48.
NHL 96 (Genesis)
Lost most of the week due to being sick. I actually completed this on Monday (by accident) and have not played anything since.
This was played in an emulator because the battery in my physical cart did not work, so I could not save a season progress. I first tried playing on actual Genesis, and I really need to find better controllers. On emulator I tried both controller and arcade stick but it became clear to me that my coordination was not good to even think about being able to play an entire season. Often me just playing a game meant I would score on myself. I can't even think to remember how I played these games on PC in the past using just the keyboard.
So I was resolved to just use the management aspect of the game and using simulations only. See if it was possible to simulate to a cup win. Well, it is possible. My first run was with Winnipeg where I played maybe 15 seasons. The rosters remain unchanged from the previous season when you make a new one, so it is like there is a continuation. However, there seems to be some sort of bias within the game when it comes to determining whether a team can make the playoffs or win a championship. I'm fairly certain that this value is determined at the start of a season which I will get into later.
During the simulations I had decided to do a vampire league strategy. No to the extreme of what you'd see in vampire Fantasy Football leagues. Basically if my team got shut out, I would trade my worst player to the team that won for a player on their roster that was 1-2 points higher in ability score. So for example, I would trade a 66 for a 68. During double shutouts, I would see about trading goalies. Winnipeg as a starter for this type of strategy had a limit, where basically I could not trade for anyone when my average ability score was 78. There is not enough 79 or 80 in the league to be able to get the 81 rated players. Despite having basically the best team in the league, some sort of bias was evident in the simulation where it was still possible to finish in last place in a division or not make the playoffs. Sometimes I would get lucky to win an award tho.
Also regarding awards and simulation, it is clear that the CPU does not always choose to use the best goalie when simulating games. About half of the time, a backup would win the Vezina trophy, when in reality (or if the games were played by a human) the backup would only come in relief. It became evident through the stats view that backups were getting more GP than they should have. So you result in an award like so, where this goalie is rated 67 on a team with a 92 rated goalie.
After hitting the trade wall (I was not forcing trades either, unless *my* team rejected the trade) and recognizing the bias, I decided to start over. I reset the rosters back to stock, and I was going to make the following changes: "attempt" to control each team for 1 year and switch if they do not make the playoffs (I say attempt because I did not know how strong the bias was beforehand, I fully expected that it would take at least 1 run-through of simulations (30 some-odd-seasons) before I would win. Still doing the vampire method but for teams with exception to the Sabres and Jets, I would trade the highest scoring player to the winning team for a player of at least 2 ability score points lower. So trading a 70 for a 68. With an attempt to weaken all of the teams in the league besides the Sabres or Jets so that I could win a championship with one of them. I would also force trades in this case. I made it through 7 seasons before I won the cup with simulation.
Anaheim didn't have a chance, they didn't make the playoffs the first year, but the bias previously seen in other seasons indicates this is normal. The Bruins did make the playoffs the first year but didn't the second year. The Sabres made it once and then didn't the second year, also normal. Now of these three teams, I was actively making the Ducks and Bruins bad while making the Sabres good. Then I played as the Blackhawks, they won the cup the first season. When you win, it shows this screen:
And then the playoff tree:
Sometimes the playoff tree will show the wrong team as the winner. The above screen was from my 4th year as Chicago. The first year this screen had shown that the opposing team had one and not Chicago, but I did not save a screenshot of that. The game will show you this playoff screen if you make the playoffs but not if you didn't. If you didn't make the Stanley Cup and play/simulate the games, you would guess that the team that won the Cup ould be the team shown as the champion, but this isn't correct.
Now onto the bias. I won the Cup as Chicago using a simulated season despite trading away all of my top scorers. I decided to push it along, as I thought it was just a fluke. I wanted for them to not make the playoffs and to continue on with my plan. Unfortunately, they won AGAIN in the 4th year. Now this 4th year version of the team had an average player value of around 68 or so, with average goaltenders. There is no reason in the world why this team would be able to win but they still did. I stopped playing after that.
Sound review: sound is better than say, NHLPA Hockey on Genesis BUT considering that the entire game is being played in the menu, there is only one song used. It gets annoying real fast.
Also another thing I noticed, despite being called NHL 96, it has the rosters and teams from 1994. It probably would have felt like a waste of money if I had got it when it was new and had NHL 95.