Approximate Release Date: June 1, 1992
Genre: Football simulation
Developer: Equilibrium
Publisher: Capcom
Capcom’s MVP Football is a massive step up over the disappointing John Madden Football in every respect.
I was surprised by how almost-modern Capcom’s MVP Football appears at first glance. Anyone who has put some time with the past decade and a half of EA’s Madden series will be familiar with how this game is presented. The offense is at the bottom of the screen, the defense at the top, and if there is a turnover the game shoddily spins and puts the defense-now-offense at the bottom. Plus, every NFL team at the time is represented which is pretty rare for sports games in 1992.
Yes, that means you can play as the Houston Oilers and the LA Rams.
Where the game diverts from modern football games are the controls. The R button is the main button you’ll use, and it never works as well as you would want. You have to press the R button and hit other buttons to make a pass, which is cumbersome and is way more difficult than it should be to nail your receivers. The kicking is weirdly complicated, too; do you press R when the power bar is filled or when the bar is empty? I really want to know because neither resulted in the ball going where I wanted it to.
Capcom’s MVP Football is inoffensive outside of the strange controls. But all of these sports games keep raising the same question: Why should you, the individual reading this blog post right this moment, play this game in 2014? Other than nostalgia or completionism, you shouldn’t. Across the board, this game is worse than games you could buy for pennies at a thrift shop.
For these Super Nintendo sports games to be relevant today, they need to be novel or interesting. Capcom’s MVP Football is neither. “Okay” isn’t good enough.
Tomorrow: Krusty the Clown gets a Super Nintendo game before the Simpsons family with Krusty’s Super Fun House.
