SNES Game Review: NHL 95

 NHL 95 was the third installment of EA Sports NHL gaming franchise on the SNES, the second with the NHL only name before the year (The first installment again was NHLPA Hockey 93.)  NHL 95 mainly just builds off what NHL 94 makes and paves the way for NHL 96 to be the top game that it was.  You could argue from NHL 94-98 on the SNES was one of the best group of video games you could have ever.  What does NHL 95 do well? Let's look below!

Positives:

1. Fast paced: This continues to get better from NHL 94 to 95 and 96 improves on it from 95 as well.  This game is fast paced but controlled and something that the casual gamer will enjoy and make them feel good about playing with this game. 

2. Everything is improved: This seems to be a common theme up to NHL 97.  NHL 94 does everything better in a large scope than NHLPA Hockey 93, and NHL 95 improves on NHL 94, and so on.  Everything is more crisp, from graphics to gameplay, to shooting and defense as well.  You will notice these differences year over year for the first four games.  Obviously they made more efforts with NHL 97 and 98 going to the PS1 to do much with the Super Nintendo versions.

3. Frame rate: Yes this is improved but good as well as they did very well to get this game up to kind of the typical frame rate for NHL games.  I was impressed with how fluid and crisp the game was for this third year on the NHL franchise but it just proves the lasting power of this franchise on the Super Nintendo really overall.

4. Transactions: This is really important as this wasn't even happening on Madden 95.  The ability to sign, trade and release was important at this time and if you didn't have this you were a middling game at best even with phenomenal gameplay.  NHL 95 has this and overall it makes it very realistic for its time.

5. Presentation: There isn't an NHL on FOX presentation like NHL 96, but the presentation is still really good nonetheless.  It's something that when you see the above camera as you play and go through the game that you do well with overall and it is something that EA continued to do well with later on.

Negatives:

1. There is one negative, and it was the scoring here.  It seemed almost too difficult to score in this game.  A lot of games were 1-0, 2-1 at most times and it only ever got out of hand if there was an empty net goal.  I felt that this was a detriment but again, it's something they improve on for NHL 96 to make it a perfect sports game and game for EA Sports.

Overall rating/Rank:

There is no question that NHL 95 is a great game overall.  People might play this on the Genesis due to the graphics of the system and there is no denying how much better that system is on graphics.  I think the Super Nintendo versions are still great and they do well for graphics as they are.  If I were to rate this game, it gets a solid 9.3 out of 10.  It's overall rank: Yes it's a top 100 game, it's later half but just barely.  I would rate it 54th overall.