Ordinarily, jacking up your player’s stats and powers might cause some balance issues, but the game’s reliance on blocks, fumbles and interceptions provides both fast-paced arcade action and a mechanism to iron out the difficulty. Unfortunately, the game’s simplicity is underscored by a flawed menu system. During play selection, there’s no field position marker, so good luck deciding whether to punt or kick a field goal. Season mode is a clunky mess that doesn’t allow you to exit games once you’re in spectator mode, run multiple seasons or even delete a season that you’ve already started.

Players looking for an accessible football sim with robust local and NWC multiplayer capabilities will cheer on Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff, especially against a monolithic Madden franchise or say a free download chess game full version game. If nostalgia is your game, the original Tecmo Bowl on Virtual Console still remains unbeaten after all these years.