Tecmo Bowl (Arcade)

Tecmo Bowl
Developer: Tecmo Publisher: Tecmo Platform: Arcade (Custom) Released internationally: December 1987 This game has hidden developer credits. This game has regional differences.

Tecmo Bowl is the dual-monitor, 4-player Arcade version of the NES classic. Now featuring none of your favorite teams and players!

Easter Egg

Tecmo Bowl's credits screen has one of the most ridiculously convoluted access methods ever.

1. First, all 4 Players need to hold Down (easier to do on an emulator, obviously) and insert a credit before the football on the title screen reaches the end of the screen. The easiest way to do this is to wait for the first high score screen to leave, press any button, then wait for the second high score screen to go away. Holding Down and immediately inserting a credit should work...but the timing for this is still extremely tight.
2. Next, one player has to get a high score. On the high score entry screen, enter the first two letters of one of the following names: H!K, or, T!C. Move the cursor over to the third letter but do not enter the letter! You have to wait for the time to run out on the high score screen for this to work. Told you this was convoluted.
3. Finally, Player 4 must hold Button 1 and Button 2 before the title screen appears. The credits screen should follow.

If you want to skip Steps 1 and 2 (understandable), put this cheat in MAME's tbowl.xml cheat file:

  <cheat desc="Enable Credits">
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.mw@39DD=0220</action>
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>maincpu.mw@39DD=0228</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Regional Differences

INT	JP

Player 1, "Larry" is known as "Ken" in the Japanese set, probably due to the whole L/R thing.

(Source: Original TCRF research)