Madden NFL ’96
Firing up this game gave me goosebumps with memories of yesteryear.
What a great game Madden NFL ’96 was. The last bastion of 16-bit Madden football titles came to us in 1995, as the era of 32-bit and beyond gaming was dawning. CD audio on the PlayStation would set everything apart, and a game for Sony’s new console was in the works, but scrapped, leaving gamers to contend with the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis versions for at least one more season.
This NFL season was intriguing as it featured a few changes. In real life, the Cleveland Browns were heading to Baltimore, so this was their last year as a real team in the game while the Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars were expansion teams with made-up rosters – one of which including “free agents” from the new create-a-player mode, freshly introduced in this iteration.
The create-a-player mode was a fun gimmick and not as truly refined as we’d get in later editions, but being able to make your own guy, complete with position and jersey number, was hella cool. The way to level them up, however, was pretty nasty and required some quick button pressing from your fingers!
Each of the NFL teams has their own “stadium” in this one, with painted endzones to match their locale. The audio has the usual boom’s and pow’s you’d come to expect, and it was the last year to include the FOX Sports NFL theme song within the game – as well as an instrumental riff lifted from Queen’s We Will Rock You to open up the game.
Pat Summerall, John Madden’s long-time broadcast partner, also makes an appearance in this game – his first.
While the FOX themes, world/league records, ditching the windows for passing and a few other tidbits made their way into the 1995 edition of Madden, ’96 really upped the ante with improved graphics and touches. ’95 had made some progress, but aside from the already aforementioned, ’96 is where it was at.
We finally got player’s names attributed in the popup windows after each play, rather than calling them out by jersey numbers – and in fact, star players had their portrait shown as well.
The playbooks aren’t all too expanded, but an often-overlooked feature sneaked its way into 1996 and that is the “Madden” portion of the playbook which would eventually grow into a suggested play category to simplify football play calling for people new to the game – real or virtual.
Overall, the game just feels crisper than the previous 16-bit entries. It plays A LOT faster, even between menu loading and placing players on the field.
For some NFL nostalgia, including the Houston Oilers, and the Rams and Raiders residing in Los Angeles, this is an old entry football fanatics should definitely checkout.
Madden NFL ’94
For how groundbreaking John Madden Football ’93 was, it’s amazing how much of a leap this series takes when jumping one year and also between platforms (from the Sega Genesis to the Super Nintendo).
It starts right as the game loads with the famous EA Sports “It’s In The Game” audio tagline and animation. Seeing this over 25 years later just sent chills down my spine as to what I’m about to review…
Obviously the SNES graphics are leaps and bounds over the Genesis just based on hardware, but it’s the included audio, mainly speech elements, that start sending you into a tizzy. This game has such refined menus and elements it’s pretty crazy.
Just choosing teams beyond the start menu shows you a huge upgrade in visuals. John Madden gives you a briefing over a panning stadium shot with moving fans. It’s text-based but still light years beyond what any sports simulation was doing at the time.
Even the referee coin toss moves to dedicated animations rather than just showing players on the field.
The “regular season” mode still relies on a password system in this edition. There are the usual modes such as sudden death or recreating the 1993 playoffs (or pitting former Super Bowl championship rosters against one another).
It’s also cool to flip through and see how each position group matches up against one another. Madden was always stat-based, but this is when I first truly remember seeing it as a player and taking it into consideration when deciding plays and more.
Speaking of plays, “flip play” is introduced in ’94 with one particular pass play allowing for a wide-open receiver 100% of the time – the bug was exploited to death by me playing with then perennial Super Bowl champions the Dallas Cowboys and their “flipped receiver” being Alvin Harper (although due to lack of an NFLPA license, only player’s numbers were shown and not their names.)
The screen also flips, or shall I say rotates, during kicking plays and turnovers, in a way that the team with the ball is always at the bottom of the screen playing toward the endzone at the top.
Instant replays also allowed you to rotate the screen 360 degrees, which was breathtaking in itself – but you could also highlight a dedicated player and watch the entire play, in slow motion or full speed, and see where the play breaks down (as it does with my Steelers safety blitz below in the screencaps!)
Fans cheer. Fans boo. Heck, you can even turn “Maddenisms” off if you choose to.
But go get buried in the pause screen (or halftime – complete with a “halftime show”) and you can relive all of your stats, which goes well beyond what was in the previous iterations of the game, even breaking down pass completion percentages and some other advanced statistics.
In other words, this wasn’t your usual Tecmo Bowl arcade-style game, but turning into a full-fledged simulation where throwing into double coverage often resulted in interceptions and relying on higher-rated players in order to make, or break, a victory.
It gets even better with subsequent years, but its easy to see how Madden started to establish itself as a yearly update and must-have game each season due to the amount of upgrades packed into ’94. In fact, this game is so much fun to relive, I highly recommend retro gamers check it out.
ClayFighter
Following a flurry of reviewing fighting games for an entire month I had unearthed one forgotten game of my childhood amongst a sea of potential games to review. With Halloween around the corner, I felt it fitting to still keep ClayFighter on the schedule, because it better represents the current season than an actual fighting game.
Unsurprisingly Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat sparked a fighting game craze in the 90’s, with many competitors looking to clone the success of those two games for themselves. Every software developer, including Sega and Nintendo themselves, got in on the act.
Then there was Visual Concepts, who have a reputation of making some great games, but instead when the parody and comedy route with ClayFighter. The main reason this game doesn’t get a fat thumbs down from me is basically due to VC’s input with audiovisual content for the title. The fighters are all 3-D generated from actual clay models (hence the name of the game) and look superb for a 16-bit Super Nintendo title.
The sound, including an announcer, are crisp and ahead of their time too.
But it’s the gameplay that is lacking… that’s putting it kindly.
Once the humor wears off, which is quickly after scrolling through the unique characters on the main menu, you are deluged with combat that takes after the Street Fighter button scheme, but not the pace or cohesiveness of being a fighting game. Computer opponents tend to block and jump all too often, with special moves often being to difficult to pull off or slow in animation to make an impact.
The traditional two-round win format is there, with a cutesy bomb as your timer, with the wick burning down to “zero”. I’m not sure if the rounds are actually 90-ish seconds like the rest, but it sure does feel like an eternity to play through just one sitting.
The levels are inspired and tied to each character as well – another annoyance as you play through the “world map” and discover you have to face some of them a second time; which is mundane as it gets.
The final boss is a “ring” and outside of that, you really get no sense of purpose for the fighters, what they’re doing there, what they’re fighting for, or even one still end-screen that tells you squat about the character you just completed the game with. It simply shows the long scrolling credits of everyone who created this mess and a neat “thanks for playing” when that’s through.
Also, the menus and even portions of the game screens (like the health bars) come off as generic – almost 8-bit generic. Whether intentional or not, it cheapens the game. Combined with frustrating controls, cheap computer opponents, and no real plot, it’s difficult for me to recommend this game at all.
Worse, if you grew up playing the Blockbuster Video Game Championships, as I did, you were likely duped into renting the store exclusive “Tournament Edition” to practice with. Hopefully a rental is all the more money you escaped spending on this game way back when, because it would’ve been a good waste of $60-70 for a cartridge that will quickly collect dust.
Killer Instinct
What a difference a couple of years make…
In the Fall of 1993, Mortal Kombat, widely considered one of the most violent video games of its time, was released on the Super Nintendo. However, it was a stripped-down port of the arcade which replaced blood for sweat and neutered the violent “finishing moves” that had caused controversy.
Mortal Kombat had also caused a legal stir, forcing the video games industry to adopt a ratings system similar to what was the standard for motion pictures.
In 1994, the sequel to Mortal Kombat arrived untouched to the SNES, hinting at a change of heart when the competing Sega Genesis’ first game in the series outsold Nintendo’s. With blood and gore intact this time, Nintendo shocked arcade audiences roughly six weeks later with a game no one would’ve seen coming a year earlier: Killer Instinct.
The name of the game itself was a big change for Nintendo, which always stood for family entertainment in video games much like Disney did the same for TV and movies. With a hot console war on their hands against Sega, which marketed their Genesis console toward teenagers and adults, it was time for the company which brought us Mario to mix things up and get dirty.
Killer Instinct first landed in arcades on my birthday, October 28th, 1994. Developed by Rare and published by Midway, the game provided a sneak peek into Nintendo’s upcoming next-gen console dubbed the “Ultra 64”. It was one of two games (along with Cruisin’ USA) to use a specialized version of the hardware, intended to plant the seeds for what would become the Nintendo 64 in due time.
The arcade game was a marvel to look at and play – and fans were waiting for KI as an N64 launch title. However, delays set the console launch back, and thus, Nintendo surprised everyone by released Killer Instinct on the SNES.
Of course, the 16-bit hardware was a far cry from the looming “64-bit” era of the Ultra 64. Marketing made it seem as if Nintendo was bypassing “bits” from 32 to 64 for their next gen – so how could KI, which on paper requires 4x the hardware horsepower, run on the aging Super Nintendo?
A number of special concessions were made, of course, as gamers were used to back in these days. While the next generation Ultra 64 and competing Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation began to promote “arcade perfect” ports to the home consoles, fans knew from other arcade classics such as Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, and Street Fighter II, that there would be alterations to the game.
The end result was Rare flexing their muscle, reducing colors and sprites, removing full-motion video clips and large audio files, and utilizing tricks involving the Super Nintendo’s Mode 7 graphics.
While it wasn’t as impressive as the arcade, the game retained a great deal of the gameplay features along with some stunning imagery and sound considering what it was being played on.
By this time too, fighting games were watering down the market – but Nintendo finally jumped into the foray with their own game and as far as exclusive titles are concerned, Killer Instinct holds up on its own. While the plot (like others in the genre) is practically non-existent, the ability to pick up and play was easy – mastering the game could be a challenge, but the Street Fighter six-button (three for punches, three for kicks) scheme fit the game well.
Differing from other fighting games, KI did not use a round system, rather two life bars that would be drained until the screen flashes red and the announcer states “danger” – permitting the victor to pull of a quick button press series for one of two finishing moves (violent and brutal, the same as MK) or a humiliation (also pretty much borrowed from MK).
A neat combo system was instituted, including a groundbreaking automatic combo, or combo breaker, provided the right button sequence was pressed.
Overall, I feel Killer Instinct was fairly average, particularly on the SNES. It’s still amazing at how well it runs and the achievements made porting such a big title down to the small screen. Yet, it wasn’t too groundbreaking in anyway other than Nintendo allowing something with the name “Killer” on their console.
Unfortunately, I feel KI would’ve been far better remembered had the N64 launched on time with it as a catalyst to show off the new system. Instead, it was tacked on in August of 1995 to the tail end of the SNES’ lifespan.
While the console would be produced into the 2000’s, the N64 would launch in North America a little over a year after this fighting game first graced home consoles – and late to the party as Sony introduced the PlayStation a mere two weeks after KI released on the SNES.
WWF Super WrestleMania
After dealing with the limitations of the 8-bit era pro wrestling games, WWF Super WrestleMania came along and blew everything out of the water during the 16-bit era.
Interestingly enough the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo had different versions of the same title: this one reviews the latter which had a larger roster, and obviously better graphics and audio as opposed to the competition.
The graphics, audio, gameplay, roster and everything just about trumps any of the NES era WWF games. When you first start the game, however, LJN had to keep their logo onscreen until you hit the start button – a minor annoyance but one found throughout the game at times.
The next step was your traditional start menu, which then led to an amazing discovery that you could play with not only tag teams, but a four-man “Survivor Series” style match as well.
You select a difficulty level next and then get to choose from one of ten wrestlers, including Hulk Hogan, the Macho Man, and the Road Warriors – the rosters were the main difference between the two games, as the SNES was lacking the popular Ultimate Warrior. Aside from Hulk and Macho, both versions only shared The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase as well.
Otherwise, the available wrestlers were vastly different, including the Undertaker, Sid Justice and Jake “The Snake” Roberts, plus two tag teams: the aforementioned Road Warriors and the Natural Disasters.
Ring introductions looked cheesy, but the fun, if you will, begins after the bell.
The visual life bar was a major help in the new 16-bit era, but everything else was ramped up – with more buttons on the controllers themselves, you were now able to do much more with your wrestler, such as running or climbing the ropes.
You could even brawl outside of the ring, but beware of a count-out! (Heck, let’s gone one further: there are announcers ringside and a referee in the ring!)
Yet, and quite honestly, this game still suffers from the “pickup and play” issue most pro wrestling games do. You often grapple with your opponent, a commonality with the 16-bit era games, but in Super WrestleMania there’s no “tug-of-war” bar to know who is getting the upper hand.
You’ll often come out of the grapple with a simple headbutt… or if you’re close to the ropes, you might throw your opponent over the top rope.
There were no signature moves in the SNES version, which is a bummer – you’re pretty much stuck to suplexes and body slams. However, the character selection menu has a nice treat. If you stay on one wrestler for a few seconds, their entrance music plays.
This was likely a “killer app” type of feature back in 1992! (I know it was when I was a kid!)
Overall, this was a step in the right direction for the wrestling genre, but it still lacked the ease of mastering. Grappling appears to be related to AI cheating, and figuring out how and when to pin your opponent meant matches lasted 20 minutes or longer in some cases.
There are better wrestling games on the platform, but then again, in 1992 this title was groundbreaking. It’s worth having a look just for the progression from Super WrestleMania to the next games in the series.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is yet another game I had completed when I was younger, but damn if I know how!
I don’t recall half of this game: particularly the items. If not for a guide, I can’t imagine how many hours I would’ve poured into this one, as it would take blind luck to find several of them.
In fact, I’m fairly certain there are items I did not end up finding when I completed the game as a youth!
Regardless, this thing had to have had 100 hours into it as a kid and even as an adult, 8-10 hours of an investment at minimum with cheats.
That seems like nothing compared to the 100-hour campaigns of today’s titles, such as Breath of the Wild.
Much like the comparisons of BoTW being a masterpiece, Link to the Past is a cult favorite which is a masterpiece in its own right. It can also be downright unforgiving, but it’s also groundbreaking.
I also find it hard to believe how groundbreaking many of the Super Nintendo games were way back when, especially with the Sega Genesis stealing a lot of the system’s thunder.
The reason LTTP is an A+ title, even in 2020, is that it introduces many key features and upgrades to the Zelda series. Link could move in eight directions (diagonal movement was new on the SNES), running (via the Pegasus boots) and his sword no longer stabs but swings which made combat a bit easier in some circumstances.
Two parallel worlds were introduced, as well as “pieces of hearts”, the hookshot, spin attack, and most important of all, the Master Sword presentation.
Needless to say, the graphics, sound, controls and gameplay are all what you would come to expect from a Zelda game. If you’re a fan of the series and haven’t played this one, drop everything you’re doing, because it is a treat that even feels fresh after about the dozenth time I’ve completed it – making it one of my favorite games of all time.
Super Mario Kart
The trendsetter for all “kart” racing games holds up very oddly when reminiscing for this review.
Let’s start with the basics: no one thought a racing game based on Mario characters was ever going to work. Yet it did, and here’s why.
First and foremost, Super Mario Bros. is a beloved franchise with even more beloved characters. Each of the stages, which in this Super Nintendo title there aren’t many (later stages are extended rehashes of the same level, with added elements or driving through them backwards, which is now known as “mirror mode”.)
Yet, those stages had a sort of charm, that when combined with the same Mario-inspired power-ups, added a new dimension to your traditional racing game. It’s akin to bumper cars but within a video game.
So, what issues could I have with this title? If it were 1992, not many. The audio is crisp, the controls, despite using only a D-pad (there were no analog sticks at that time) were tight, the difficulty adjusted appropriately throughout and more.
In fact, this game shouldn’t have even been possible on a 16-bit platform, but thanks to extra processing chips within the SNES, it was groundbreaking. Yet, it’s not exactly the best to go back to. There are some frustrating areas of the game and I attribute much of that to the dated graphics and controls.
Still, for a Super Nintendo era game to accomplish what Super Mario Kart did, as well as establishing an entire new genre of games (and spawning numerous, award-winning sequels) it’s hard to be so down on this game.
Go back, appreciate this for what it was at that time and then move forward to see how each title built upon the previous: because that’s what I’m going to do!
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels
I always knew about the true Super Mario Bros. sequel (i.e. “Lost Levels”) having owned it as a kid as part of the Mario All-Stars collection… but I’ll admit, there are a few more surprises that I wasn’t knowledgeable on.
I was going to bypass the All-Stars remakes since the Game Boy Advance series used the same graphical upgrades.
However, the original SMB style wasn’t represented in those, and after having played the Japanese (original graphics) version, I found out that you couldn’t access Worlds A, B, C, and D unless you beat the game something like 8 times and then held down a few buttons at the start screen after! (Yeah, screw that!)
So, I came about playing the revamped version of SMB2 “Japan”, aka the “Lost Levels” as known here in the U.S. I was geared toward playing only the letter worlds, but also found out that after you beat World 8, you bypass World 9. (A “fantasy” world I posted in a previous review for the original Japanese version).
That’s a bummer because it was actually fun… and so are the letter worlds!
The letter worlds, believe it or not, are actually less frustrating (and more fun) than the regular levels – which have some tweaks, but a lot of the same headaches as the original version did.
These letter boards are definitely worth checking out, and along with the revamped graphics, made for a nice trip down memory lane. Even with the ramped-up difficulty, there was a better balance with gameplay in this version of the real Super Mario Bros. 2.
Again, this is a title I highly recommend for any Mario or retro gaming fan.
Mega Man X
Continuing on my quest to conquer every Mega Man game, the offshoot series of Mega Man X is next. It’s basically Mega Man but not in the same timeline/storyline. Dr. Light and Dr. Wily have been replaced with similar characters Dr. Cain and Sigma. Mega Man has been swapped with “X” and has a new pal named Zero and the robot masters are now known as “Maverick Hunters”.
Otherwise, it’s all the same stuff with a fresh coat of upgraded 16-bit SNES graphics and a few more goodies, such as the ability to charge the mega buster, a dash feature, and the ability to scale or slide down walls.
Those latter features made the game incredibly enjoyable, but man does Capcom return to their roots of making these games HARD. This wasn’t the worst difficulty, but it was up there in the series.
Luckily the weapon upgrades are actually worth a flip (more on that as I post sequels!) The music is a joy and the controls are tight, which adds to part of the difficulty, but what’s new, right? We are talking Mega Man.
Overall this is a game I highly recommend, maybe more than most in the series. While it follows the same proven formula, the fresh coat of paint and the upgrade into the 16-bit world, are more than enough to lend this game “cult classic” credibility.
PS – I still contend that Sega and Capcom were in a battle of one-upmanship between Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man. There are far too many similarities between the two series to disregard! (This game features a level not much unlike the Wing Fortress Zone in Sonic 2!)
Doom
Some people probably aren’t aware that Doom made it to the Super Nintendo. In fact, it should’ve been technically impossible to do, if not for the addition of the Super FX 2 chip.
I, for one, forgot this game existed until recently and revisited it based on having rented it numerous times during my childhood. The premise, of course, is a first-person shooter where the protagonist fights through invading demons from Hell.
Yes, this game was on practically every platform ever, however it wasn’t only the technical limitations of the SNES which made this a surprise, but the content: Doom is all about shooting, killing, horror and gore! Its generally recognized as THE title to popularize the FPS genre and is best known for run-and-gun gameplay where you fly through levels and try your best to not die.
That last aspect, speed, is well-translated to the SNES version. I often felt a heart-pounding intensity to finish each level, set to revised audio tracks which still thump to this day and made this game playable… because the graphics, an obvious setback, made it a struggle to do otherwise. Enemies were often difficult to see in the distance and were pixelated, as you might imagine on 16-bit hardware, even when they were up close.
Truth be told, even with cheats enabled in spots, this game was rough to play through the first episode, where I left off. (In total there are three episodes, a total of 22 levels lifted from the PC games.) The visuals were rough enough on the eyes and almost made it feel like the game had an unfair advantage on the player. (The game ran on a bordered window within a window in order to have a respectable resolution and framerate!)
Ditto for the controls, which were also tough. I mean, come on, it is a D-pad on the SNES controller!
Yet, for its shortcomings this game didn’t age terribly bad. You already expect the worst and it’s totally playable for the time, if not an enjoyable experience overall. I couldn’t justify spending time to complete it due to the few shortfalls, but, I’d still recommend it to any Doom/FPS/retro gaming fan just for the technical achievement of being playable on the Super Nintendo back in 1995!