Madden has a new rival in fun.
The NFL season is upon us, and as many gamers flock to the latest iteration of Madden to get their football fix, I'd like to suggest an alternative in the form of arcade-style fun and simplicity with the functionality and feel of the sports games of yore.
This is Sunday Rivals, an easy to pickup, hard hitting, fully customizable arcade football game from one-man indie developer 26k. Like many of us, he had given up on Madden and couldn't find any appealing alternative that was easy to play in spurts. Something that allows you to get a game in before class or knock out a few along with some drinks after work. It was all about recapturing the sense of wonder, excitement, and fantasy in games like Tecmo Bowl and the original Joe Montana Football.
Sunday Rivals was designed to channel the unique spirit and chaos of those 90's era sports game, and that's what immediately drew me in. Bright colors, charming character models, and loads of personality. Not only that, but Sunday Rivals also incorporates a surprisingly detailed Season Mode, as well as a fantasy football inspired Headhunters mode, both of which put its best features to good use. The more time I spent with this game, the more I felt it satisfy my desire for a football experience that isn't bogged down by needless realism, egregious monetization, and upcharging for bare minimum improvements.
CUSTOMIZATION
I'd like to tackle customization right off the bat because I know the first hurdle for indie sports games, or really any sports game that isn't made by EA, is the lack of professional sports licensing. You want to take control of your favorite teams and players, not their cheap imitations. That's not a big deal breaker for me personally, even as a huge NFL fan, but nonetheless Sunday Rivals has a good answer for that problem.
The game gives you complete control over team names, colors, uniforms, player names, player appearances, stats, stadium colors, grass types, endzone text, and many other options. I recreated the entire 1997 NFL season and saved it as a roster for use in all of the game modes. I made my own Barry Sanders, Drew Bledsoe, Dana Stubblefield and edited their stats based on how every player performed that year. Since the NFL only had 30 teams in 1997, I even introduced the championship teams from NFL Europe and customized their entire teams and uniforms to make up the last two spots.
You can do so much with the customization options available to you, down to deciding what kind of socks each player wears or how long it's been since a clean shave. The best part is, you can share what you've made with friends by copying your specific roster files for them out of the directory. It's super easy, and it's one of the reasons Sunday Rivals has cultivated a still thriving network of players and custom leagues on the game's Discord server. I'd definitely recommend checking it out.
You'll also be able to define coaching strategies and choose which playbooks teams will run. They're not huge like the officially licensed simulation games, but let's be honest, most of us used the suggestion feature anyway. Honestly, the simplicity of strategy combined with the deep customization options really hit a sweet spot for me.
GAME MODES
Sunday Rivals has four game modes: Exhibition, Season Mode, Headhunters, and Practice. You can play Exhibition in local co-op multiplayer, which feels like a huge win for this game's viability up against the bigger sports games. I've played Sunday Rivals with friends and family and every time it conjures the same feeling I had playing Madden with friends back in the late 2000s. Practice is exactly what it sounds like, but Season Mode and Headhunters are where the real meat of the modes lies.
Season Mode allows you to guide a single team through a full year of football play and management, featuring sortable player stats, league leaders, weekly awards, custom lineups, and the ability to play, sim, or coach any of the games on the schedule. Apparently, Sunday Rivals can't handle multiple seasons of play without some massive rewriting internally, but what is here works flawlessly. Simulation stats are fairly realistic to the pace of actual gameplay, and there is sufficient pageantry in each matchup to keep the sense of excitement going. You're not trading players, drafting new ones, or building a decades long dynasty, but the stats obsessed RPG fanatic in me is satiated by the bookkeeping and awards that update every week. I love the untold stories that these sort of things create as you're playing, and that is ever-present in Sunday Rivals.
Headhunters is a fantasy football inspired tournament style mode that also has you controlling one team throughout. You'll progress through a 4 game single-elimination tournament while racking up points. Your stats are tracked in each game and saved, along with additional scoring bonuses. The fun of this is to basically see how many crazy things you can do in order to have the most amount of points by the end of the mode. You're competing against your own high score, but I always had fun with it. Of all that you can in Sunday Rivals, I feel like Headhunters captured the arcade spirit of the game the most. It's quick, it's exciting, and there's variation each time.
GAMEPLAY
Customization and game modes are great, but obviously there's no point to any of that if the actual gameplay falters. Thankfully, I am happy to report that throwing a pass, trucking defenders, and lining up for the perfect interception feel great. The controls and animations are super snappy and impactful. I felt a rush every time I was able to perfectly juke a defender or take off running the gap as a speedy Quarterback. The overall experience reminds me a lot of the highly exaggerated NFL Blitz, which is a wonderful direction to take a game like this. No penalties, no fatigue, just fun.
There are finer details to the gameplay I really appreciate as well, like the difference between touch passes and bullet passes, the decrease in accuracy if your QB is on the move, the ability to tackle literally anyone from players to sideline reporters, and the attitude of AI defenders based on their own stats and positions. For instance, pass defenders with lower rated stats will position themselves to make an immediate tackle rather than make a play on the ball, and safeties and linebackers with a high tackle rating will choose to disrupt passes with hits more than deflections. It's definitely not simulation football, but Sunday Rivals possesses enough depth to provide unpredictability and make skill matter on every play. The value added by how smooth and stylish the game feels cannot be understated as well.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES
Sunday Rivals offers a myriad of secondary features that should not go underappreciated. First and foremost, the game has fully dynamic weather and time of day. In any game you can have pouring rain turn grass to mud, winds blowing kicks to either help or hurt you, heavy snow impeding player speed and stability, and thick fog limiting visibility as afternoon football becomes Sunday night lights.
The lighting system in the game is also really impressive, utilizing a mix of sophisticated and unsophisticated solutions according to the developer. The majority of the game is lit by a bespoke sun, with additional systems that make weather, atmosphere, and ambient colors all look better than they should. Handcrafted volumetric God rays, 2D lens flare cards, smart shaders, all custom-built and adjusted by one guy. Nothing is simulated. Little features like this give Sunday Rivals a slick presentational edge over a lot of other Madden alternatives.
FINAL VERDICT
Sunday Rivals not only scratches the football itch, it also satisfies the desire for football simulation without actually being a simulation football game. You have complete freedom to create your own league, teams, and players; then throw it all into a season mode or just play casually. There's just enough depth, and all the personality you could ask for.
The gameplay is smooth, the animations are satisfying, the lighting is top notch, and the handful of modes and custom options all deliver. This is my go-to football video game and better than anything EA has put out in many years.
Sunday Rivals - 9/10 - MUST-BUY