Famicom World - Taito Basketball

●

Taito Basketball

LAST UPDATED: 02/17/07

REVIEWED BY:

FamicomJL

"This is without a doubt one of the most frustrating sports games I've ever played

in all my years of Famicom gaming."

[No cartridge image available]

THE DATA

NAME

Taito Basketball

PLATFORM

Famicom

DEVELOPER

Sammy

PUBLISHER

Disco/Taito

PLAYERS

1-2 players

RELEASE DATE

1991

GENRE

Sport

SAVING OPTION

No

NES NTSC

No

NES PAL

No

THE RATINGS

STORYLINE

1/5

GRAPHICS

2.5/5

AUDIO

3/5

GAMEPLAY

1/5

CONTROL

1/5

FUN FACTOR

0/5

FRUSTRATION

5/5

OVERALL

1/5

THE REVIEW

For some reason, while basketball is not a very popular sport in Japan, a lot of good basketball games came from there. Exciting Basketball and Tecmo NBA Basketball come to mind. Now, let's see this on the other side of the spectrum, a game that is not only bad, but wasn't even released in the United States, or anywhere outside of Japan. That game is Taito Basketball, a bad game from what's typically a good company. But note, it was licensed from Sammy, so not developed by Taito.

STORYLINE 1/5

Um...it's basketball. Here's the storyline: one team tries to beat the other team.

GRAPHICS 2.5/5

The graphics are shoddy for a game developed in 1991. The players and the court don't look good at all. There are a lot of hunchbacked, faceless players running at a strange forward slant down the court. The only good graphics are when a player is about to dunk or shoot a three; that's when the screen sort of zooms in on one or two players to show the action up close. Other than that, simply nothing of note.

AUDIO 3/5

The sound effects and music present nothing good. The sound effects are lame for the dribbling and shooting, and don't even get me started on when the shot misses and is supposed to clank the rim...I mean, it's okay, but they could've tried harder to make it more realistic.

GAMEPLAY 1/5

Oh boy, where do I begin? From how your team is horrible at defending, can't shoot for shit, can't even pass the ball when a shot goes in to how you somehow commit offensive fouls when you not even touching the directional pad to how they steal the ball every time you dribble even for a second, just so plain, flat out ridiculous. It's almost a damn joke. The game pretty much plays itself, CPU vs. CPU all the time, anytime.

CONTROL 1/5

Uh, yeah, don't even bother. It's impossible. You won't be able to get ANYTHING done properly.

FUN FACTOR 0/5

Ladies and gentleman, the first "0" given to ANYTHING in the history of FW reviews. There's NOTHING fun in Taito Basketball. I'd have more fun playing Super Mario Bros. 3 with my tongue.

FRUSTRATION 5/5

At least this game can get a "5" somewhere, too bad it's in the worst possible place. The first quarter wasn't even done yet, I was losing 14 to 4, and I simply had to stop. This is without a doubt one of the most frustrating sports games I've ever played in all my years of Famicom gaming. Better yet, video game playing, PERIOD.

OVERALL 1/5

Don't even waste your time with Taito Basketball. Don't even waste your time with this trash. There are better basketball video games out there. Exciting Basketball, Tecmo NBA Basketball, hell, even Magic Johnson's Fast Break is better than this. Hell, the HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS game is better than this crap. Don't waste your time.

SCREENSHOTS

Taito Basketball (screenshot)

Site created by FamicomJL and maintained by JL and staff.