 Psstt c business. Hi there, in this video I'll be going over every single basketball game for the Super Nintendo and Super Famicom. I've done similar videos for Hockey, Baseball, Pro Wrestling and American Football and just like I said at the beginning of those videos I'll mention again quickly that back in the day when these games first came out, the most important thing to me as a basketball fan was having real teams, real players and seasoned stats but now are any of these games worth playing today? There's 28 games total, so let's get started in alphabetical order, and there's not going to be a ton of detail here, just a quick go over. We start, unfortunately, with Barkley Shut Up and Jam, known as Barkley Power Dunk in Japan. Hey, if you're looking for a dollar store version of NBA Jam with way less personality, then you've found it. The game controls exactly like NBA Jam, complete with a turbo meter and high-flying dunks, but there's flaws at plenty here, like the camera being too slow to keep up with the action, and how seemingly nobody in this game can shoot. This game really isn't that bad, but I can't think of a single reason why anyone would want to play this instead of NBA Jam. Next is, oh no, do I really have to go over Bill Lambeer's Combat Basketball again? I already did a full video on this game, it's one of my most hated ever, and please believe me when I say it's one of the worst games of the 16-bit era. Shooting is a crap shoot, passing hardly even exists, since you just throw the ball wherever without walking onto a player. It's just really, really bad, I need to move on before I have a meltdown. Next is EA Sports Bulls vs. Blazers and the NBA Playoffs, the continuation of EA's basketball franchise which started on Sega Genesis with Lakers vs. Celtics. There's only 18 teams here, including two All-Star teams, and while this game lays a solid foundation for the series, Bulls vs. Blazers in particular has not aged well. The framerate sucks, so the game plays very slowly, so it takes a long time to get a proper feel for shooting. You can probably avoid this game. EA tried again with the same format the next year, this time changing the name to simply NBA Showdown. This is definitely better than Bulls vs. Blazers as the framerate picks up, and the game is a little faster, but shooting still feels like a crap shoot, and you never really feel like you're in control of the game, stuff just sort of happens whether you do anything or not. It's kind of a disappointment. And since I'm here I might as well get into the continuation of the series which EA renamed to NBA Live starting with NBA Live 95. This is an NBA Live game every year through 1998. You can see obviously they switch the perspective to an isometric viewpoint. It works, but it can be frustrating to navigate. Simply passing the ball can be pretty tough. It's still very much playable and pretty accessible today though. It's pretty easy to get the timing down on shooting for a change. There's also full seasons, season stats, real teams, real players, and all sorts of additional options. One issue I have with these games though is that it takes forever to get through a game. Maybe it takes like 45 minutes to an hour to get through a regulation length game. So you're going to want to crank the quarter length way down. The gameplay is more or less exactly the same for all four games, so it's hard to recommend one particular game. I should mention that the 95, 96, and 97 editions support up to five players and the 98 version does not. I should also point out that none of these games feature Michael Jordan as a player due to licensing issues. Instead he's featured as a generic roster player number or whatever. Same for Charles Barkley, who doesn't show up until the 98 version on the Rockets. But yeah, you can't go wrong with any of these four games. The one I spent the most time with was NBA Live 96, so I can vouch for that one myself. So yeah, if you're looking to relive 90s NBA and play as guys like Sean Rooks, Sam Mitchell, and Tom Gugliata, then NBA Live is what you're looking for. College Slam is another game that supports up to four players and that might be about the only thing going for it because once again this is just an NBA Jam clone except with college teams. And I mean literally the same sprites, graphics, the announcer, everything is ripped straight from NBA Jam. I guess if you want to play as your alma mater or your favorite college squad then this game would be worth it. And I do like the touch of being able to pick from five anonymous dudes to make up your team. But still, why bother with this when you can just play NBA Jam? Next we have three games that are only available in Japan on Super Famicom. First is Dear Boys, a story driven basketball game involving dating and other stuff I guess, based on a manga from around the same time frame. There is a straight ahead exhibition basketball game mode though. And yeah, this is pretty freaking confusing. There's no English patch that I could find. But even still, the gameplay is so odd that I'm not even sure that would help. I just wanted to point this game out. Then there's Dream Basketball Duncan Hoop. Now, this is a little more like it. No real teams or players here, but the gameplay is well done. Use the L and R buttons to switch who you want to pass to, which I really like and it doesn't take long to get the hang of shooting. The game is very forgiving when you're near the basket too. This kind of reminds me of Dynamic Stadium, a surprisingly good baseball game that's also only for Super Famicom. You might consider this the basketball version of that game because this is a quality title and it can also support up to five players. Next, there's the From TV animation slam dunk series. Four games that are all the same kind of game as Dear Boys. There's a lot of strategy here from varied zone defenses to organizing given go plays to picking your players and substituting. All of this is too hard to do without an English patch and the action again here is predicated on these weird cutscenes anyway. So there's no flow to the gameplay. I just wanted to make sure these games were mentioned. Next, we're back in North America with Jamet. So they wanted the title to allude to the word damn it. Yeah, that's what passed for edgy back then. Anyway, this is the same people that brought you Street Hockey 95. And as lousy as that game was, I'd much rather play that than Jamet. This is awful. The characters move like they're in Pit Fighter and shooting is so, so awkward. Avoid this game. It's probably one of the worst on the system. Thankfully, Looney Tunes B-Ball is one of the better games on this list and one of the better licensed games on the Super Nintendo. This is an arcade style two and two type game, not as ruthless as NBA Jam, but it's still pretty fun. You can collect these gems on the court so you can later buy power ups you can use during the game like a pie you can throw. Hey, it is Looney Tunes. What'd you expect? Anyway, this game is a lot of fun and I had no idea Elmer Fudd could shoot from downtown like this. NBA All-Star Challenge sounds like a cool idea. It features 28 real NBA players with several game modes, including course, a three point contest and a one on one tournament. But yeah, that's right. There's no team games here. It's all one on one stuff that does sound like a neat idea. But unfortunately, this game is lousy for one thing. You have to press the button twice to shoot wants to jump and wants to let go of the ball. Come on. Every other game as you hold the button, this is a bunch of crap. Also, the sense of depth here is completely off kilter and unpredictable. It's impossible to tell where the ball is headed out of rebound. I'd avoid this game. Then there's NBA Given Go developed by Konami. Now, this is how you do a game from this perspective. There's a much clearer sense of depth and the gameplay is much smoother as a result. This is one of the best games on this list and I feel like it's been forgotten a bit over the years. There's a lot of gameplay modes and the pace of play is excellent. You can get a full game in in less than 20 minutes. This doesn't quite have the same kind of quote-unquote realistic feel of NBA Live and it doesn't have all the stats those games have. But I think I'd still rather play Given Go if I wanted a five-on-five basketball game on the SNES. Now we get into by far the best basketball games of the 16-bit era, the NBA Jam series. There's NBA Jam, NBA Tournament Edition and later there's NBA Hangtime, which is a bit of an updated version with a little more true-to-life graphics. Well, true to life as you could get in 1996 on console. Anyway, I already did a video on these games. They're the best because they're so easy to pick up and play and you don't even have to like basketball to enjoy insane dunks like this. Hell, the announcer phrases from these games are still used all the time today. These games are just timeless. You can't go wrong with any of the three, but my personal favorite is NBA Jam Tournament Edition because of all the extra codes and passwords to unlock extra characters. NCAA Basketball is a childhood favorite of mine, so I have a tough time being objective about this one. As you can see, the Mode 7 perspective here adjusts as the ball moves, the same as NHL Stanley Cup, but it's utilized much better here because it's not as jittery. I know the blue background is weird, like they're playing on some kind of astral plane or something, but I get why they did it, and it's really not that distracting. This is one of those games you learn to love, but I can objectively recommend it. It does at least have real colleges, plus there's little idiosyncrasies here that I love like this Davidson guy who cannot miss. Still, I have to admit, you're better off looking elsewhere. Next is NCAA Final Four Basketball, the first game of the Final Four series that ended up being the go-to college basketball game on the PS1 and PS2. This is the only one to appear on Super Nintendo or Genesis, and that's a good thing because this game isn't very good. This is one of those goofy games where they tried to shoehorn the action into these cumbersome preset animations. The game looks smooth, but it definitely does not play that way. Too bad, too, because there's a ton of real college teams here, but I avoid this game. Next, we have Rap Jam Volume 1, yet another attempt to capture everyday pickup basketball on the street in video game form. And again, this one fails. This one's at least notable because it features 90s musicians like Kulio, Warren G, and Naughty by Nature, so that's pretty funny. Otherwise, this is just yet another one-on-one style game that gets real stale after about two minutes. Super Dunk Star is a Japan-only game that's pretty amusing if only because of the random usage of 1970s players like Gale Goodrich and Pete Marovitch. The made-up teams are pretty funny, too, like the New York Yellow Cabs. But yeah, this game sucks. Stuff just sort of happens and you seemingly do very little to influence it. It's a good case of the game playing you instead of the other way around. Next is Magic Johnson's Super Slam Dunk, and this is one of the worst games I can remember playing. Worse than Jammit. When you think of player-licensed sports games that are slapped together in the most half-assed way possible, this is your go-to example. The perspective rotation is disorienting, the action is slow and plodding, every single jump shot is blocked, and the announcer is consistently like five seconds behind, like he's on tape delay or something. Avoid this game. He put up a 20-footer. We have another Japan-only Super Famicom game, the Tsubasu Yarosho 3-on-3 Basketball. This is the Japanese attempt at capturing the street pickup basketball sort of thing, and again, the basic basketball physics here just aren't very good. And not only that, but to shoot, you press B to jump and A to let go of the ball. That's just awful. Avoid this game. Last, we have Tecmo Super NBA Basketball. This game is pretty good. It's got the classic Tecmo presentation you're probably used to from Tecmo Super Bowl. The basketball physics engine here is reliable, even if the ball seemingly behaves like a Nerf ball. It is at least consistent and predictable, and you get a good sense of the pacing and speed of this game very quickly. This is one of the better SNES basketball games for sure. All right, so that's every basketball game on Super Nintendo. If I were to rank the five best, number five would be Looney Tunes B-Ball. Number four would be Dream Basketball Duncan Hoop for Super Famicom. Number three would be the NBA Live Series. If I were to pick one, it'd be NBA Live 96. Number two would be NBA Give and Go. And number one would, of course, be NBA Jam, particularly NBA Jam Tournament Edition. And that's all for now. Thanks for watching, and have a great rest of your day.