Outside of the four Mario games, which are relatively pure speedruns due to their predictability and repeatability, the games are pretty diverse. Zelda AND Zelda IIfor example, put a focus on hard fighting, while Metroid it’s about managing jumps. Kirby’s Adventure is a great game that is explicitly designed for slow and cool play, which creates something of a frustrating sprint challenge, while some of the inclusions (Kid Icarus, Ice climber, flask melee) are so weird or random that I had to give up on my quest to get all A’s or above. For now.
These Switch-compatible NES controllers are expensive, but they feel exactly like the originals from the 1980s.Credit: Tim Biggs
The tricky bit for some will be that the Joy-Con controllers included with the Switch console are a poor substitute for the hyper-precision NES pads. You want big buttons and preferably a D-pad, so the official Pro Controller is a good option, but the best choice is Nintendo’s NES Controller, which retails for $90 a pair.
Another offline option is Party Mode, where up to eight people can compete simultaneously on one TV. You can choose any challenge in the game, and there are also curated playlists for fast-paced gameplay.
I’ve had a lot of fun playing this mod with other retro fans, and I gave it to a group of four to seven year olds on a date and they loved it. The group gets to practice each round first, and the result is that things work out if you’re good at one game and bad at another. I’m not sure how many times you can play it before it gets old, though, and if there’s one person in the group who’s far more skilled than the rest, it’ll bring you instant gratification.
Taking over the world
The remaining two modes are all about online competition, but since this is Nintendo, things are a little different than other online competitive games.
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First you have to create a brag profile, and I love how nice it is. Playing more lets you unlock pixel-heavy profile pictures and trophy pins, which you attach to your profile, along with one of several dozen “new tags” and a choice for your favorite game. Nintendo has provided a list of hundreds of NES and Famicom (Japanese) games to choose from, so your favorites will be here.
Different challenges appear every week, and in the World Championship you simply choose one and post your best score. You can try as many times as you like during the week, after which you will see a ceremony showing your place in the overall race and an idea of how you did among other players with your year of birth.
As you might expect, the competition at the top is extremely tight. The first world championship included a challenge to complete the first level of Super Mario Bros. The overall winner had a time of 21.11 seconds, while a personal best of just 0.05 slower put me at number 363. You can watch a replay of the winner’s run, but at that point it’s a little too late to get pointers .
The other competitive mode is Survival, which simulates a three-round knockout tournament. The game downloads seven runs completed by other players around the world and you race against them as if you were all playing at the same time. It’s a really fun mode with an element of luck, as you’re paired with different people and the order of events changes each time. If the event you’re worst at comes first, you have a better chance, as you only need to finish fourth to move on.
Room to improve
For all its joyous hype, and as much as I’ve enjoyed the competition over the first week, I can’t help but think of all the ways the package could be made more appealing and complete. Why can’t I see how people on my friends list have fared in the various challenges and compete directly with them? Shouldn’t there be permanent leaderboards for each repeat mission so I can learn from the best? Doesn’t a daily challenge make sense in addition to the weekly one? On a more philosophical level, the game would definitely benefit from an expansion of the lineup to include some games not originally published by Nintendo. Tetris, Mega Man AND Castlevania all come to mind.
There’s something about the way this game integrates with Nintendo’s wider paid subscription service that doesn’t feel right to me either. It’s a $50 game and requires a $30 annual subscription to access the online modes (which is more fun once you’ve played each challenge yourself).
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The full versions of the 13 NES games are not included in the Nintendo World Championship, but they are included with Nintendo Switch Online via the downloadable NES app. So in a way what you’re getting here is a $50 speed mod for games you’re already paying for, with no guarantee of how long the online races will last.
However, I look forward to revisiting the challenges each week in an attempt to master each championship. And if nothing else, keeping the challenges light by hand will make for a much better way to introduce new people to some of these games and just starting them from scratch.
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