I'm going to keep going with my tradition of opening the year with an old sports game. But this time, I'm going to go about it a little bit differently.
Usually I go with either an old title in a current series or I check out a title from a once prominent sports series that died out. I mean, that was kind of supposed to be the whole point of this thing when I started. But after last year, where I started looking more into titles on obscure consoles, I found myself looking for sports games in other places. While it was somewhat difficult to find more mainline sports titles on these systems, there were certainly plenty of other examples to be found. For better or worse, most of these tend to be more arcade style sports games, they don't really try to accurately simulate the sports they represent. I personally think this tends to lead to better results for older sports titles. It was really hard to reproduce the feel of an actual sport on a 3rd, 4th or even 5th generation console. But you could still create a great gameplay experience and give players something different. I always thought this was why games like NBA Jam and NFL Blitz are still well loved and played frequently today, while nobody ever wants to go back and play Madden 94.
Most "big name" sports titles in the 4th generation were typically associated with the two more mainstream consoles, the Genesis and SNES. Madden, FIFA, NHL and other such titles were rarely found on other systems. It's also wort mentioning that sports games are extremely region specific, perhaps moreso than any genre. This isn't as big a deal now, pretty much every game gets released everywhere (I reviewed a Cricket game a few years ago, something I never would have thought would ever happen). But back then, it meant a lot of titles stayed in Japan or were North America or PAL only releases. This is part of what made Football Frenzy such an interesting specimine. Developed and published by SNK, it was initially released in arcades in 1992 before making its way to the Neo Geo later that same year. It was re-released in 1994 as a launch title for the Neo Geo CD, though both versions are fairly similar. It was something of a spiritual successor to Touchdown Fever, a title that was eventually ported to the NES. This was the early days of sports videgames so a lot of things were still kind of being figured out. I think that's why I'm not really a fan of a lot of them and unfortunately, Football Frenzy was no exception. I will say there were some interesting things going on. If nothing else, it was kind of funny to see an American football game that was very much designed with Japanese style and sensibilities. Rember, in the 80's and 90's it wasn't that easy to see American football in Japan, it wasn't like it is now where the NFL streams in dozens of countries. Still though, Football Frenzy had some odd and frustrating gameplay that make it hard to recommend.
First, we have to talk about the high points, the graphics and sound. The Neo Geo's beastly hardware was on full display here, with big, colorful sprites and tons of frames of animation. The players all look great and while there is only one field, it looks pretty good too. The music isn't as good, but it is of good quality and the sound effects are perfectly fitting. One of the aspects that really shows how powerful the Neo Geo was is how good the games look during actual gameplay. There were also a lot of nice presentation touches too, like the half time show. It's unnecessary, but it adds to the atmosphere of the game. The scrolling of the screen and movement of the camera just couldn't be replicated by the SNES or Genesis and it definitely helps the speed of the gameplay. It's so well done here that it almost becomes a problem when you consider the controls, though we will get back to that eventually. Overall, the presentation is well done and it certainly isn't the problem with Football Frenzy.
Another thing I consider a non-issue here is the lack of a license. There are no real teams or players here, you have 16 fictional teams that seem to all play fairly similarly. Again, this was common at the time, sports games having a license wasn't a given back in the 90's, especially for arcade style titles like this one. Arcade is the key word here, Football Frenzy was absolutely designed to be played in arcade, like a standing at a cabinet and feeding quarters into a machine old school style. There are no seasons, no franchises, no secondary modes, just a one player tournament and a versus mode. Again, this was common for the time. Apparently, you had to feed more money into the machine after each quarter. Now that's how you make money, you either quadruple your coins in the machine or you push someone to pony up $800 for the AES. All kidding aside, you are pretty much relegated to playing one on one games, which is fine for the era.
The problem here is the aforementioned gameplay isn't actually that great. It's kind of a hybrid between Madden and Tecmo Bowl, but if you took the worst aspects of those two games. You call plays similarly to the latter, selecting either run or pass before choosing one of four plays in that category. Once the ball is snapped, it becomes more like the former, where your players will run routes with each one attached to a button. Press that button to throw to that receiver. Seems simple, and it is, but I've always had a hard time determining exactly where the ball is going in these games. There isn't really a clear ball indicator, you only have the shadow of the ball to follow, and I've never liked this. It seems like passing is way better than running here, I would almost always get stopped behind the line when I tried to call one. Unfortunately, passing almost feels random, I was never able to really determine what was going to be a completion, drop or interception (and frankly I have that problem in most old football games). This is compounded by the fact that you almost never have a reasonable amount of time to throw. Your QB either gets hit immediately or they get all day to throw, which leads to the game feeling inconsistent. Even on those plays where guys would be wide open, it felt like it was completely random whether they would make a catch or not. The controls also aren't super responsive, I felt like I really had to lay on the buttons to make anything happen and even after that it was incredibly delayed. This is where Football Frenzy's greatest strength becomes its biggest weakness, as its animation is so smooth it actually compounds the problem.
I also really hate how running plays are done here. It was initially confusing at first, I actually thought I was pressing the wrong buttons or my game was bugged or something. Because when you snap the ball for a running play, you will find the controls are no different than when you pass. You still get your buttons for receivers, which really threw me of. It took me a while to realize that the game was basically treating every run as an option play, which I thought was odd. I guess maybe it's a culture thing? These kinds of plays are probably the closest American Football gets to Rugby, which would have been more familiar to the developers. Maybe they watched a lot of service academy football before they designed this game? I don't know, but even die-hard American fans that don't watch a lot of college ball would probably have been at a loss as to what was happening. Occasionally, you would have your back run what was essentially a route straight up the middle and you would have to complete a pass to him, sort of simulating a handoff. But I always had a problem completing these passes and they were rarely if ever worth trying. The camera also zooms in really tight on running plays, making it difficult to see both where your receivers are going and where defenders are coming from.
Outside of looking nice, there really isn't much reason to go back and play Football Frenzy today. It's another great display of the Neo Geo's power, but all the graphics and scrolling in the world don't matter if the gameplay is bad. I'm not going to say it's awful, but there isn't enough meat on the bone and the general moment to moment gameplay is entirely too frustrating for me to recommend it. Tecmo Super Bowl on the NES doesn't even look a half a percent as good, but it's a million times more fun to play. For what it's worth, you can experience Football Frenzy on the Switch E-Shop, but I can't say it's worth your time and money. I have to give them credit for trying, designing a game about a sport you had limited exposure to is a challenge, even if it's a more arcade-y version of said sport. But those looking for an old school football fix are better off with Tecmo Super Bowl, simulation fans are better off with Madden or 2K and arcade football afficionados should just stick to NFL Blitz.
4/10
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