive and Genesis. Despite having a similar name to the NES game, it is not a port. Two years later, Tecmo released two more sequels - Tecmo Super Bowl 2: Special Edition and Tecmo Super Bowl 3: The Final Edition. Despite the last one saying it was the final edition, another Tecmo Super Bowl game was released for the Sony PlayStation in 1996. Nearly twelve years later, the franchise was reborn with the release of Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff for the Nintendo DS in November 2008. The most recent[when?] release in the series was Tecmo Bowl Throwback for the Xbox 360 and the Play Station 3 in April 2010.

Tropes used in Tecmo Bowl include:

The series in general include:

  • Cutscene: Every once in a while, the game will temporarily cut from the game and show, for example, a short cutscene of a field goal or kick. There's more ways to trigger these cut scenes.

The Arcade and NES versions include the following tropes:

  • Early Installment Weirdness: The NES version in particular has only four plays by team, two minutes per quarter, unable to edit your roster, no injuries, and more.
  • Game Breaking Bug: On the NES version, inputting certain passwords will cause the game to freeze if you call an offensive play.
  • Jack of All Stats: Washington's team is well-balanced. Doug Williams has two potent weapons to use in players like Gary Clark and Ricky Sanders.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Bo Jackson of Los Angeles. If the other player doesn't stop his run, he'll score a touchdown before the other player can react. Same with the barrage Jerry Rice and Joe Montana can prepare on unsuspecting players.
  • Stone Wall: Lawrence Taylor can block field goal kicks and can shut down any offense plays, if timed right. Chicago has two stone walls - Steve McMichael and Mike Singletary.