Championship Bowling
System: NES
Release Date: December 1989
Developer: Athena
Publisher: ROMSTAR
Genre: Sports
When I started up Championship Bowling, I was greeted by a song that I was familiar with. It didn’t take long for me to surmise that I played a lot of the Game Boy counterpart, World Bowling, as a kid, so came into this one excited. You choose 1 to 4 players and one of five lanes to start out. Then you choose your player, give them initials, and it’s off to the lanes.
You move along the foul line to decide where you will start. Then you set your Control, which is supposed to be your hook. Then a fast power meter needs to be stopped where you want it. The ball rolls and you knock your pins down, hopefully you can clean up what’s left. Repeat for ten frames. Game over.
The hook never seemed to do anything for me. Every ball I rolled was a straight shot. This made strikes incredibly rare, but I could pick up splits like they were nothing. I had my best game with the lady bowler and a light ball. There I would roll and say please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, and get a strike!
Graphics: 1.5
The animation of the bowlers are fine, but there’s nothing special on display here.
Sound: 1.0
The song that plays during gameplay is a 20 second loop and completely wrong for the game.
Gameplay: 1.0
The hook doesn’t do anything! That’s like an important part of bowling!
Difficulty: 1.0
I mean, each game I scored higher than 150, but less than 200. That’s a pretty decent spread.
Fun Factor: 1.0
It’s not fun, but at least it’s fast.
Overall Grade: 1.1
Championship Bowling earns a D. I can’t recommend this one and I’ll keep the Game Boy memories rosy.