• Tag Archives TECMO

  • Tecmo NBA Basketball

    Posted on by Azrael Comment


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    Source: Electronic Gaming Monthly – May 1993

    I’ve never been a really big sports fan when it comes to video games with a few exceptions. I always enjoyed Winter Games and Summer Games on the Commodore 64 as well as the original Tecmo Bowl on the NES. While Tecmo Bowl was probably Tecmo’s most famous sports games, it made several others as well including Tecmo NBA Basketball and Tecmo Super NBA Basketball. The first was for the original NES while the second was for the Super Nintendo. The NES version was released in late 1992 while the Super Nintendo version was released in early 1993. A Sega Genesis port of Tecmo Super NBA Basketball would follow a year later.


    Tecmo NBA Basketball (NES)

    If you were looking for a basketball game in that era, this was a pretty good one. Both the 8-bit a 16-bit versions offered mostly the same features with the 16-bit versions obviously having better graphics and sound. These were the first basketball games to have licenses from both the NBA and the NBPA players unions (though the Intellivison game NBA Basketball had an NBA license in 1980). Tecmo Super NBA Basketball featured all 27 teams from that time (1993) and over 320 real players. For the time, this was a very comprehensive game and definitely the one to have if you were looking for real teams and players.


    Tecmo Super NBA Basketball (Super NES)

    You’ll have to track down originals if you want to play this one (or use emulation). Old sports games, particularly licensed ones, rarely get re-released. One of the 16-bit versions is best but if you are an NES fan then that one is ok too. I think I’ll stick with Tecmo Bowl though.

    The ad above is from the May 1993 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly.



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  • Tecmo Super Baseball (Sega Genesis)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Tecmo Super Baseball (Sega Genesis)

    http://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/167695828200/djpubba-vgprintads-tecmo-super-baseball

    There must have been fierce licensing competition between Tecmo Super Baseball and Sony Imagesoft’s ESPN Baseball Tonight. While the ESPN game got the MLB license in 1994 and hence the license to use the team names (but not the real player names), Tecmo Super Baseball got the Players Association license and therefore the license to use real player names (but not the team names). Both games were released in 1994 and both were released for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis.

    While the Tecmo Super Baseball ad above just references the Genesis version, it was available for the Super NES as well. I suspect the Genesis version just came a little earlier. Other than not using real team names, it faithfully recreates a full season of baseball (based on the 1994 season). While Tecmo Super Baseball is not an outstanding game, I would pick it over the ESPN game. Tecmo was better known for their football games, at least for a while, but they did an ok job with baseball too.

    You had a choice of playing a pre-season game (an exhibition game), a full season, including the World Series, or an All-Star game (called Super Stars for copyright reasons). The game included the 1993 statistics for all of the players and also kept track of statistics for the current season. As far as stats go, it was a pretty impressive game. There were also a fairly large number of options. Music was mostly lackluster and sound was satisfactory if nothing special. Graphics too were just satisfactory but there’s nothing particular to complain about. Gameplay was just ok. It seems to have all the right parts but on the whole it come across as a fairly average game. For some reason there seems to have been a large number of baseball games published in 1994. They all have their strengths and weaknesses and this one is no exception. It seems that none of them got both the MLB and Players Association license.

    Tecmo never made a sequel to this game though there was a predecessor on the NES. Most sports simulations don’t really hold up well over time and I don’t think this one is any exception. Many better baseball games have been released since. If you are truly interested in giving it a try, the Genesis version is probably best but the SNES version is close enough for it not to matter too much.





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  • Mighty Bomb Jack / Solomon’s Key (NES)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

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    Source: Nintendo Fun Club News – Issue Number 5 – February/March 1988

    This is an ad for two early releases by Tecmo for the NES, Mighty Bomb Jack and Solomon’s Key. This advertisement is from the February/March 1988 issue of Nintendo Fun Club news which was an official Nintendo publication that was the precursor to Nintendo Power.

    Mighty Bomb Jack was released by Tecmo for the NES in 1987. I always though it looked like an interesting game but reviews were generally poor. It seems to be a pretty generic platform game and it was apparently fairly repetitive and without much depth. Despite this, it has seen numerous re-releases. It was released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2007, for the 3DS Virtual Console in 2012 and for the Wii U Virtual Console in 2014. Those also got rather poor reviews. More contemporary releases include ports for the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST and Game Boy.

    Solomon’s Key was originally an arcade puzzle game released by Tecmo. In 1987 and 1988, a number of home ports were released. In addition to the NES version, there were ports for the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, Sega Master System (Japan only) and others. There are also a couple of other games related to Solomon’s Key. The Game Boy Color game, Monster Rancher Explorer is an updated port of Solomon’s Key. Also, one of the latest NES releases, Fire and Ice, was a prequel to Solomon’s Key. The NES version of Solomon’s Key was released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2006 and in 2013 on both the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U Virtual Consoles. It was also released for the PS4 in 2015.

    These games aren’t really the ones that made Tecmo famous on the NES. That would come later with the release of Tecmo Bowl.


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