Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition review: a last-place finish

After a significant amount of time wiling away at its many challenges, I’m not entirely sure who Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is for. Because even as a cut-price-themed collection of timed trials centered on the storied company’s beloved 80s classics, the Switch game feels trapped in an identity crisis on who the experience is made for.

Inspired by the World Championship series that gained legendary status in the 1990s and returned in two later renditions in 2015 and 2017, this all-new compilation essentially aims to put players into the driving seat of their own shot at glory. Over the course of 150 challenges on 13 titles from Super Mario Bros. to Metroid to Ice Climbers , players can hone their skills at key tasks within each game before shooting for speedrun records on leaderboards or challenging friends and rivals both offline in Party Mode and online in a knockout-based Survival Mode.

With a bonus weekly rolling World Championships mode that replicates the format of the event by offering a weekly five-challenge gauntlet for players to complete to rank on a special leaderboard and become the weekly World Champion, the game on paper offers a lot for both nostalgic older fans of Nintendo and retro games consoles and those interested in exploring a piece of Nintendo history.

If the challenges deliver. Unfortunately, many underwhelm.

Short and shorter

While on paper 150 unique challenges over 13 games appears like a lot of content in a bite-sized package, many Speedrun Mode challenges will likely not leave you clamoring to return after more than a few tries. Of the 15 challenges on offer within the confines of the original NES Legend of Zelda title, for example, 12 can be completed in under 15 seconds with relative ease, four of which can be completed in under 5 seconds.

The challenges in these cases are laughably basic, even if you’ve never encountered the game before. One challenge in The Legend of Zelda requires you to place a bomb to reveal a cave in the wall, which can be completed in under 3.5 seconds. Another asks you to enter the very first cave in the game to collect your sword as Link, completed by myself for a top S rank in 7.91 seconds. Walking in almost a straight line to a hole in a wall doesn’t feel like a timed challenge I wish to return to for another attempt at a personal best.

It’s an issue across all titles. Metroid asks you to collect power-ups for four of its 12 challenges, and in two instances you start by standing right next to the item and are simply required to move in a direct straight line in order to reach them and complete the challenge. Super Mario Bros. has ‘challenges’ like collecting the first mushroom in the game, Donkey Kong asks you to climb a ladder, and Balloon Fight asks you to pop a balloon. Super Mario Bros. 2 has a challenge to pull a vegetable from the ground that I literally completed in 1.08 seconds.

Over half of the offerings are less challenges and more a tutorial for a fundamental mechanic of the game. This would be fine as an introduction to each title that players could jump into independently of the challenges to get to grips with the games before taking on full-game speedruns or a wider range of more difficult challenges, but this isn’t the case. Instead, the lineup is clogged with menial tasks that can almost entirely be solved within three button presses and without a second thought or room to improve, leaving little room for meaty challenges that actually encourage self-improvement and returning to beat your personal best.

As a former speedrunner, this hardly feels like anything close to living up to the idea of speedrunning these classics.

It’s not like these disappointing challenges can be played once and ignored for meatier offerings, either. It’s inevitable that these challenges will pop up in Party Mode with friends or online, and merely interfere with the flow of the experience. Playing a few rounds of Party Mode with a friend unfamiliar with the original NES Classics, you’d think these challenges would be perfect for this person to get to grips with how these games function so we could move onto more difficult challenges on a level playing field. Wrong. Challenges like Balloon Fight’s Pop It to pop a single balloon felt trivial and meaningless to me as I cleared it in under 2 seconds, but too rushed for my friend to get to grips with the mechanics and enjoy the experience.

These challenges are disappointing whether you’re a veteran seeking nostalgia or a newcomer looking for an entry point to these games. Only later challenges feel satisfying as more complex and engaging experiences, often challenging players to complete extended sequences of play that leaves room for player skill and self-expression within a speedrun environment alongside ample room to improve on future attempts. The final challenge of Super Mario Bros. requires players to complete the full game using warp pipes, a 5-10 minute challenge involving multiple levels and plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong or to make unlikely comebacks for a personal best. It feels worth investing time to improve.

Other games offer similarly lengthy final challenges. The Legend of Zelda gets players to complete the first dungeon, Kid Icarus challenges a player to explore a fortress to defeat Twinbellows. If the game wants to take its inspiration from the hobby of speedrunning, more challenges like these are a must. What we have instead feels neither like speedrunning or a task that would feature at the titular Nintendo World Championships .

Identity crisis

Indeed, the entire package of Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition feels unsure which audiences to appeal to, and instead satisfies no one. Most challenges are too trivial to satisfy veterans on a nostalgia kick but aren’t deep enough to teach new players how to play these games before applying their skills at high-difficulty challenges.

Which leads to the game’s other issue: why bother? It’s not like this package offers buyers the chance to dive into the full game freely once you complete all their challenges to put the basic mechanics you’ve been taught to the test. Instead, you’re restricted to 10-second snippets that fail to capture the joy and craft that made these games so memorable in the first place. Why not offer a chance for players to race to the credits of every game after completing all the challenges within for a place on the ultimate leaderboards?

Then again, I guess that would hold people back from paying for a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to play all these games in full after these brief demos, which feels like the ultimate intent of this package more than delivering a satisfying experience to players.

The game lacks any true retro callbacks to feel like a celebration of classics or a rousing championship event. Legend Challenges have special Classified Information guides filled with retro-infused guides featuring screenshots and the hand-drawn art used to promote these titles in the 80s, but this is the only whiff of even a hint of love within a package that otherwise feels cold, clinical, and barren.

As a result, this package is difficult to recommend to almost anyone, despite being offered at a reduced price of just $29.99 / £24.99 compared to other full-priced titles. Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition feels like an advertisement for Nintendo Switch Online that audiences have to pay for the privilege of being upsold, rather than a game. What we have can barely entertain beyond a few brief hours, and even then is too fragmented and tedious to offer any real challenge or entertainment in all but a handful of challenges.

I can’t help but wish Nintendo offered a skew for the game in the West similar to what has been offered in Japan, where players had the chance to buy the otherwise Switch Online-only NES/Famicom replica controllers with the game in a package not too dissimilar to what we see with controller bundles for Super Mario Party . As a freebie with a controller, this game would feel like a neat curio, and while still not wholly satisfying as a standalone experience would likely offer just about enough to satisfy as a pack-in title. Otherwise, this feels more like a first-round knockout than a championship-winning shot at glory.

Accessibility

The game has minimal accessibility settings but does offer on-screen prompts to guide players towards the goal of a challenge while playing. These can be turned off in settings.

Should I play Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition?

Play it if...

You like the physical goodies
Did you buy one of the physical limited edition releases that included pins or other goodies, and would you be satisfied with value for money entirely on the basis of those physical items? Then the game is definitely worth buying, as you at least will own physical trinkets memorializing true gaming classics. Otherwise, it’s not worth the price of admission.

Don't play it if...

You want to experience these classics for the first time/again
Are you simply looking for a way to revisit these NES classics? You’d be much better off with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription. These subscriptions will let you play each game in full, unlike the five-second disconnected segments found here.

You’re seeking a challenge
Many of the 150 challenges offered are trivial and completed in under 10 seconds, and there are no unlockables available to players beyond a badge to display on your profile for earning an A grade. Even in games I was less familiar with, I got an A grade on every challenge within 2 tries, so you’ll 100% your badge collection without breaking a sweat.

How I reviewed Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition

I put in about seven hours completing the majority of the challenges on offer, while also playing the game’s Party Mode and Survival and World Championships modes online. The game was primarily played handheld on a Nintendo Switch OLED console, and in docked mode with single Joycon play during Party Mode sessions with another player.