SNES Game Review: Madden NFL 96

There was a time that Madden wasn't the best video game for football on the market, or really the only game on the market.  Way back when, say oh the 90's, there were a LOT of video games for Sega and the system that I have, the SNES.  That also went to Playstation and PS2 for some extent but primarily going to focus on the SNES, as you can clearly see the title of the review.  This is technically the fourth of six games for the SNES that deals with the Madden series (John Madden Football, followed up with Madden's 94-98.)  That in mind, the games did have it's share of partners with EA Sports in their endeavors.  This was with Visual Concepts.  To put this modestly, it has a lot of ups and downs.  So how does this game turn out?  Let's see below.

Positives:
1. The running game is powerful enough to get to the Super Bowl for you in this game.  Yes, there's a specific reason and yes I will highlight it below.  But the running game is good for you in this facet.
2. At the end of games, you get to see a highlight of a different game if you want, with the exception of the playoffs.  It's kinda neat that they have that sorta game break in there kind of like the FOX Sports thing in real life.
3. More features than most games around this time.  It has sign a player (free agency sort of), trade players, create a player, combine (sort of) and more.  It is only combined with Tecmo Super Bowl III about the features that come along for the games.
4. The playbook is expansive, yet simple to understand.  There isn't terminology that is overtly confusing and the diagram essentially helps the player out.

Negatives:
1. The passing game is awful, minus screen plays, so you have to rely on the running game.  This really isn't fixed on Madden 97 either as I play it now.  It's an honest shame that they didn't get this sorted at the time or the game would be miles better.
2. Anytime you throw a pass and it isn't completed, you have a quagmire of players in a mess so this was something that hampered the game.  Also about every other pass is batted down at the line of scrimmage.
3.  Realism of game is very shoddy.  The Cardinals didn't do better than 8-8 at this time, but they were in the divisional playoffs.  The Packers easily can win the Super Bowl.  So yeah, it's not a very realistic game in terms of difficulty.
4.  You can get by on about 4-5 defensive plays.. in a season.  Yeah.. that's not really a great thing so another negative.

In all, this game is at best average, at worst below average.  It isn't terrible, but in all honesty, the three Tecmo games are better in addition to at least 2-3 other games, including both NFL QB Club games.  There are some things to like but not enough to give it a good/great rating.

Final rating: 5.5/10.  If I threw a number out there overall, 400th would make sense.