What happened?!
Sega Genesis
Released in 1996 by EA Sports
Grade: B
To be fair, a lot of people think the series lost its way with NHL 96, but I love NHL 96. If you ask me, NHL 97 is where the glory days of 16-bit hockey ended.
That said, this game isn’t bad. It’s not all that different from NHL 96. The problem is that the few things that are different really detract from the classic raw fun of EA hockey.
Where it falls in the series
It’s the sixth of seven EA hockey games on Genesis. (Forget the SNES versions; the Genesis versions are consistently better.) The 97 edition was the first on Playstation, although it’s nothing like the 16-bit games and it happens to really suck. The prime of the Genesis run was NHL ’94, NHL 95, and NHL 96.
Praises
It’s still EA hockey, and if you got sent to an island for the rest of time with only a few video games, and you had this and, say, Mario Lemieux Hockey for your retro hockey fix, you’d still play the hell out of this.
It’s got simple controls, a feeling that you’re on ice, lively action, and tough AI.
The graphics are very effective and easy on the eyes. It’s got the same darkened look that NHL 96 has. If you looked at screenshots of the two games, it would be hard to tell the difference.
There’s a practice mode, where you can play 2-on-2, 2-on-1, 2-on-0, 1-on-1, and 1-on-0, with goalies. The 2-on-2 mode is pretty fun.
Gripes
The player motions are just not the same. The game feels too fast for the control, which lacks the responsiveness of earlier versions. Players drift left when you’re trying to go right. Stopping takes a moment too long. You end up rubbing against defenders, with both players in a momentary state of drifting before they regain their balance.
The stout defensive AI from NHL 96 is loosened up a bit, and it’s unfortunately countered by offensive AI teammates that don’t get into the right positions very often.
Scoring can be tough because your teammates don’t set up for those golden one-timers. With such low scoring, you may be tempted to ramp up to 20-minute periods (with the fast clock) to get realistic final scores, but the problem is that you won’t really enjoy the game for that long at a time.