During my Lenten social media absence, I played a ton of Tecmo Bowl. When I was a kid, I was never really into football. I loved the Pats since they were the hometown team, but I couldn’t get into football. My brother and our cousin avidly play Tecmo Super Bowl on the Sega Genesis, and I could never get into that because I understood nothing of football.

Fast forward to this past holiday season, I’m at my fiancée’s cousin’s place for a party where they’ve got an NES classic with Tecmo Bowl on it. After watching the game in action, I figured I’d start from the beginning and play that. I picked up the game from one of my local retro shops, put it in my NES, and went to town.

I could follow football, but I knew nothing about playing it. I couldn’t read any of those plays for the life of me.

I eventually did get a better understanding of the plays, and learned where my receivers would be.

After a while, I got a better understanding of each defensive position. I used to attempt to run up the middle, but then I found it a lot easier to play safety.

I soon would use the safety position to my advantage to force interceptions. I got pretty good at stopping the run, forcing them to throw. Unless some dude beat me, I got pretty good at forcing turnovers.

I stuck with LA because Bo Jackson.

Bo Jackson is quite broken! I’d score 90 yard touchdowns with him.

When I was done with Tecmo Bowl I graduated to Tecmo Super Bowl, the game that perplexed me as a kid.

Playing Tecmo Super Bowl has given me a better understanding of just how bad the Patriots sucked back in the day. Even with my knowledge from the prior game, I could barely get anything going. My receivers could never get open. My defenders couldn’t block for shit.

I eventually found a hacked version of Tecmo Super Bowl for the NES where they use the modern day rosters. I felt more at home, and was able to clean house since I had a better understanding of our rosters from the last six years.

I made Chris Hogan look way better than he actually is.

Just like real life, Edelman is always open!

I played a game against the Eagles, I took them into overtime, and won the game.

I then played the Cowboys. They kept feeding the Zeke. It was a tight game that would go into overtime. I won the toss and received the ball. I threw an interception on our own 35.

After an entire game of getting gashed by the run I thought they’d feed the Zeke again. I called a run stop but Prescott threw to Allen Hurns for a 30 yard touchdown to win the game.

I never thought I’d say this, but I kind of want to buy Madden. I used to make fun of people who played Madden and other sports games back in the day because I thought it was all dumb. I preferred my Pokémon, my Final Fantasy, and other JRPGs. I think a lot of that frustration stemmed from not understanding how football was played, and feeling left out. I’ve found football to be just as strategic, enthralling, and addictive as RPGs. There’s so much strategy, it’s like a high speed chess match.

 

Flemmings Beaubrun is an avid gamer and lover of music. When not working, Flemmings likes to spend his time whipping up dank beats for the masses. He also spends his weekends thrift shopping for rare video games and obscure electronics. Other times he’s in front of a TV with a giant bowl of cereal enjoying shows from the 90s.