I first stumbled upon Tecmo Bowl in my uncle’s basement back in the early 1990s buried amid a stack of classics like Legend of Zelda, Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!, and Konami’s Track & Field. For a few years, nearly every family party hosted there featured me in a semi-vegetative state surrounded by a pile of littered game cartridge holders.
I admired the simplicity. In the original Tecmo Bowl, you can call one of four offensive plays. The defense then counters by guessing which of those four plays you called. The first iteration of the game featured classic rosters from the halcyon days of the NFL in the late 80s.