Collection essentials #229 & 230: NCAA Basketball and Super Dunk Shot (SNES)

Here’s another double feature, basically two versions of the same game from different regions.

One of these, the American release, “NCAA Basketball”, is a childhood game of mine, a “nostalgia entry” on this list, and the cartridge shown is my childhood copy. I believe I got it pre-owned at a long-defunct store called “Toy Liquidators” in Kittery, Maine while my family was on vacation. I remember the pre-owned SNES games coming in a special custom plastic case with a typed-out blurb about the game that must have been made by someone working at the store or something, which was pretty impressive considering the store could just easily take a used cart and throw it on the shelf naked for people to buy.

NCAA Basketball is, obviously, a college basketball game, featuring many prominent college teams from the era. I was sad to find out that my (future) alma mater’s team, the UMass Minutemen, were not included, so back in the day I resorted to playing as either the UConn Huskies or Boston College Eagles. 

The game utilizes “mode 7” graphics to rotate the play area during the game, which is pretty neat and helps the game stand out among many basketball games released during the era. The crowd is not visible on the screen, as all out-of-bounds area off the court is purely the color blue, since the system likely couldn’t handle too much extra action like that.

This game goes for more of a “simulation” style of basketball game rather than a fast-paced arcade-style game. So the action is a little slower and more deliberate. You have to pay attention to things like fouls and player fatigue, making substitutions during the game to maintain an advantage. And as you’d expect, you can play a full season and wind up in the big tournament to try and win the crown. I won it all back in the day playing as the UConn Huskies.

This is certainly an adequate basketball game, though there’s probably not much reason to revisit it in modern times. It’s another example of a game that wouldn’t have made this list had it not been one I owned and spent significant time with in my childhood.

Now, many years later, I came to find out that the Japanese release of this game, titled “Super Dunk Shot”, has the same gameplay, but with a completely different set of teams. And much to my delight, this game’s teams are all knockoffs of real-life NBA teams. So you get highly amusing teams like the one shown in the page of the instruction manual shown above, the “Boston Celeries” instead of the “Boston Celtics”. And you’ll see the names of real NBA players are slightly changed too, so players like Larry Bird and Kevin McHale are represented here as “Bard” and “McHal”. Oddly Robert Parish’s last name seems to be intact with its regular spelling. Considering this, I just had to own this version of the game. I love quirky obscure Japanese stuff like that.

Side note: the European release ALSO has its own completely unique set of fictional teams that are to my knowledge not based on anything, but I don’t find them particularly interesting or noteworthy.