Released in 1989, I still find this game fun solo or with a friend. I have a few videos of this game on my channel because I find myself playing it once or twice per month. It’s a fun time to wind down with after playing other games or just with a beer.
The video below is one of my latest rounds of playthroughs with the game. I will talk about a few aspects of the game as well but I’m still figuring out some of the special throws. Overall, I think my time of roughly 25 minutes to beat it on normal is pretty good, but as I’ve been learning, who you give the ball to matters a lot! I used to think it didn’t really matter but I’m discovering certain teams can be beaten faster depending on who is doing the tossing.
Discovering the Game
Here’s a game that I found sometime in 2009 on the original Nintendo Wii. A buddy of mine liked it and when I played it from the download store I laughed because I thought it was just goofy. After I played a few times I started to unconsciously realize I was choosing the game every time I turned the system on and actually was enjoying it! Since then, I have incorporated it as a must-have in my personal NES collection. The video in this article is from my NES system and the original game; I think it still looks pretty good!
Playability
Super Dodgeball is pretty easy to pick up and play. I think that this is a critical feature in any good game. I get that modern games on console and PC are not quite so simple yet still fun, but there’s a certain advantage in games like Dodgeball where very little thinking is required.
You pick up a controller, press a few buttons, move your guy around and hit people with a ball. Good stuff.
Along the way I picked up that hitting the direction on the dpad twice in a row makes the guy run. Hitting both B+A at the same time makes him jump. These are critical pieces of information in building skill in this game because it starts on the path to learning super-throws (my term) which you see in the video.
In this video snippet, you can see the computer do a super-throw directly to the face, pretty funny stuff to be honest. How can anyone not like this game?
Is Super Dodgeball Still Fun to Play?
I think it is pretty obvious that I have an affection for this game. It’s been about 15 years since I discovered it and 35+ years since it first came out. After all this time, I could not see my collection being complete without it. Playing with someone else is hilarious and Dodgeball is definitely not meant to be taken seriously at all.
If you find this NES game around for ~$15 – 20 dollars I’d say it’s worth a pickup. I don’t like how expensive NES have gotten either but as of the writing of this article (2024) that’s just the name of the game.
I have a great time playing it, and my only strategy recommendation here is to always throw while running and don’t let the computer waste time passing. You can see that in my YouTube video and it just pisses me off every time when they do it. Other than that, just have fun with it!