379 · Ultimate Basketball
In Ultimate Basketball, the player can choose one of seven fictional teams that each have different skills such as having tight defense or a phenomenal passing game. Each team also has their own players who are given ratings on their quickness, shooting and defensive ability.
Ultimate Basketball is about as close as we have come to a box back that is just the title again. It says "It's the ultimate," then "This is it." We wondered if it would be the definitive basketball game or an extreme version with new rules, like Ultimate Frisbee. It is just basketball, with made-up teams. Mike, Sean and Joe were on this one.
What works
- Shooting. Press the button once to jump and again to release, and the closer you are to the top of the jump, the better the shot. It feels more modern than the other basketball games we have played, and it was the one part of the game we had no notes on.
- The dunk cutscenes. They are smoother than the slideshow dunk in Double Dribble, and you can take part in a dunk or a block by hitting a small glowing section of a meter. The manual's pitch for the three-pointer and free throw cutscenes is to sit back and enjoy the show.
- The team names. The Detroit Unions have two fists on their logo and were the team we played as. The Houston Comets at least make sense, and the New York Powers sent us on an inflatable-rat tangent.
- A bright game. It is colorful, and the cutscenes break up the monotony.
What doesn't
- The computer cheats. There is no steal button and you can't pick off a pass, but the computer picks off our inbound throws and steals the ball constantly. On one inbound pass Mike rewound with an emulator several times and still could not find a man open before the ball was gone.
- Violations everywhere. We got called for charging just for walking into somebody. Foul out enough players and you can be left with three on the court.
- Dunks eat inputs. Sometimes the meter ignores your button press and you don't get the dunk.
- A tournament with nothing in it. It is a string of exhibitions with the same reward. With no real teams, you can't have a Mets-Yankees dream matchup.
- The team select screen. Left and right move you to the next team on a list, not the team in that direction, and Joe said it is worse than the Sesame Street one.
Beyond the game
Acom made it, along with Omegon and Ashton X, and also an Ultimate Football that became Football Fury on the Super Nintendo. We could not confirm if this is the last basketball game on the NES.
The bottom line
Skip it. All three of us voted no on the Essential Games List. Mike didn't enjoy playing the computer and wouldn't seek it out with a friend either. Sean said the ingredients are right and the cooking time is off. Joe felt like it was a chore, and a step back from what he remembers of the earlier basketball games.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Ultimate Basketball. It's the ultimate.
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. And I think this might be the time that we've gotten the closest to the back of the box just being the title again. It even, it's, so if you read the whole back of the box, the front of the box says Ultimate Basketball. Then the back says in big red letters, it's the ultimate. And then it follows it up with, this is it. And like, it is bolded. It's like, you haven't said anything yet. I feel like it's saying like, this is it. Like, this is all we're going to write. Right.
That's it. It's just Ultimate Basketball. It's so when I hear Ultimate Basketball, you can interpret that two ways, right? This is either the definitive version of basketball or it's like the extreme sports version of basketball. And it's like, it's basketball, but with all new rules that make it even more exciting. Like Ultimate Frisbee. Right, right, right. Exactly. And it's neither of those. It's actually just, it reveals itself to be just basketball. But, is this not the last basketball game we get on the NES? That cannot be true. Yeah. Huh? I don't know that. Do you know that? I thought when I was like researching this, I read this. But let me double check. Let me double check. Because if so, Ultimate Basketball, the final basketball.
Yeah, I mean, it could be true. Final Basketball would be pretty cool too. Yeah, Final Basketball 7. Or just, you know, there was some in-universe reason for it to be like, this is the last tournament before they ban basketball. Can it really be Ultimate Basketball if it doesn't even have real teams? I mean, if the teams are better than normal teams. Oh, right. So if everybody's stats are 99 in this game? Yeah. Yeah, like if you just had like only Hall of Fame teams throughout. But, I mean, you got some pretty cool team names here while we're waiting for Joe to confirm or deny. Yeah, I'm not sure I'm ever going to be able to. But, yeah, it does. All right. So just on this random website.
Random. These aren't even in order properly. It's somebody's Facebook page. Yeah. I just made this website real quick. Is it in alphabetical order, Joe? No. Okay. Yes, it is actually. Absolutely. But there's no like W or Z basketball. Wow. That's a good sign. I'm glad we got there. Yeah. I'm glad we got there. The question's been answered. So before we get into basketball, I just wanted to go over. Because I have a favorite team. I don't know if you guys have a favorite team. But I can imagine you can guess my favorite team. The Detroit Unions?
Yeah. Yes. Man, that was easy. The naming conventions of all the team names here are just so strange. Yeah. I love the Detroit Unions also. And I played as them. Yeah. You have to. Because you got the Detroit Wolves. You got the San Diego Dolphins.
You got the Dallas Fighters. You got the Houston Comets. Finally, we're somewhere that that kind of makes sense. You know, Houston Space Program stuff. But wait. Los Angeles Eagles. I don't know about that. New York Powers. Is that like the powers that be? And then you got Detroit Unions. It's like, oh, what do you think? Well, they got unions. They got trade unionists. It's such a sexy name, unions. Not the unionists. Yeah. I love it. It's great. Love the fists. There's two fists. Fist teams. The other one's the powers.
Yeah. The New York should have had the, you know, like the opposite of the unions where it's like. Kind of is. When they put that inflatable rat in front of the buildings. You're like, these people don't support unions. Like, these people are rats. It should have been that. The New York rats. The New York scabs. Yeah. I think you're right. Yeah. The New York powers. Powers. Um, I was like powers that be. That's a, there's something there. That would be.
That's actually beyond the pale. You can't have that be a team name. Okay. Uh, yeah. So moving on. Um, yeah, it's basketball and it controls like basketball and there's really, it's not too many surprises, but I guess the surprise, if there, if there could be one in the control scheme is that you have to press the shoot button twice to shoot the ball. So you have to press it once to kind of lift off the air, otherwise known as a jump. And then you have to press the button again to release the ball from your hands, otherwise known as a shot.
And that will like, is there some science to that of like a sweet spot of like, yeah, I'm further back. I need to jump higher to shoot. No, I mean to the basket. So this is, this is the way that modern basketball games work. Like you, you press the button to start the shot and then you try and get it close to the apex of the jump as possible.
And that window shrinks or gets larger depending on how good of a basketball player that guy is, um, uh, how far away from the net you are. And so, so yeah, this, this feels like all of the basketball games we've played this, this actually feels more modern than most. Uh, but there's no stealing button. Yeah. It's weird, right? Yeah. I thought that I must've been missing that.
No, you have to just hover by the guy for like two seconds and then you'll steal the ball. And you could be good at that, but you know, who's really good at that? The goddamn computer. The computer, the computer's really good at, at stealing the ball. The computer's actually really good at almost everything. And I don't know if you've got a level one. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But I don't know if you experienced this, but like even just throwing like an inbound throw after they score, like I was having one time I like legitimately using emulation, rewinding a few times, couldn't find a man open before they would steal the ball. And it was like, what the hell is going on with the computer? Yeah. That happened to me almost every time.
I just felt like- They have capabilities that you do not. Because I, you know, I did the exact same thing as you, where I would be on the other end of this and be the, I would be defending the inbound and standing pretty much in the same place that the computer would on, on my end of the court. And they can just like pick it out of the air. And I, you can't pick it out of the air. Like you can't intercept a pass.
And Joe, you're saying you have, you just like had that happen often. I feel like, I mean, I thought you guys are validating me a little bit here because I thought that I was just really bad at this game. Like I am with most basketball games or most of these sports games in general, but I was just like, what is, what am I not getting here? Where like the computer can do all this stuff and I can't, I can't figure out how to do any of it. I felt like, I felt like most of, most of my experience was just the computer scoring. Like over and over in like an animation.
Maybe, maybe ultimate basketball is just, you know, with AI and robots and computers, you know, maybe we don't, maybe humans aren't part of, right. Humans aren't part of ultimate basketball. Yeah. Now on the other end, just trying to navigate around, like if you do like keep possession of the ball out of your own court or your own half of the court, uh, you'll just get charged with charging or, or sometimes they'll, they'll get pushing. But it's, if you, if you like walk into somebody at all, which happens a lot in basketball,
uh, you will just get charged with charging. It's, and then there's a turnover. It's weird. How that happened to you guys. Oh yeah. There's plenty of ways to get violations. And, uh, you know, after a certain amount of fouls, uh, you'll just like, you'll lose your players. And apparently it's possible to not even like, like to lose enough of your players so that you can't even field a team of five. Like you'll, you'll only have three guys on the court. Which is the minimum. Yeah. Hey, they got that. That's a pretty like obscure rule to, to, to get in the game. Well, because you, you do have a bench too, where you can make substitutions. So you have to lose a healthy amount of players to get down to that.
That's true. Uh, but yeah, I mean like, you know, all that stuff, you know, helps reinforce at least this other idea of what ultimate basketball could be. Um, but, but still like, not that it needs the NBA license or anything to be a valid basketball game. Not that the computer needs to be a cakewalk because you have the two player option. You have the ability to play with friends.
So like technically if, even if me and Joe both sucked at the game enough, well, we'd now be playing against each other who suck. And that's like most people's experience with NBA jam is just two people who think they're really good at the game, but I've only touched it after a slice of pizza, uh, you know, playing against each other. And they're like, Oh man, what a game that was.
Right. But there's something like presentationally boring about ultimate basketball. Like again, like hitting home that maybe like the title just made me want more, but like it's, it's pretty just like, it's just standard basketball, you know? And I feel like we've had this problem with other basketball games too, where it's just like everything is like missing the more modern element of like what basketball is on in video game form. I don't know. I guess, I guess it depends.
I guess it depends on what you mean by presentationally, because I thought the presentation was like the one thing that I thought was like a little, uh, I don't want to say better cause I can't remember too many of the other basketball games, but that was like a higher point where it's, it's a, it's a colorful, bright game. And it's also, there's a lot of cut scenes that like break up the monotony a little bit.
But, uh, but I do agree with you that I don't feel like I'm like, Whoa, this is crazy video game basketball. Well, like gameplay wise, I'm feeling what you're, what you're feeling. Yeah. Cause it's got the, uh, it's got the interactive cut scenes for the dunks, which are definitely a bit smoother than, uh, what's the other goddamn basketball game? Um, double dribble, double dribble at, uh, the like sort of slideshow that, that like was you dunking the ball.
Um, and this is a more smooth animation of you and like contextually, if any defenders around you and there's sort of like a quick time event aspect of it where there's a little bar and you have to get it into the bar and it's actually like it, you know, it timing wise, it's pretty easy, but sometimes I feel like it just eats your inputs and then you can't actually dunk. Um, and then if it's a three point shot, you get another little thing going on there, but that is not an, that's just an interruption to gameplay. There's no actual, uh, interaction there.
What I find funny about this, and this is something that comes up a few times, but the manual tries to spin that as such a positive. Yeah. Just sit back and relax. Yeah. It's like if you throw a free throw, sit back and enjoy, like no need to interact with the game. Sit back and enjoy the show. Like, yeah. Wow.
Thanks. Sean, since you brought up double dribble, did you guys notice how similar these games look though? Like I, I know double dribble obviously came first and everything and ultimate best was probably feeding off of that. But like, even though like the way the court looks and everything, like the crowd, it's pretty, it's pretty crazy. I just, how close they look. And I guess that's also like, why did I prefer double dribble? It must've been a, a gameplay thing, right? Yeah. I don't really know why they would, why you would deviate from that at this point. Like it's probably the clearest way to like illustrate the field or the court.
Um, I, I don't know what could have been, I prefer this at least in 2D games, uh, this sort of left, right orientation than sort of, uh, uh, front court, back court, vertical orientation. So I don't know what they could have done differently there.
Oh, I just meant even like the, the actual look of the games, like the, the sprites, like almost look identical to double, not even like just a, not even just a field of view or like the presentation aspect, but like it, the bodies like are almost the same exact, like sizing and structure. Like they don't, they have heads, but they don't have eyes, you know, like it's, it's very interesting, uh, observation, but also, you know, because you mentioned the, um, you know, the interactive components of the slam dunk.
And if you're trying to fight that off, you're also, uh, can take part in it. There's like a little meter at the bottom there that you have to like within the, um, animated cut scene of the dunk, you have to press, um, the button within that small glowing part of the meter in order to successfully land it or to block it. Um, and I think it's actually just, it's probably like what I wanted maybe more from the game, right. Is like a little shot meter.
When you press the B button the first time to jump up in the air, like a little meter under you where like, uh, you know, this is the sweet spot hit here. And you're more likely like the basket might be like 90% chance to go in where it's like, it's not zero if you don't hit it within there, but it's just also not, um, not as good odds. And you're, you're talking while taking just a regular shot, not a dunk. Yeah, yeah, at any time. Right. At any time, just have that meter up. If, if it's true, like what Sean was saying before that, that, that kind of your, the, your jump itself is the meter.
Yeah. I think what you're describing, what you're describing is kind of like an easy mode or like accessibility feature in more modern games where it'll show you, uh, like on a little arc, um, almost kind of like when you're kicking in Madden, it'll show like a power meter like that. It's just a little different design. So what you're describing exists in basketball video games, but I don't think it has been discovered yet. Right. Okay. Yeah. Cause I think I prefer it be, if it, if it really is like a one-to-one, like this is your meter and it works that way.
I don't mind it the way it is because it, it helps with immersion, you know, and it just feels a little less like, oh, I'm reading numbers or bars on a screen and more like, oh, I'm reading a basketball player. It's, it's all in my head, but like, it just feels better to me. Yeah. Shooting. It felt good to actually play. I think the only, the only part of this game that feels natural is that, that shooting mechanic, whereas everything else, uh, is, is kind of jank, but yeah, that's, that's the one part where I, I have no notes.
And there's a tournament mode, but it's really just about, you know, playing a series of exhibition games. And since you probably don't have a, uh, favorite team of a list of these made up teams, you just pick whichever one has the stats.
Yeah, sure. Pick Detroit because they have the best name. Um, they do have individual stats though, these teams, um, and that you can see that in the, uh, substitution screen. It gives you, I think their speed, their, I don't want to say it's strength, but some ST must, maybe. I think it's strength. Yeah. Strength and then their defense as well. Stealth. Yeah. Stealth. There you go.
How, how likely they are to cast the invisible spell in the middle of a match. I mean, I'll say that, that speed is like, I know that there's a lot of games that we played that, you know, the, the characters on screen ostensibly have these stats and sometimes we can't really notice, but speed at the very least is very noticeable in this game. Um, but there's not like, um, you know, a, uh, any like hidden challenge or, you know, secret boss or whatever, not that there needs to be, but I'm just thrown out there.
Like the tournament really is just like, there, there are some modes in baseball games that I played growing up where it was like, you have to like, want to see like, oh, what would happen if the, you know, New York Mets faced off against, uh, you know, uh, the Yankees in the world series. Right. And you would do, you would do that because it was like, you had familiarity with those two teams and the current rosters and everything. I don't know if it has the same kind of weight here when it's like, you can do the same thing as just seven different exhibition matches with the same exact reward.
Yeah. I guess in a game where, you know, you're not drawing off of, you know, you're not drawing off of like stuff that exists already. You you're losing any kind of sort of tertiary value. Like you don't, you can't do stuff like that. So you have to rely on how good is the basketball. Um, this is something that I like, you know, like more modern, like with blitz, the league, like I would play that game because, you know, blitz, blitz couldn't do NFL anymore because they were too violent.
And, but they were able to make a fun basketball game. I'm sorry. I mean, make a fun football game. Uh, whereas here there, there really isn't enough going on to say that the basketball is any better than in any other basketball game that we played on the NES so far. So yeah, not, not much, not much to work with. And the developers, uh, ACOM, uh, who also developed Omegon and, um, remember Omegon? That was like the little kid who then turns into, yeah. American Sammy. Yes. Yeah. American Sammy. Did he turn into like a caveman?
You do. Yeah. Okay. Or, or the other way around. No, no, it was, it was the right, that's the right order. Uh, I don't know if the game refers to him as caveman, but like you look, but he looks like, yeah. Yeah. I mean, technically just like in the box art, he like loses his shirt. But in the game, he like starts wearing like a, like a caveman. Like a sweater vest. No, a caveman attire with the like, you know, the one shoulder strap. Yeah. It's like. It's like a very fashionable sweater vest. Yeah. Okay. Sure. Uh, they also made Ashton X.
Uh, yeah. Yeah. That's a name. 1990. Yep. But they are going to go on to make a bunch of other games, but more specifically, another of these ultimate games. Um, it's called ultimate football, uh, or it was released in, uh, North America as football fury on the super Nintendo. And it's just the same thing again, where it's like, there's nothing really ultimate about it or whatever. And we do have ultimate football. Yeah. That's a thing. And probably why they changed the name. Right. So, um, that's a thing, but like it, again, made up conferences, the United States football conference and the American all-star football conference. So the USFC and the AAFC, uh, who cares? Yeah. That's, that's the thing.
It's the thing. Sure. But like, you know, if it takes place, you know, I was going to say the future, but since we were talking about cavemen a second ago, if you were having caveman football, like now all of a sudden there's like a, there's a motif to work behind. There's some funny like things I could imagine happening that wouldn't happen in a normal football game. I don't understand the appeal. And you know, I know everything's new back then in video games, but like, I don't think I understand the appeal. And obviously I've been arguing this most of the episode of just playing the same kind of basketball game as the NBA offers, but without the NBA. And we'll find out if my co-host degrees on the essential games list.
So yeah, as I said, uh, not essential for me. Um, it's not, it's not like the worst game or whatever. Um, I really didn't enjoy playing against the computer, but I don't think I would like seek out playing this with a friend either. So I think that says something about the game. What about you, Sean? Yeah. Um, I, I think that it does, it does kind of offer like a, a step forward on certain things.
Uh, it, it's not very well done. So we didn't enjoy playing it, but I can see where they're going with a couple things, uh, in terms of presentation, trying to make dunks more fun. I feel like that's, that's one of the things that, uh, basketball games are, are always trying to make a focus is like dunking is cool. It should feel cool to do. Um, and yeah, a lot of this is just a lack of polish. I think like there's a, the ingredients are correct, but the cooking time is off. So not essential. Joe.
Yeah. These, I mean, these games never really stand out particular to me, uh, sports games, even, uh, basketball games particular. I'm just not very good at. They're not my thing really, but this one really did to me feel more like a chore. Then, then some of the ones in the past. Um, I did feel like I was just getting my ass kicked by the computer for, you know, time after time. Um, and I don't know, I, I guess it, I don't know what about it specifically feels so much worse than other basketball games, but this one really just like, I just thought this was,
uh, it was a big step backwards from what I can remember of, of previous ones. So I'm also going to say not essential. And one thing I wanted to bring up, which adds to my non-essential thing, uh, not to get super into the weeds with the menu, like we, uh, sometimes do, but the, uh, selecting your team. I'm surprised this didn't come up because of our history on this podcast, but you select your team and there's a circle of teams with one in the middle, but instead of pointing in the direction that you want to move the cursor, you hit left to go to the next one, which is not necessarily the one to the left or the right, you know, like it's just, it's just like the next one on their list. So it just goes in a random order by hitting left or right.
And I guess if you really think about it, you can see what they were going for. Not intuitive at all. If I'm in the middle and I want to go to one directly above, I should just be able to hit up to go up, not left to go up. What game was that again? Was that the, uh, it was like Sesame Street or something. Sesame Street. Yeah. I guess this has a little bit more to it than Sesame Street. Yeah. But this one, I thought this one I thought was, it was worse than the Sesame Street one. Cause it's like, at least that one had a real Sesame Street had a real problem.
The Sesame Street at least is like, okay, there's only one way to go. No worries about it. This one. I'm like, I'm like, how am I getting here from there? No, I spent 25 minutes trying. No, I'm just kidding. You're not remembering correctly that you have one way to go until you have to go the other way. It makes it so that any single button moves it one down the list. But then when you get to the bottom of the list, then it starts to invert and you climb back up. Yeah.
I know. I remember. And that, yes, that I don't know why it loops, doesn't loop back around, but I guess for a little kid, well, let's get back into this. Let's open this back up for a little kid. I get that. Just like hit the button to go to the next one. And once you're at the end, you're going to start going back. Easy. Simple.
Cue the music.
