Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition Review – Retro Remix

It’s official: the Switch is officially Nintendo’s longest-lasting console, and it’s a bit bewildering that the hybrid handheld launched close to seven-and-a-half years ago. As gamers eagerly await the arrival of its successor, Nintendo has been playing the role of magician, pulling a seemingly endless string of titles out of its hat in an effort to tide us over until 2025. This year so far, we’ve seen several ports, HD remasters, revivals, but Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition bucks that trend. 

Paying homage to the sporadic esports competition that originally kicked off all the way back in 1990, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition dives headfirst into the world of speedrunning and challenge runs. Rather than providing a batch of ROMS to enjoy at will, players are instead tasked with completing bite-sized segments of various Nintendo first-party titles. One second, you might be trying to collect the sword in The Legend of Zelda as quickly as possible, and the next, you’ll be asked to get the fastest lap time possible in Excitebike. Each challenge demands that you move as quickly as possible, and you’re given a grade that corresponds to your completion time. 

Gotta Go Fast…

The setup is easy enough to wrap your head around, but it’s difficult to understate just how addicting it can be to go for gold, or in this case, a coveted ‘S’ rank. Replaying and constantly resetting a challenge becomes second nature before long, and I often found myself grinding out challenges over and over in order to shave milliseconds off my best time. Admittedly, it’s not for everyone, but those with a passing interest in the world of speedrunning will likely find the fun in mastering Mario’s movement or finding the fastest way for Link to defeat every enemy on screen. In many ways, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition mirrors the setups speedrunners use to grind out individual levels or sections of a game, without the need to set up your own emulator and save states. 

The entire package is a love letter to all things retro – rather than being awarded trophies for S-ranking challenges, for instance, you’re awarded pins that you can use to personalize your player profile. In a nice touch, you’re even able to proudly display your favorite NES game, and I was pleasantly surprised to see the option to pick third-party and more obscure titles alongside Nintendo’s flagship franchises. 

Unfortunately, this does not extend to the actual challenges itself – while there are more than 150 microlevels to master, the actual pool of games they’re based off of is a bit small. On paper, 13 NES games does seem like a lot, and there are plenty of fan favorites on offer (I applaud the developers for including Balloon Fight). That being said, this baker’s dozen of gaming nostalgia consists of four Mario games and both NES Legend of Zelda titles, so in practice, there’s a little bit less variety here than you’d like to see. Considering how popular Mega Man, Castlevania, and Punch-Out are in the speedrunning community, it’s a shame that there isn’t a wider spread of genres and franchises on offer. 

…For The (Virtual) Glory

For those with a competitive bone in their bodies, you can also compete online to see how you stack up against others. The World Championships mode mirrors the original Nintendo World Championships competition the closest – each week sees a new set of five different challenges, which you can replay as many times as you’d like to improve your best times. Leaderboards are released at the end of each week, letting you see how you stack up against the competition, though it’s a shame you can’t see your standings until the weekly competition wraps up. In a nice touch, it’s organized by birth year, so working adults don’t need to worry about getting obliterated by 12-year-olds who are grinding hours every day during their summer vacation. 

World Championships is an enticing multiplayer offering for those who don’t want the pressure of competing against others, with Survival Mode adding a bit of battle royale into the mix. Instead of facing off against seven players in real-time, you’ll instead compete against their ghost data, with the bottom 50% eliminated at the end of each of the three rounds. Sure, it’s by no means a live competition, but it feels just as exciting all the same.

Admittedly, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition has limited appeal. Compared to most of Nintendo’s offerings, there’s no difficulty settings or co-op modes that can help struggling players. This is very much a case of “what you see is what you get” – those who aren’t interested in grinding and replaying the same levels over and over for better times will likely want to pass on this one. For everyone else, you might want to give Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition a go. Just make sure to bring a Pro Controller along for the journey. Seriously, I cannot stress this enough – a proper D-pad makes all the difference.

Review copy given by Publisher.