Remember NES Remix On the Wii U? I enjoyed it back then, but now Nintendo has decided to return to that same territory. Nintendo World Championship: NES Editionis a game that aims to let you experience what it’s like to be a competitor in the Nintendo World Championship.
Okay, maybe I’m a little over-excited – it’s actually pretty hard to get too excited about yet another compilation of bite-sized challenges ripped from old 8-bit games that I’ve completed countless times before – but guess what, I’m here? I’m actually enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would.
Yes, this collection of 13 classic Nintendo games is divided into small playable challenges and includes such things as: Super Mario Bros. 1-3, Kirby’s Big Adventure, Excite Bike (My favorite) Ice Climber, Icarusand of course, Zelda and Metroid On the surface, it’s all very NES remix. But really, there’s few In terms of diversity in terms of the objectives of the problems and the methods of solving them.
Essentially, as already explained Extensive hands-on previewsThis game is all about speed. Complete the objectives as fast as you can. Your final time will add up your score and whoever completes it the fastest will win. Challenges range in difficulty from easy to master. It’s simple. If that kind of thing stresses you out, prepare to be stressed out.
During launch week, before the game’s servers started going live, we spent a lot of time in the offline speedrun mode, which is basically a practice ground where you can run through all the challenges as many times as you like: getting your first Super Mushroom, running through parts of the level to grab poles, taking down Octoroks, pulling off some nice jumps… Whatever the current challenge (there are 150 of them to try), what matters most is good old-fashioned speed.
It definitely feels like a downgrade at first, and as we mentioned in our preview, the older game featured here hasn’t received the same visual tweaks and tweaks as the NES Remix, but the drop in price, and after spending some time playing the main online modes (World Championship and Survival), our opinion went from extremely bewildered to actually having a pretty good time.
Why? Once you get into the rhythm and start competing, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition will make you want to switch gears and keep taking part in the refreshed challenges that make up the game’s two main modes. The World Championships rotates between five challenges every week, with plenty of Normal, Hard and Master challenges to choose from. Your time will be posted to a leaderboard that shows you your overall ranking and your ranking by birth year.
The best survival mode lets you try out two leagues: Silver and Gold. You aim to beat other players’ ghost times over three challenges and be the top runner to avoid elimination in three rounds. Again, it’s all very simple, but the subtlety and immediacy of the online element makes it hard to stop once you get used to the idea of shaving more seconds, or in actuality milliseconds, off your performance. It’s hypnotic, but that’s all we really want. It’s also the type of thing that gets more competitive as more players join, and we’re now looking forward to opening the floodgates and beating everyone. Yes, this is a direct challenge.
Of course, there’s a local co-op party mode that supports up to eight players, and speed is the watchword here, too. This time you’re completing the same challenges with themed packs and all. I wouldn’t say this is a super deluxe package (it’s not); each mode is just a different cut of the same thing. It looks good, the menus are very responsive, the online works as you’d expect, and it all works perfectly on the handheld, but it’s just a smattering of very old games, and there aren’t many fixes or surprises. Maybe they could have made more of an effort in this regard.
What ultimately pushed us into more positive territory was the fun we had watching young players try out NES games for the first time. If you have kids or are playing with younger gamers or beginners, it’s really fun to watch them try to figure out just how slow and clunky these old beauties are. It’s also a great way to succinctly educate people about the absolute greatest games of all time through this very short highlight history. Once you’ve mastered all of these challenges and topped the global leaderboards, you’ll know everything you need to know about the gaming sensations of some very important markers along the road of video game history.
In Metroid, you no longer have to wonder what it’d be like to carefully climb to the top and then fall all the way down a long vertical corridor (spoiler: it’s frustrating). In fact, that alone is probably worth the price of admission, aside from the weekly challenges and trophies.
Finally, we love the collecting and customization aspect here. Nintendo knows we’re super into this kind of stuff. Profile icons and name tags honor various achievements, and there’s a ton of collectibles to choose from across each of the 13 games that you can acquire using coins you earn through play. No extra money to spend, no tinkering, just playing the games, getting better, and earning coins. It’s awesome.
In the end, for $25, it’s a pretty simple game. There are no surprises or enhancements, just a selection of classic Nintendo games sliced into iconic sections that you can play in one sitting and then play over and over again until you’ve used up every last nanosecond. A party-night staple? I guess, but it might have been better if they’d made a little more effort to surprise us all.
Conclusion
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition doesn’t make a great first impression. It’s inferior to the NES Remix in many ways, there isn’t as much variety or effort put into the challenges, and there aren’t many graphical tweaks this time around. But once you get through it, get competitive, and start collecting all the pins, icons, and top times, it’s plenty fun. It’s a purely speed-focused trivia game, but I think it’ll suit many who are looking for a competitive means to show off their old-school skills. It also doubles as a handy history of iconic moments and mechanics from Nintendo games.
