My how the mighty have fallen from the hay day of the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super NES. I remember playing the original for ours with Bo Jackson’s dominance allowing me to destroy my opponents. But, now, with Tecmo hurting for cash, they have “re-imagined” the series with Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff for the Nintendo DS system. Although the gameplay has not really changed that much, it has somehow, not aged very well, giving the player a confusing experience. The new control scheme along with the new visual style have not added to the overall fun of the game, but even detracted the entertaining points from the game itself.
The actual graphics don’t seem like that much of an improvement over the SNES title, but it runs well, not great. At least the flashing caused by the movement of the players is now gone, is that a plus for the game, yes. I can’t imagine that much time was spent on this title and this was more of a cash-in due to the popularity of the older games. Please Tecmo, try harder next time and not ruin one of my favorite franchises from my childhood.
At a thirty dollar price tag, the game gives you the usual exhibition games and a season mode. This time around, the players are on made up teams with made up players, which is obviously because of the exclusive license that Electronic Arts has secured. Playing almost a full season with the New England, I just got more bored and frustrated with each game. I completely gave up prior to the playoffs because of the lack of fun. This was the overall reason that the original title has stayed in our hearts for so long. Now that the game does not have any of this, why play it.
There is some multiplayer, but I didn’t even try it, so I will not consider it in my review. There is the “Nintendo WFC” logo on the front, so there is probably some friend codes involved.
I wouldn’t say that the game is not playable, but the touch screen controls are confusing, imprecise and completely unnecessary. The newer art style don’t give the player that campy and ridiculousness that gave you that awesome feeling when you heard the “Touchdown” 8-bit greatness. Hopefully, Tecmo will smarten up and not bring us a sequel to this title, but instead bring a port of the original to PSN or XBLA. Please, don’t pay full price for this game, I picked it up for only ten and still think it isn’t worth it. Now that Tecmo and Koei have merged, maybe Bo Jackson can make it into the next Dynasty Warriors Gundam game as an unlockable character. Thanks for ruining my memories of the NES game, maybe I will go back to it and give you all a retro review.
Final One Sentence Review: Doesn’t improve from the older titles, almost succeeds in detracting from the original titles on a more powerful system. Do not buy it.
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