Wayback Wednesday: NBA Live 98 SNES Was Strange
This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m reflecting on how NBA Live 98 for the SNES was rather strange.
The main reason that I love collecting basketball video games is that I get to check out titles that I didn’t play when they were new. Whether it was due to my preference for NBA Live, only owning Nintendo consoles, or releases that were North American exclusives, there are titles that I didn’t experience until decades later. Getting my hands on a PlayStation 3, utilising the backwards compatibility of my PlayStation 2, and picking up a converter cartridge for my Super Nintendo, have all gone a long way in being able to expand my collection, and try out some old games for the first time.
One of those games is NBA Live 98 for the Super Nintendo. NBA Live 98 SNES was, quite frankly, a notably strange release. The PC version made a major leap, and the PlayStation port was solid in its own right. I’ve discussed NBA Live 98 in-depth in my retrospective for the 25th Anniversary of NBA Live, but I want to revisit the SNES version to highlight just how strange it was. Anyone who bought NBA Live 98 on SNES undoubtedly got the weakest version of the game, yet it has some interesting points. Let’s take a look back…way back…
Simply put, I didn’t play NBA Live 98 on SNES back in the day because I couldn’t. I had a Super Nintendo, but unlike all the other versions of NBA Live 98, the SNES release was a North American exclusive. At the time, I didn’t have a converter to play NTSC and Super Famicom games, so I wasn’t in a position to import it. It would’ve also been difficult and likely quite expensive to order it in from the United States, even if I had the converter to play it on my console. In fact, I wasn’t even aware that NBA Live 98 had come out on SNES until many years later. It wasn’t talked about on the NLSC, and I don’t recall it ever being previewed in Nintendo Magazine System.
Honestly, the fact that a SNES version of NBA Live 98 was produced for any region is a strange notion. By 1997, the Super Nintendo had given way to the Nintendo 64, and major releases for the SNES were drastically slowing down. Granted, the final SNES releases in North America and PAL regions came in 1998, while Japan still saw some releases as late as 2000, but most developers were moving on as early as 1997. EA Sports released FIFA: Road to the World Cup 98 in September 1997, albeit exclusively in PAL regions owing to the sport’s popularity in Europe. With that in mind, it made sense that they released NBA Live 98 exclusively in North America.
Mind you, they outsourced development to Tiertex, and publishing to THQ. To that end, it’s strange to see their logos in the game, considering that EA traditionally both developed and published NBA Live, as they did with their other annual sports titles. It’s not altogether surprising, of course. The SNES version was clearly an afterthought compared to the releases for other platforms. Cynically, one could suggest that it was an attempt to get some extra sales, though it could also be seen as throwing a bone to gamers who were still stuck with 16-bit consoles; or maybe, a bit of both. Notably, THQ were also involved with the SNES versions of Madden 98 and NHL 98.
In all fairness, the developers tried to give 16-bit gamers a solid release, but it was obviously an uphill battle. Although I’ve been referring almost exclusively to the SNES version thus far, NBA Live 98 was also released for the Sega Genesis. Both consoles were tapped out by that point though, so in many respects, it was NBA Live 97 with a roster update. The 16-bit version of NBA Live 98 even shares music and art assets with NBA Live 97, which stands out from the memorable new soundtrack and frontend design seen on other platforms. It was also hampered by an extremely early release date, which didn’t allow the game to be properly updated for the 1998 season.
Wikipedia lists June 17th, 1997 as the release date for the SNES version of NBA Live 98, and July 1st for the Sega Genesis. I believe that both are mistaken. June 17th is far too early, coming just days after the 1997 NBA Finals, and before the 1997 Draft. This is impossible, as the 16-bit version does include Class of 1997 Draftees, as well as some other offseason moves such as Chris Mullin being traded to Indiana. Other sites list December 1997 for Genesis and March 1998 for SNES. According to The Cutting Room Floor, the Genesis version features a compile date from October 1997. However, the roster cut-off date was definitely set much, much earlier than that.
Something you’ll notice about the rosters in the 16-bit version of NBA Live 98 is how many Roster Players have been used. While Charles Barkley made his first official appearance in the series, Michael Jordan was unsurprisingly replaced once again. He’s not alone, though. Bill Wennington, who hadn’t yet re-signed when the rosters were finalised, is also a Roster Player. The Celtics are missing lottery picks Chauncey Billups and Ron Mercer, and a few other teams also feature placeholders in order to field a 12-man lineup. It’s easily one of the most incomplete games in the NBA Live series when it comes to its rosters, again suggesting an extremely early cut-off date.
Naturally, the SNES and Genesis versions of NBA Live 98 can’t match the visual quality seen on PC, PlayStation, and Saturn. On the other hand, they had some content that you won’t find in those other versions. There’s an All-Time Records screen that tracks your highest statistical marks, as well as your lifetime shooting percentages. There were also team and individual player Practice modes, though they were spun off of the 2v2 and 3v3 modes from NBA Live 97. As such, they had a customisable maximum score that would end the practice session once you reached it. The 2v2 and 3v3 modes were also retained, though they’re tucked away inside the Practice menu.
Speaking of menus, it also had one of the strangest – and frankly, worst – frontends in the entire series. The aesthetics were fine, and about as good as you could expect from the 16-bit era. It’s the navigation that’s unusual. Rather than listing the options in the middle of the screen as usual, they’re displayed on a ribbon running along the bottom. Pressing left or right moved the ribbon in that direction, rather than the highlighted option as you’d expect. In other words, if you pressed right, the ribbon moved right and the option to the left of your previous selection would be highlighted, and vice versa. You can get used to it, but it’s an extremely contrived approach to say the least.
Unsurprisingly, the graphics and gameplay were essentially the same as NBA Live 97, which itself wasn’t too different from NBA Live 95 and NBA Live 96 aside from a few new animations, and slightly larger player models. Although the team logos were updated for the 1998 season, there were some strange errors with jersey colours. Obviously they were limited in what they could do with 16-bit graphics, but the Nets’ new uniforms were closer to black than navy. Ironically, the Jazz’s jerseys would’ve been more fitting as they were navy with red trim; an error left over from NBA Live 97 SNES. In any case, the colour palette should’ve allowed for a little more accuracy.
Needless to say, much of the strangeness for me simply comes from NBA Live 98 on Super Nintendo being a game I never knew about back in the 90s, owing to it being a North American exclusive. The similarities with NBA Live 97, right down to reusing the soundtrack, are also bizarre in how they feel simultaneously familiar and foreign. I’m not a fan of writing a game off as a re-skinned version of its predecessor, as code rewrites are still necessary, and that takes time and effort. With that being said and as unfair as it may be, of all the annual releases I’ve played, it does feel the most like a re-release of its predecessor, albeit with a few cosmetic changes and roster updates.
Throw in the abundance of Roster Players due to the earlier cut-off date, incorrect jersey colours, an awkward revamping of the menu navigation, and a makeshift practice mode with a points limit, and it’s one of the strangest releases in the NBA Live series. At the same time, I respect that it was made. As I said, we can cynically suggest that it was done just to eke out some extra sales from gamers who hadn’t yet upgraded to a new console, and there’s likely some truth to that. After all, there’s a business side to game development. However, it also gave basketball gamers with old consoles one last NBA Live title. While dated, it’s still as playable as its predecessors.
As far as video game roster trivia is concerned, it also means that a few unexpected players made official appearances in a 16-bit game, namely Class of 1997 alumni such as Tim Duncan and Bobby Jackson. In Duncan’s case, it means that he was an active player across five generations of consoles. He’s the only player drafted in 1997 to hold that distinction, though he shares it with five other players who entered the NBA before him, namely Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Derek Fisher, Steve Nash, and Ray Allen. To put that longevity into perspective, their first video game appearances came on consoles that also had titles featuring Larry Bird as an active player!
Releasing a game for a superseded platform isn’t that unusual. Indeed, we’re still seeing releases for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A regional exclusive that heavily borrows assets from the previous season’s release isn’t as common, and again, the sheer number of Roster Players and unorthodox approaches to its menus and practice mode also makes the Super Nintendo version of NBA Live 98 stand out as being abnormal. It does make it an interesting game to revisit though, with its fair share of trivia. All the same, I imagine gamers who ended up with the SNES version were envious of the leaps made on other platforms, primitive though they may now seem.
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