This is a Legend Bowl review, played and tested on PlayStation 5. Legend Bowl is or will be available for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch and PC via Epic Games or GOG starting at $24.99.
Legend Bowl is a project of love and what you can do when haters, critics, and ban-happy webmasters tells you to put-up, or shut-up. This might sound rush, but as you read this article, there is a lot more to that statement than you can ever imagine.
If you want something so bad, do it yourself
This game was made as a result of one person’s ambition to create a game that fills in a void of a former franchise that got taken out due to some very draconian licensing issues, and the love from the retro-gaming scene of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s American Football. The person who we mostly have to thank for this game to materialize is an indie developer named King Javo.
King Javo
King Javo is the owner of a website called SimHeads. He is a sports game enthusiast who once used to frequent sports gaming forums, expressing his frustration with the lack of innovation and his strong disapproval of Electronic Arts. EA is the exclusive license holder of the NFL which is the power that drives their John Madden Football series. His dissatisfaction reached a point where the majority of these forums banned King Javo from posting. Some users criticized him, suggesting that if he continuously complains about what many would consider minor issues. With comments like”Why don’t take action and develop your own football game”. Surprisingly, he took this advice to heart and created his very own football game, which became Legend Bowl.
Back in 2019, this whole project kicked off as a one-person venture with a clear goal: to fix what was messed up in American Football games and give players exactly what they wanted, but with a cool twist. The first thing on the to-do list was creating a graphics engine that had that old-school Tecmo Bowl vibe. And they didn’t stop there — they added in features that were seriously lacking in the current Football gaming scene. We’re talking deep customization that went way beyond anything anyone had seen before.
But it didn’t end with looks. They also aimed to make in-game statistics actually count, shifting the focus from just the big-shot players to the ones who were truly the best in the game. Fast forward 4 years, and that’s how long it took to bring this whole vision to life.
Game modes
So, what does all of this mean for the American Football fan? Legend Bowl brings to the table the essential features that past sports games have offered, and in my opinion, every sports game should include. It’s truly baffling to me that modern-day sports games are released without something as fundamental as an “exhibition” mode, or more broadly, a pickup-and-play mode where you can quickly choose two teams and get into the action. Thankfully, Legend Bowl offers exactly that, with a selection of 32 available teams, loosely inspired by NFL teams. You can engage in matches against the computer, have two-player games, or even watch a computer-versus-computer match.
Even more relevant (to me), Legend Bowl lets you dive into “franchise” mode, a crucial element sorely absent from contemporary football games that rely on pay-for-packs models. Taking a page from the good ol’ times before the era of FUT, you choose a team and nurture it from the ground up. This involves making coaching and personnel decisions to steer the team towards championship glory.
A “tournament” mode is also present, pitting sixteen teams against each other in a single-elimination playoff with the ultimate goal of claiming victory. While it might seem like a standard feature for a football game, it’s surprisingly rare in the past twenty-five years of football games developed by EA. Additionally, a classic gaming feature, the practice mode, makes an appearance in Legend Bowl as the Training Camp mode. This mode is where you’ll want to invest some time to master the game’s mechanics, and your efforts will be rewarded with a more fulfilling experience in the long run. The game’s mechanics are well explained and tutorialized, and Training Camp gives you the perfect platform to experiment and refine your skills.
Make your own teams
The last two modes in the main menu are “Teams” and “Records.” In the “Teams” section, you have the ability to customize various aspects of the game, including player appearances, names, and even the colors of all the teams’ uniforms. A particularly interesting feature is the option to view a team photo of your current roster. Honestly, I must admit that this is the first time I’ve encountered such a feature in any football video game I’ve played, and it’s a fun little detail. The “Records” mode is where you can access statistics such as wins, losses, championships won, and more.
Attention to detail
Legend Bowl visually resembles the Tecmo Super Bowl series, which marked the second generation of football games. Tecmo developed that game for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and Super Nintendo between 1991 and 1995. However, Legend Bowl comes across as more contemporary, running at sixty frames per second and featuring some cool graphical enhancements and attention to detail. For instance, the Miami stadium is designed as a multipurpose facility, like the actual Hard Rock Stadium, or Joe Robbie stadium as it was called at that time. It even pays homage to the era when it doubled as a baseball stadium for the Miami Marlins. This level of attention to detail is truly impressive.
Blitz pacing
If you like the pacing of football games of the olden days, you will feel right at home here, too. In my opinion, Legend Bowl as the best game pacing I have seen since the late nineties NFL Blitz-era. Legend Bowl allows you to get into a rhythm and not feel rushed or feel like there is a rubber-band mechanic in play. Although in contrary to the aforementioned NFL Blitz, that did had this rubber band mechanic, to keep games close. So it features the quick smooth gameplay of Blitz with a more realistic flow of game control. Another testament that Legend Bowl can keep the arcady, yet simulation gameplay work without any artificial manipulation.
Labor of love
With all these features, modes, and customizations, it is quite a remarkable achievement to incorporate all of these elements into a game that appears like Tecmo Bowl on the surface. However, beneath the exterior, it performs like Madden in its earlier days, before being influenced by player pack mechanics. The game has matured gracefully, like a fine wine, having flown under the radar on Steam. It has now finally made its debut on consoles as a highly detailed wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The meticulous attention to detail in statistics and features is astonishing and on par with modern-day sports games, if not for the absence of licensing. Publisher Top Hat Studios adds yet another high-quality title to its already esteemed list of games, such as Frogun, Toodee and Topdee, and Sheepo. With NFL support, there’s no doubt that this game could have catapulted into the realm of mainstream gamers and media. However, for the time being, Legend Bowl will remain a game for connoisseurs of the sport itself, rather than for those interested in the faces on Panini cards.
Well done, King Javo. This demonstrates that when you got called out, like a true winner, you delivered.The meticulous attention to detail in statistics and features is astonishing and on par with modern-day sports games, if not for the absence of licensing. Legend Bowl is a game for connoisseurs of the sport itself, rather than for those interested in the faces on Panini cards.
