Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition Reviews

As an approachable, bite-sized introduction to the world of speedrunning through the lens of some bonafide classics, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is a decent enough package. It lacks a little added flavour, but the way it gently teaches you to find those perfect lines, hidden quirks and cheesy hacks makes for some very rewarding moments, and it doubles as a surprisingly good party game.

As Pure Nintendo's resident NES fanboy, I suspected I'd be a practical choice to take a closer look at Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition. The wording ma

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition lets players dip their toes into the world of speedrunning in an easy-to-digest package that celebrates one of the most iconic consoles of our time.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition gives a number of Nintendo classics a new lease on life, but the overall package is a bit light on content. Those who live and breathe the Big N will enjoy this new take on the classics, but there’s not enough for more casual fans to enter the competition.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is an interesting idea for a compilation, but it's hard to enjoy when so much of it reveals a game that blatantly feels rushed, be it in its weak online modes or the uneven spread of challenges with little variety. There are definitely nice challenges here to tackle that put up a good fight, and hints of clever inclusions like the Classified Information guides, but there's too little here at the moment to keep anyone hooked beyond a few hours at best. Sorry Nintendo, but this won't even get you the bronze.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is a surprisingly fun collection, but it falls short of a satisfying single-player offering. This is a great tool for beginner speedrunners or those simply looking to dive back into some classic NES titles. I'm most curious to see how the game might evolve, whether through updates or with a new entry. Don't expect a groundbreaking experience that will blow you out of the water, but there's fun to be had with this package.

Nintendo has really been doing a lot to try to tap into the nostalgia market. More and more, we’re seeing advertising and positioning for new titles that try to capture the elements of the classic 80s vibe. You’ve got extreme commercials, merchandise that I would have actually bought as a kid, and, now, the return of the Nintendo World Championship. A fierce competition of skill, accuracy, and dedication, the event has gone by the wayside in recent years with less and less fanfare than th...

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is a nice flashback with some cool features, but still feels limited in ultimate approach and concept. You will love the nostalgia, but those who don't have a competitive itch are best to dig out their oldies.

It’s worth noting that there’s not a ton of content if online competition isn’t your thing. You can potentially clear most or all of the challenges with an A-rank or higher within five to ten hours, with your only non-online incentives to play further being beating your times and unlocking more player icons. Given it’s not a full-price game, this isn’t really a dealbreaker, but those who prefer to play games by themselves or who don’t especially care for leaderboards likely won’t get as many hours out of this one as others.

If you've ever wanted to test your speed in classic games on a global scale then here's Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition.

Nintendo World Championships is a fun introduction to competitive speedrunning with tons of nostalgia, even if its customization tools could be more robust.

Nintendo does offer some replayability in the form of unlockable coins and dozens of unlockable profile icons. Some of these icons can get pricey, giving further incentive to keep practicing challenges and earning more coins. Like the games themselves, it feels like even with a lot here, there's still room for more.

You just never know what Nintendo is going to tap for nostalgia next. The Nintendo World Championships are a concept the company has revisited in a scattershot way over the years, but it’s the original 1990 iteration most folks remember, and really, it’s not even the event itself that’s most famous. That first competition was held using unique NES cartridges, which are now the ultimate collector’s item fetching upwards of $25,000 apiece. That’s the main reason the Nintendo World Championships are still remembered today. Despite that somewhat obscure legacy, the Nintendo World Championships are returning once again, this time as an actual widely-available video game.

I’m old enough to remember hours and hours of entertainment provided by my family’s NES console. We never had a R.O.B. or a Power Glove — but my friend Chris had both, and the only thing I remember about them both is that neither lasted very long — but we did have a light gun and played the combo of Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt on a seemingly everlasting loop.

To sum up, I do find Nintendo World Championship: NES Edition to be a fun distraction and a half-decent party game. Local multiplayer is obviously more exciting than playing alone but joining the weekly championships is fun too. The weekly challenges are engaging as is the Survival Mode. I just wish it included Red Racer too, or at the very least Tetris. If the game entices you purely for the NES nostalgia then you're golden, but if you are looking for a recreation of the 1990 championships then this isn't the title for you.

Considered one of the first esports events, the Nintendo World Championships toured America in 1990 in search of the ultimate gamer. While garnering huge media attention, it took the Japanese giants 25 years to revisit the concept with the 2015 and 2017 competitions. Looking to deviate from the traditional format, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition allows players worldwide to compete against one another in an array of speed run challenges. Will this new approach attract a broader audience and rejuvenate interest in competitive retro gaming?

Gaming competitions are often decided by a few seconds of gameplay. Even the slightest mistake wastes valuable time that gives an advantage to a competitor. Speedrunning is even more strict as only the fastest time counts. Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition takes that concept and applies it to their entire NES collection. Experience one of the oldest speedrunning events in modern times as you take on other players to be the best.

“Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition will teach you the thrill of speedrunning, but it's only a tease.”

What is on offer in Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is a delight. I don’t think it will make me any better at playing Nintendo’s old 8-bit games, but the challenges it presents are cleverly and cleanly designed. The collection lets me approach a small bunch of familiar NES classics from a new perspective, reinforcing just how timeless some of Nintendo’s earliest games are.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is both a loving celebration of the event's origins and a fun and exciting introduction to the world of speedrunning!

Those familiar with Nintendo Switch Online’s retro consoles may be aware of a feature that permits you to manually rewind the game at any point. While this is a wonderful feature when used at the player's discretion, the automatic version of it in this game leaves much to be desired. Typically, a rewind will initiate upon death or when the mark for the challenge has been missed, to allow a second chance at completing it. While good in theory, there is no control over the amount of time that is rewound. Furthermore, the game simply drops you when it’s done, often resulting in another immediate death, until you are stuck in an endlessly frustrating loop in which starting over is the only option.

It feels like it would fit better as an additional mode to some sort of NES Remix compilation. And that’s ignoring the fact that NES Remix 2 already had a mode based on the Nintendo World Championships. Nintendo World Championship: NES Edition is a celebration of the classic console; it’s just one that lacks excitement and is too exclusive for its own good.