Madden '97 on Game Boy is one of those weird little miracles—somehow they crammed a full football game into that tiny cartridge. The graphics are obviously basic, but after a few plays you stop noticing. The controls take a second to click (why is "A" both pass and tackle?), but once they do, you’re calling audibles and breaking tackles like it’s 1996 all over again.

What surprised me was how much strategy they packed in—you’ve got playbooks, substitutions, even weather effects. I spent way too long tweaking my defense against the CPU’s run game before realizing I could just blitz every down. Works until it doesn’t.

It’s janky by modern standards, but there’s something satisfying about hearing that tinny Game Boy speaker blast the touchdown fanfare. Just don’t expect to see any player names—apparently the NFL license didn’t cover that back then.