As
the Neo Geo's only football game, sports fans don't have much of a choice.
Thankfully, Football Frenzy provides a decent game of arcade style football that
will keep most fans happy. A few quirks keep if from being a classic, but
it's possible to overlook a majority of these flaws.
The game is presented from a side view, much like the classic Tecmo Bowl. This makes it easy to bring up first problem of the game: You can't see more than 15-20 yards downfield making the passing game overly hard. (only arrows show where your players are located) When playing against a human opponent, defense is also a problem against the wide receivers, basically making this flaw not a problem as it irons itself out. The running game has potential, but it zooms in CLOSE to the field making it impossible to see defenders rushing at your running back making the passing game the only option.
The game holds it's own graphically, but the stiff animation mars any graphical excellence, especially when the game zooms in for a running play. The games celebration cinemas also look good but lack any kind of decent animation. The false teams each have their own logos and fields, some which are quite amusing.
Whenever a game has "Yeeeeaaahhhhhh!" as one it's sound clips, you know your in a real nasty game sound wise. The announcer is pathetic and there are hardly any "real" football sounds to be had. Music also accompanies the action, but an off feature would've been wonderful.
While it may seem that this game is just horrible due the above review, it's still quite playable. A sequel would've been greatly appreciated to fix the obvious flaws, but as the only football game available for the 24-bitter, there really isn't much of a choice. The games passing is decent and the off-screen receivers won't seem like that much of a problem to Tecmo Bowl junkies.
