Description:
Experience a nostalgic nod to the past with the return of the Nintendo World Championships! This event features speedrunning challenges inspired by classic NES games. Compete with players worldwide and showcase your best speedrun strategies—all from the comfort of your own home, without needing to travel to California.
Review:
Nintendo’s rich history is a major part of its appeal, filled with iconic games and memorable moments that have become synonymous with video gaming. The Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition taps into this nostalgia but in a distinct way. Rather than celebrating the history of Nintendo’s games in a broad sense, it focuses on a competitive format that can be seen as a bit unconventional.
This event isn’t a casual tribute to classic games like Ultimate NES Remix. Instead, it’s a tournament with over 150 speedrunning challenges based on 13 NES titles. These challenges range from popular games like Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda to lesser-known titles from the NES era, such as Balloon Fight and Excitebike.
The challenges vary in complexity—from simple tasks, like quickly collecting a poison mushroom in Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels, to more demanding ones, such as completing Dungeon 1 in The Legend of Zelda as quickly as possible. Players’ times are ranked, and the game doesn’t allow pausing during runs. If you make a mistake, the game automatically rewinds your position slightly with a time penalty. You can retry challenges endlessly, with your best times displayed to motivate you to improve. This setup offers a focused, competitive experience for those looking to refine their skills and chase personal bests.
But here’s the catch: the game mainly focuses on perfecting individual runs. It’s not structured like a traditional single-player game. You don’t unlock new challenges by completing previous ones; instead, you need to use in-game coins, earned by finishing challenges (with additional coins for better times), to purchase new ones. While there’s plenty of motivation to improve your times, once you’ve S-ranked every challenge, there’s not much incentive to keep playing. Some challenges, like the “Up And Out” challenge in Metroid, can be particularly demanding.
Additionally, despite its homage to classic NES games, the game assumes you’re already familiar with them. It would have been nice to include some trivia or background information about the games, such as details about their development, inspirations, or significance.
On the other hand, multiplayer is where Nintendo World Championships really excels. It’s designed with multiplayer challenges in mind, evident from the extensive profile customization options, including your first NES console, a unique title based on old Nintendo references, and your favorite NES game. The game features a wide array of NES titles, from Abadox: The Deadly Inner War to Zoda’s Revenge: StarTropics II, including some licensed games from that era like Yo! Noid and Friday the 13th. You can also personalize your profile with cute pins earned from completing in-game challenges with an A-rank or higher.
Nintendo World Championship offers two main multiplayer modes. The first is Speedrun Mode, where you and seven other players compete through a series of three challenges. Players are eliminated if their times don’t meet the target, with only the fastest player winning the prize. This mode rewards you with coins that can be used to unlock new challenges in Single Player mode or to acquire new pins and decorations for your profile.
The second mode is World Championships, which involves a weekly competition. Each week, a set of challenges is selected, and players submit their best times for a chance to rank globally. At the end of the week, your time is compared to all participants, showing your percentile rank and score. As a fun historical touch, the game reveals the release date of the game from which each challenge is derived and even notes whether you were born by that time, acknowledging that many players may not have been alive during the NES era.
Nintendo World Championship is an intriguing game that reflects Nintendo’s effort to both celebrate its gaming history and engage with the speedrunning community. Although it doesn’t have the same communal atmosphere as events like Games Done Quick, it represents an attempt to harness the enthusiasm of a sub-culture built around Nintendo’s titles.
While it’s too early to say for sure, it would be exciting to see Nintendo expand the game with new challenges or additional games in the future. For now, the game focuses on encouraging players—whether seasoned veterans or enthusiastic newcomers—to test their skills against others globally in a variety of unique challenges. Even if it doesn’t achieve all its aims, Nintendo World Championship serves as a decent party game, allowing up to eight players to compete in either themed challenge packs or custom selections of in-game tasks.
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition successfully captures the retro aesthetic of the 1980s Nintendo World Championships. The menus and music are designed with an 80s flair, and in-game tips mimic the style of Nintendo Power’s classic tip sections. The games featured are modern interpretations of beloved NES titles like Metroid and Kirby’s Adventure, rendered with Nintendo’s signature quality.
The game excels at celebrating speedrunning and competitive play with a focus on Nintendo’s gaming heritage. While its appeal may be niche, catering primarily to dedicated speedrunners and fans of Nintendo’s history, it offers a fun and engaging experience for those who enjoy competing for high scores. Although it may not attract a broad audience, it’s well-suited for enthusiasts who enjoy challenging themselves and others.
