Madden NFL 97 was the first of the Madden games to make the switch from SNES to PS1 but also had a game for the SNES, with Madden 98 following in its footsteps. They had planned to make a Madden NFL 96 PS1 game, however that was scrubbed as it was really bad in testing. This was the first full game on the PS1 for the Madden series, and I will talk about the SNES version and the PS1 version but also rate them both at the end!
SNES Version
Positives:
1. Transactions: Finally this comes for the forefront. This took way too late to be honest in the SNES era but better late than never I guess. Now you can sign, trade, release players all you want there and it is something that was needed before this but glad to have seen it towards the end of the SNES era.
2. Improved offense: No longer is the line of scrimmage just a quagmire and full of people every time you throw the ball. The improved engine in the game by Tiburon makes for offense to be better and overall just more realistic.
3. Better graphics: Yes this is thanks to Tiburon as well but the graphics are better and overall with better fluidity through the game process.
Negatives:
1. Easy AI: Yeah this is a running joke tbh. It is way too easy to win on this game even on high difficulty. It's unbelievably easy and that is something that I find a bit baffling for a game of Madden's stature.
2. Running Game: It's still wonky but something that is baffling after doing well for a couple games with the running game. It's a bit wonky in this one but something that makes it a downgrade from the previous games.
PS1 Version
Positives:
1. Smooth transition: The introduction into the 32-bit reality world of the PS1 actually did well after the massively failed near release of Madden 96 on PS1. That led to the Madden 97 Game being the top selling game of 1996 on the PS1. Easily put, if they put Madden 96 out there with how bad it was in testing, then this game and series is easily not good going forward.
2. Defense: I felt finally in control of a defensive strategy for once. Madden's NFL Series on SNES were good for defense but it really wasn't hard due to the difficulty being easy even on the hardest modes. With this I felt I had to adjust when the other offense was doing well.
3. Realism: It felt more real. The stadiums were mostly accurate for the time, the stats are really good, good transactions menu as well. That includes the presentation of James Brown in a pre-game sort of booth previewing the week and John Madden and Pat Summerall previewing something about the game. Everything was really good overall in terms of realism from just the next gen style.
Negatives:
1. Player sprites: This annoys me even with Madden NFL 98, and that is that EA Sports didn't go with 3D football player models until the Madden 99 game. It still almost is just a better SNES version of these players. I was more or less annoyed because a LOT of other games, whether sports or RPG's had 3D models of characters even when they started so it wouldn't have been hard.
2. Offense: Yeah it is a major struggle to pass the ball and there are a few plays that works but overall you learn really quick the plays for passing that work and have to essentially cheese those. For running it is the same way, only really a few plays will work and you know those as well to cheese it.
3. Difficulty: Again, even on the highest difficulty it is still super easy to win games. It's honestly a joke that the SNES and PS1 games are easy to win.
Overall Rating/Rank:
For the PS1, you got some of the ways forward with this game that they were trying to accomplish and it is not hard to state the impact the game being so well selling did for the franchises future, even when lined up against NFL Gameday and later on the ESPN 2K series. However, this honestly is just an above average game with some good qualities on the PS1, for a rating of 6.5 out of 10.
For the SNES, it's probably the 2nd best of the Madden games (Madden 98 on the SNES was essentially the same game and if I rate it/play it on SNES, it would be one below Madden 97 to be honest) but it still has a lot of flaws overall for this series. I can't rate it higher than Madden NFL 95, and I would say it's probably around 260th of the games on the SNES.
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