When I decided to revisit this game it was almost solely for one reason. I scanned my eyes across the shelf of Mega Drive games and when I saw the cartridge I had what I can only describe as an auditory flashback! The main menu screen has a theme song that goes harder than any sports game expected!

During the rocking music in that particular Mega Drive sound style, you can choose to play a simple match or in a tournament and choose your team. I played the European version of the game, so no NHL teams were available to me. Instead, generic international teams were the roster I could choose from. It had to be fair a pretty large roster of nations to choose from, if the world only includes Europe or North America...

Of course, I had to choose my home nation of Sweden and enter the tournament. First match up; Hungary. I have to get used to the controllers and gameplay and that takes most of my attention during the game.

The gameplay is a lot simpler than I remember it to be, but then again I was a child back then when I first played it. The controls are pretty easy to learn even without any tutorial from the game. No, instead the true challenge in the beginning turns out to be the rules of hockey itself. I did not remember the icing rule and again and again I drew the referee's wrath.

Luckily I managed to pass the Hungarians in the tournament. Next up was the Germans. Something that shined with its absence was the music. During the actual matches, there was no music. Only chunky sound effects of the puck hitting various things, monotone crowds, and the "oof" of tackling players. At least there was some music between the periods.

The Germans take a beating and I'm continuing my way toward that pixelated World Cup. The games become harder to win. The other nations are more aggressive. Fortunately, the controls allow me to easily pass between the players and everything on the screen looks readable with its graphics when the camera flies around to follow the puck. I took the opportunity to play this game on an old CRT and the spritework looks good.

Eventually, I made it to the semi-finals. Meeting the Canadians. Uh oh... I tried to gain the initiative but the opposition dominated the ice rink. I lost, but fortunately, there was a way to start from here again. Dirty tactics had to be employed. The Swedes gave out tackelings and soon the penalty booth looked like a Swedish embassy. Fights broke out on the ice. For some reason it seems to be an important part of ice hockey culture so of course there are fighting mechanics. Punch and back away. The very essence of combat.

I never managed to defeat the Canadians. But perhaps I got something better. The confirmation that the best part of a hockey match is the music between play,

Gameplay itself is actually pretty fun, if a little lacking in depth, but there's just very little to do here. The modes and features that make these games work for me just aren't here yet. Cool that they actually got the team licenses for the first time (though the rom I played was a European version that only had international teams), definitely a marker of things to come, but it isn't really there yet.

update: managed to find the US version. the playoff mode is a bit more in depth than I thought, and I just had a quadruple overtime game against the Nordiques so I'm bumping it up a star.