Mario Get ready to watch the footage over and over and over again.
If you have seen Record-Breaking Video Game Speed Runs or I watched the Games Done Quick marathon.You may have dreamed of running a decent time on your favorite old games. Of course, it takes a bit of practice, but that’s what speedrunners do. it’s difficultIs it really that hard to press a few buttons at the right time for a few minutes?
After a few weeks Nintendo World Championship: NES EditionWell, not anymore. The game’s bite-sized take on classic Nintendo games highlights the precision required to flawlessly perform them in a few minutes of speedrun, not to mention the tedious process of practicing the same movements dozens of times in-game to build up the necessary muscle memory. In the process, I gained a new respect for the skill displayed by the best speedrunners, and found a new way to experience classic NES games that I thought I knew inside and out.
I need to go early
meanwhile Nintendo World Championship The name is series of Competition This design, which dates back to the 1990s, has been compared to more recent Online Speedrunning CommunityTo that end, the game’s main single-player mode is named “Speed Run,” and challenges players to record the fastest time in 150 mini-challenges across 13 Nintendo-developed NES titles.
Nintendo
Of these many unlockable challenges, the first one seems insultingly easy at first glance: collecting the first Super Mushroom. Super mario bros. Or collect swords The Legend of ZeldaFor example, . When you first play, you might be overwhelmed by how spending just a few seconds completing such a basic task can net you a ton of in-game rewards.
But if you look at how long it took you to complete the challenge, it’s displayed in big numbers on the screen, along with a grade in even bigger letters. While the “A” you get for collecting mushrooms may seem like a pretty good performance at first, you could have done better if you hadn’t missed the item boxes on your first few jumps. So you quickly restart the challenge (and take a deep breath during the helpful three-second countdown), shaving off half a second on your second try, and earning an “A+” for your effort.
If you’re a certain type of player, you might say, “Ok, that’s enough,” rather than go through this cycle again (if so, maybe this game isn’t for you). But if you’re a different type of gamer, did it Achieving an S-rank through the right mix of strategy and execution can see you through minutes of repeated attempts as you try to optimize the perfect timing for pressing a button for a matter of seconds.
The fact that Nintendo doesn’t specifically publish time cutoffs for each grade is both frustrating and subtly encouraging here. There were numerous challenges where I felt like I’d hit the best time I could, but only saw an “A++” rank next to my new best time. The existence of an S rank alone often prompted me to redouble my efforts and find new ways to further shave off my best time.
