I’ve always looked at video game speedrunners with equal levels of awe and confoundment. The skills on display when watching a pro blitz through a game at an unfathomable pace are nothing short of impressive, but it’s the amount of time, dedication and heartbreak that really separates the Mario Bros. from the Mario Boys. For many, myself included, entering the world of speedrunning in any serious capacity just isn’t feasible or attainable. Enter Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition.
This new package from Nintendo has been produced with two clear goals. The first is to play on the nostalgia folks feel for the company’s output in the 80s and early 90s, and in particular pay reverence to the real Nintendo World Championships first held in 1990. The other is to offer players a taste of the highs of speedrunning and competition in a way that’s more accessible, approachable and digestible. With those ideas in mind, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is almost a complete success with a bit of room for improvement.
The experience here is pretty straightforward. In the default single player option, Speedrun Mode, you’ll take on a series of over 150 speedrunning challenges based on excerpts of 13 different NES classics. Things start off relatively simple – you might be asked to grab the first Super Mushroom in the original Super Mario Bros. as quickly as possible, or defeat all of the enemies in a room in The Legend of Zelda in record time, while layer challenges can feature entire levels or even the full experience of a game. You’re graded on your performance and, based on said grade, doled out coins to spend on further challenges.
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The mix of games and challenges here is mostly pretty good. Each game’s ladder feels like a steady escalation that serves both to highlight the different mechanics and quirks of a game that the speedrunning community would need to master in the real world, as well as set you up for the more difficult stages ahead. There are definitely a couple of games that feel underserved or just aren’t as fun in the context, like Excitebike and Balloon Fight, and almost a third of the line-up is Super Mario Bros. titles, but the specific moments across each are usually pretty fun to tackle. The Legendary Challenges are the highlights, and not worth spoiling, but the fact that they also come with “Classified Information” formatted like an old-school guide book is a wonderful touch.
In fact the whole presentational package, though perhaps not packed with the typical Nintendo “charm,” is sharp and well-considered. When tackling any of the games in Speedrun Mode you can either have a single-screen view or watch a side-by-side of you previous attempts for a look at where you’ve done well or poorly, challenges all start with a look at the CPU executing a near-perfect attempt (you’ll have to figure out the hidden, hacky paths to the fabled S ranks on your own), and you’ll occasionally get added help from overlays on the game screen guiding you through some of those esoteric, winding paths emblematic of classic game design.
Once you’ve honed your skills in the solo Speedrun Mode, there are also a few different options to compete against others. A dedicated Party Mode mixes things up by allowing up to eight players on one console to tackle challenges in tandem, either individually or as part of curated packages that have themes based on one or more games. With a big enough group (and telly) it can be pretty entertaining to watch eight simultaneous attempts at the bite-sized runs and makes for a surprisingly good party game, especially when the points even out and the final, electric nail-biter is a 10-second snippet of Kirby’s Adventure.
Taking things online, there are two more modes. The first is World Championships, which offers a weekly rotation of five challenges of varying difficulties, which you can play as many times as you like within that week to record your best times in the hopes of posting a top spot when the results are finally revealed. The second is Survival Mode, which pits you against seven other players’ online ghost data in an asynchronous elimination bracket, over the course of three challenges. Both of these modes are fun in their own ways, if only in short bursts before the inevitable wait for the next week’s rotation, but Survival is definitely where the competitive spirit shines even if you’re not actually playing against others in real time. The added touch of a cheering crowd audio in the backgrounds of online modes is also a nice touch.
And of course with online play comes the need for added personalisation and a way to show off your achievements, so NWC: NES Edition features player profiles with things like unlockable player icons and a catalogue of pins recognising your achievements in the various modes. The pin designs are quite neat, and the player icons feature sprites from across the included games, so unlocking and buying everything is a decent incentive to keep playing, but some more “museum” style content, especially around the actual Nintendo World Championships, would have been a welcome way to spend the multitude of coins you’ll earn across the various modes. There’s a lot of history here, and speedrunning in itself is a really interesting category that this game seemingly wants to introduce to a wider audience, so it feels like a lot of missed opportunity.
And that’s really this game’s biggest stumble – there’s just not enough to keep players invested past engaging in the two online modes for a few minutes a week or occasionally breaking it out in a group setting, and even then the appeal can wear thin quickly. It’s especially true when we’ve kind of already been here before with the NES Remix packages on Wii U and 3DS, the second of which even had its own take on the NWC, and all of which featured more games, more challenges and more than just speedrunning. As an on-shelf, $50 title I’d have hoped for just a smidge more substance.
