Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition (Switch Review)

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Released July 18, 2024
Directed by Hirotaka Watanabe
Developed by Nintendo EPD and indiezero
Point of Sale: Nintendo Switch

This is one of those games where what’s missing stands out so much more than what’s included.

My brain can’t process that it’s been nearly a decade since I reviewed NES Remix. It feels much longer than ten years ago. Back in those days, I didn’t really review retro stuff a whole lot, and I still don’t review many modern AAA games. In the case of NES Remix, I didn’t grow up with any of the games in it, and I had a very anti-retro streak to me at the time. And yet, the WarioWare-like breakdown of them into micro games, for whatever reason, captured my imagination like few Wii U games did. NES Remix was legitimately one of my favorite games in a year that saw such releases as Grand Theft Auto V and The Last of Us. It just worked for me, even though I didn’t care at all about high scores back then and I’ve never been into speed running. I was totally stoked when NES Remix 2 was announced, but my excitement quickly vanished. It didn’t even do anything wrong, except maybe have a few games that didn’t lend themselves to the concept (Wario Woods, for example). But really, it just wasn’t fresh anymore. I don’t even remember playing Ultimate NES Remix and was actually completely shocked that I have it. But, enough time has passed and I’m old enough now to look back fondly on NES Remix as that big surprise 2013 game that just totally owned me for about a week or two. That’s why I was excited for Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition. Now that I’ve finished all the main game tasks, my final reaction is somewhere between my reactions to NES Remix 1 and 2.

The “8 player” survival challenges are, in fact, single player. You’re competing against the ghosts of other players and not being paired live. In the Silver Cup, the ghosts play mediocre. In the Gold, they’re not too shabby, but I still won every time. This includes one instance where I tied my final opponent, but it gave me credit for the victory. The survival challenges can be played as many times as you want, but the games only change once a week, and you only get credit for one weekly win per cup.

Some people are saying Nintendo World Championships is only for speed runners, but I’m not into that scene at all and I enjoyed NWC enough that I wasn’t bored at all. It sure gave me a better appreciation for what world champion speed runners have to accomplish. I tried to imagine maintaining the tiny fractions of perfection NWC asks of players over the course of a whole game and I gave myself a headache. Nope, I could never do it. There’s a big difference between setting a pinball high score and setting a world record in speed running, where players regularly redefine what a “perfect game” is. I was reminded of that when I took a gander at the previous week of NWC’s online tournament. The big selling point of Nintendo World Championships is weekly competitions in five different micro-contests. I thought I put up some pretty good times. Hey, I got an “S” rating in all five! Then I saw that the winner in the Donkey Kong contest did it by glitching out the game and climbing ladders that weren’t there.

What is it with this game and cheaters? I kid. This person didn’t cheat, because apparently using glitches and tactics like this isn’t against the rules. Weirdly, the results aren’t posted for an hour after the deadline ends, which is Monday at 2AM California time. I figured moderators must have been weeding-out people who did tricks like this. Apparently not.

This wouldn’t bother me, except Nintendo World Championships put the screws to MY attempts to circumvent certain aspects of the game. For example, the big challenge in Super Mario Bros 3 is “finish world 1.” What the game doesn’t tell you is you have to do it the way they want you to. Now, I can understand if the challenge is laid out as “finish level 1 – 1” in Super Mario 1 and taking the pipe to skip the entire middle of the level isn’t allowed. Which, by the way, that’s one of the games. But, “finish World 1” is one of those things where players should be able to come up with their own strategies, something I’m a BIG fan of. I put so much stock in a game’s strategic flexibility that it’s often THE difference between a YES! and a NO! in many of my reviews of high score-driven coin-ops, and I highly prize flexibility in pinball as well. A challenge like “finish World 1” feels pretty open, doesn’t it? I figured “use both warp whistles to skip to level 8, thus TECHNICALLY finishing world 1” would probably have not been allowed. But you don’t have to play any of the optional levels that aren’t on the straightest path to the castle. That’s why, when I reached the dungeon, I decided to skip the fight with Boom Boom by grabbing the warp whistle. “Not so fast!” said the game, literally rewinding it because that was against the rules. Oh NOW you care about the integrity of the game and the spirit of the rules, huh? That’s rich, especially given how people are winning the online tournaments.

Booooooooooo!!

It took me a long time to figure out what my ultimate verdict for NWC would be, because it’s such a bare-bones concept. There’s no leaderboards, so besides finding out how YOU placed (including alternate standings based on your year of birth) and videos of the winning performances for each week’s games, you can’t learn how to do any of the tricks the pros are using. That sucks, since most of the winners involve the type of glitches that aren’t allowed in many speed running communities. Usually, for dedicated competitors in this field, there’s two categories: glitch and non-glitch. Nintendo could have used that kind of consideration, because it was really demoralizing for me to find out that not only were the scores I posted no good, but I wasn’t even close. Or hell, if you’re allowing the glitching, how about instructions on how to do it? Maybe it’d be fun to learn! Except, there are none.

If you’re interested in after-game unlockables, well, this should keep you busy for a while. There’s TONS of icons to purchase, one of which you can make your logo. I opted for Princess Zelda laying down from Zelda II as mine because I too enjoy sleeping and everyone else having to go to hell and back attempting to wake me up.

Advanced tips or instructions for each game would have been helpful, or hell, just more specific guidelines. Rules like “no pipes” or “no warp whistle” are not stated. The level 1-1 example in Super Mario I mentioned above? The rules in their entirety simply say “Grab the Goal Pole.” THAT IS IT, even though there are more rules that punish you for violating them, specifically “no using a pipe.” You’re telling me that they couldn’t have included the words “no using pipes?” Really? The game will automatically rewind any illegal move, but the scoreboard’s timer is still running. That’s not a big deal if the challenge only takes 30 seconds to beat, but in the case of Super Mario 3’s challenge, yea, it sucks to play for a few minutes only to discover that you just broke one of the literally unwritten rules, costing you valuable time.

I should note that, when you play the online feature, any time you post that beats your previous high in single player becomes your new high score. HOWEVER, any time you post in the single-player mode cannot be applied to the online Championships.

Sometimes, NWC isn’t consistent with its rules, especially when it comes to going off the intended pathway. Challenges like “beat Cerberus in Kid Icarus’s first dungeon” and “beat Mario 1” allow players to sometimes go the wrong directions without being rewound. For example, level Mario’s 8-4’s maze will not rewind you for taking the wrong pipe. That’s probably how it should be, right? Except that’s rarely the case. Challenges like getting to Level 1 in Zelda as fast as you can will literally stop you from going in any direction but the shortest route. For the most part, players are not allowed to explore and discover the best routes for themselves and have to follow the exact path taken by the sample video. Wait, really? Wouldn’t that, you know, DEFEAT THE WHOLE POINT OF A CHALLENGE LIKE THAT? I wish they had both ways. Have specific tactical instructions for those who want it, while also leaving it open for people who want to find out on their own. With how they have it, they’ve basically turned the exploration games into digital cross country running trials. While I’m on the subject, the sample videos would be helpful, but those videos show deliberately poor gameplay. So clearly they DO want players to figure some stuff out, but not big picture stuff. Besides the videos and a bluntly-stated goal, there ARE no instructions or even tips for 143 of the 156 challenges. Only the “big challenges” offer tips, though some others LITERALLY OVERLAY ARROWS on top of the gameplay telling you which way to go or for some other happening, like “a warp zone is near!”

Granted, the tips they DID provide are helpful. Like, I would have had to hit GameFAQs or StrategyWiki to know the shortest route in Kid Icarus, a game I’ve only beaten once. I’ll give them slight bonus points for using the same font and style as classic Nintendo Power. They even named the tabs “Classified Information” which is a nod to the tips section in the magazine.

I’m not even a little mad that people know how to cheese these games with glitches. That can be fun! Hell, I liked to get a rise out of family and friends by betting them I could beat Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in under an hour or two, then doing it in under five minutes. But, it’s just a parlor trick, right? Even if NWC taught players the glitches the winners are using, I don’t think I’d want an entire game based around learning video game parlor tricks. Now, assuming you’re deeply into that type of speed running, I still think you’ll probably be frustrated with how little competitive value you get with NWC. Out of a pool of 156 challenges, only five are played competitively every week, and then three of those five challenges are used for the two tiers of pseudo-online survival challenges. That’s it. That’s the entire extent of the online play. There’s no leaderboards for individual challenges or viewable ghosts of the record holders. There’s no challenging your friends or seeing ghosts of their games. No-brainer features are just not here.

Each player is supposed to pick their favorite NES or Famicom game from a list. You’d think such a list would only have Nintendo-published stuff, but you’d be wrong. The only games not listed are unlicensed games. Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! is listed. UK-only games like Virgin’s Aladdin are listed. Even ultra-rarities like the holy grail for Nintendo collectors, Stadium Events, are listed. I was impressed by it, until I found out all the features that weren’t included in Nintendo World Championships. So let me get this straight: you assigned someone to put a list of every NES cart, filtered out ALL the unlicensed games, but didn’t think players needed the ability to see their friends’ scores online? Good lord. Talk about having the wrong priorities.

There’s also no variety of challenge types in Nintendo World Championships. NES Remix had tasks like “don’t lose a life” or “stay alive for X amount of time.” Those are gone completely. Every challenge is a time attack. All 156 of them. It’s so limiting and uninspired. I imagine at some point a bigger pool of games will be added, but I wouldn’t bet on Nintendo getting creative beyond that. And while I’m on the subject, the game is called Nintendo World Championships, right? So, why is this NOTHING like the original Nintendo World Championships? That contest sandwiched three games together, requiring players to get 50 coins in Super Mario 1, complete a lap in Rad Racer, then with all the time remaining, score as much as you can in Tetris. There is NOTHING like that in the modern Nintendo World Championships! The only thing they have in common is the logo itself! The closest Switch’s NWC comes to that is when you complete all 156 timed challenges with a score of at least A or higher, you unlock “legendary trial.” It’s just a lazy thirteen round marathon of all the final challenges. Mind you, each final challenge is the longest one of that game. I’d be interested in playing shorter versions of such a marathon, but nothing like that is included. In fact, there’s no other mix-and-matching at all outside of survival mode. Oh, I forgot: when I said “five challenges a week” I mean five SEPARATE challenges. Do one or all five, but you only get ranked on each individual challenge and not the group as a whole. So weak.

It’s amazing how much bitching I was able to do before I even got to the games themselves. I’m not sure who outdid themselves: Nintendo or me.

For the purposes of this review, I’ll say that Speedrun Mode is the “main mode.” It’s a series of 156 timed challenges unevenly split between thirteen games. The challenge breakdown is as follows:

My final scorecard before publication.The only one I didn’t get at least an A+ in was the final Kirby challenge. I like the whole “total playtime” of all the scores added-up, even if it’s functionally useless. I wish it kept track of how many attempts you made at each game before reaching certain benchmarks.

• 14 for Super Mario Bros.
• 15 for Legend of Zelda
• 13 for Metroid
• 8 for Donkey Kong
• 9 for Kid Icarus
• 12 for Super Mario Bros. 2
• 6 for Excitebike
• 6 for Ice Climber
• 7 for Balloon Fight
• 24 for Super Mario Bros. 3
• 15 for Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
• 8 for The Lost Levels, aka Super Mario Bros. 2
• 20 for Kirby’s Adventure

• 

  Of all the challenges that I worked to get an “S” in, the first challenge of Kid Icarus was by far the one that took me the most attempts. It wasn’t even close. It must have been 200 attempts.

Getting an “A” in every challenge isn’t too hard. Out of 156 games, less than 10 saw me get one of the B rankings on my first successful attempt. Now, getting an “S” is an entirely different story. Sometimes I literally couldn’t believe I got an “S” ranking as I played sloppily and made mistakes, and other times my jaw literally dropped when I didn’t get the perfect rating. I knocked out an “S” in every Zelda 1 challenge in three tries or less, except one where you had to kill three bats. That one took me probably 50 or so attempts. Meanwhile, I couldn’t get A++/S rankings in most Kirby tasks even if I tried, and I did! If the challenges were all short enough that they could be finished in 10 seconds, I’d probably keep playing until my scorecard was nothing but S rankings. But, some take a lot longer, and all the final challenges are the “big ones” of that game. Mario 1’s final challenge is just “beat the game from level 1-1, with warping.” Sure, it can be done in around 4 minutes if you know what to do. I don’t, and it sounds like a big time investment to learn how to get that good. NWC doesn’t tell you the target times for each grade. What’s an A+? Apparently under 8 minutes and 2 seconds, because that was my best time. What’s an S? You’ll know when you get it. A+ is actually the third highest grade, by the way. There’s A++, and I never saw less than a “B+” at any point. This is like one of those “teachers can’t use red ink to grade students anymore” things, isn’t it?

Beating a challenge doesn’t AUTOMATICALLY open the next. You earn coins from completing challenges. The more difficult the challenge and the higher rank you earn, the more coins you get for victory. You also get bonus coins for beating your previous best time. Winning the survival challenges also earns coins, including 500 for the first time you win each week’s gold survival challenge. Again, you only get CREDIT for each survival challenge per a week, but you can grind coins up, if you wish. You just won’t earn as many when you replay them. You also get a nominal bonus for competing in the week’s tournament. When I got sick of going for “S” rankings and started running through the challenges, I never had to grind to open anything, but most players apparently need to grind. The two quickest and easiest “S” rankings are the second Super Mario 2 challenge (pull up a vegetable) and the first Balloon Fight (pop one balloon in Balloon Trip). The challenge unlock system is stupid, but not a deal breaker.

Since the games are emulated, all the problems that come with the originals are here. Kirby’s Adventure has TONS of slowdown, only the clock keeping your time doesn’t slow down at all. Donkey Kong is missing the factory stage. Ice Climber is just the worst, and Nintendo’s continued insistence in celebrating it would be like having an incredible artist regularly hang out in your home, only they keep leaving upper-deckers in your toilet for no apparent reason. I only got all S-rankings for Zelda 1, Donkey Kong, Balloon Fight, and Ice Climber, but except for Zelda, that had more to do with how few challenges were involved. Mario 3 has the most challenges, and each of the seven Koopa Kids gets their own challenge. The only boss missing is Bowser. Come to think of it, the only “last boss” challenges are Mario 1’s “beat the game” finale and Metroid’s “escape the bomb” sequence, and even that is lacking the Mother Brain fight. It’s like Nintendo deliberately avoided spoilers for these literally three-to-four decade-old games. Boss fights work great in NWC, but there’s only three Legend of Zelda bosses, three Zelda II bosses, and three Kirby’s Adventure bosses. Super Mario 2 gets only Birdo and Mouser, and Kid Icarus only gets its first boss. Since boss fights were easily my favorite type of challenge, it sucks that Nintendo excluded so many that would have lent themselves perfectly to this game. I would love for nothing more than this review to be rendered outdated with updates that add more challenges, increase the variety of challenge-types and add more online features. Especially friend-based features (seriously how did THAT get left out?) or leaderboards.

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Sigh. I sort of have to give Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition a YES! because I had enough fun playing it. The worst gameplay aspect is an exceptionally bad automatic-rewind that happens when you die or do one of the FORBIDDEN moves. In theory it resets you to just before whatever you just died from. In practice, in games like Mario 1 or Kid Icarus, I died more from the rewind dropping me off in the middle of a jump than I did from the original deaths. I’m not even exaggerating, it is THAT bad. The rest is, eh, you know, fine. Nintendo World Championships certainly doesn’t rise to the level of “very good.” The online component means absolutely nothing to me because it’s too limited and not very fun. Five challenges a week is not enough for a game focused on online play. I can’t even see myself booting this up every week to play the next five contests. As for local multiplayer, unless every person you get is in roughly the same skill range, you’re not going to have any fun, at least as a group. It only takes one player who is fairly better than the rest to wreck the entire session. I was dis-invited from playing with my nephew and his friends because I was that player, though I probably should note that they were equally matched, more or less, and seemed to have a lot of fun once they booted me. But, be warned: playing eight-player mode means using JoyCons turned on their side, which I personally think is the worst game controller configuration of my entire lifetime.

I’ve been asked “does the cart work?” by every visitor to my house since the game arrived the day after it was released. No, it doesn’t, but it does come with a nice display stand that isn’t pictured here. The kids fought over the pin sets, to the point that a second $59.99 set had to be bought. To Nintendo’s infinite credit, my nieces and nephew and all their friends, ages 8 to 13 or thereabouts, all wanted to compete in this, even though they’re normally not inclined to play retro games. My nephew has literally never opened his NES, SNES, Game Boy, or Genesis libraries that came with his Switch Online subscription. Some of my best friends have children that are in the same boat. But, all the kids REALLY wanted this game. I can’t make sense of it either.

All I had left to base this review on was the 156 challenges. I started them on Sunday. I finished all of them with at least an “A” or better after just a few hours on Monday, with no intent of sticking around long enough to unlock everything. I spent most of Tuesday writing this review and bumping the “easy” ones that I “should” have gotten to an S, while also verifying that some of the challenges are just really boring. Besides the boss fights, my favorites were all 10-seconds-or-less games. That’s when NWC becomes gaming crack. Beating whole levels? Eh, it’s fine, but I really don’t think any of them quite reached that “just one more try” sweet spot, and some of the challenges I enjoyed so little that I don’t think I’ll ever play them again, regardless of how bad my scores might be. In fact, I’m not even sure my NWC cart will ever go back inside my Switch. (UPDATE – August 10, 2024: In the interest of fairness, I did return to Nintendo World Championships even when I thought I wouldn’t. Initially to check my previous week’s results, but I ended up spending time on the week’s five new competitive challenges. This is a game that’s deceptively addictive, but I did have a good time.) Okay, maybe when the inevitable add-ons hit, I’ll reload it to at least play each new challenge enough to get an A ranking on them too. That has to happen, right? Like, I can’t believe Donkey Kong Jr., Wrecking Crew, StarTropics, Punch-Out!!, or none of those early sports games are represented here. No third party games, either, and Super Mario Bros. Lost Levels is the only (former) Japanese exclusive. Ten years after NES Remix, and what could be considered the fourth game in the series feels, well, kind of thin. It IS possible to have fun and still be let-down. Just ask anyone who has ever slept with me.
Verdict: YES! but if you’re on the fence, waiting for a sale wouldn’t be a bad idea.
$59.99 ($29.99 for the standard) was soundly defeated by Jimmy Woods in the making of this review.