While it’s easy to think of speedrunning as a purely modern phenomenon, the practice predates the commercial internet and, more broadly, home console gaming itself. Still, for me, it was the arrival of the Nintendo Entertainment System that introduced that nagging question, “Yes, but how fast?”
Since most of us didn’t have the unlimited quarters required to hone our gaming skills at the local arcade, the NES provided the perfect training ground. Not only were the game paks themselves readily available—purchased with hard-earned chore money, bartered or borrowed on the elementary school playground, and perpetually at the top of each year’s holiday wish list—but many of Nintendo’s earliest titles incorporated a prominent timer function into the gameplay itself.
From Super Mario Bros. to Excitebike, finesse was important, but speed was key. Sure, our best runs would likely never be recognized by Guinness or Twin Galaxies, but neighborhood bragging rights were their own unique currency.
This week those decades of 8-bit training finally come to fruition with the arrival of Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition on the Nintendo Switch. And whether you’re old enough or not to remember 1990’s first official Nintendo World Championships (or its thematic predecessor, “Video Armageddon” from 1989 Fred Savage/Jenny Lewis vehicle The Wizard), this title offers a pixel-perfect view of competitive gaming’s spirited, sprite-based past.
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition‘s first challenge is to identify yourself. You can choose a hype tag (which can include things like your gaming generation, a generic humble brag, or a plug for your favorite character) as well as things like your birth year and your favorite NES game.
You can further customize your user account with tons of unlockable player icons and your favorite pin, with more virtual pins being unlocked as you complete the game’s various challenges. These can be adjusted as often as you like through the Settings menu, which is also where the game’s user interface can be tweaked. (For the record, I chose to make my play screen bigger in Survival Mode, to hide my personal best run during Speedrun Mode, and to show the basic game controls/which way to go while playing challenges.)
The bread and butter of Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is its Speedrun Mode, which boasts scores of challenges from many of your favorite NES first-party offerings. These include:
- Super Maio Bros.
- The Legend of Zelda
- Metroid
- Donkey Kong
- Kid Icarus
- Super Mario Bros. 2
- Excitebike
- Ice Climbers
- Balloon Fight
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- The Adventures of Link
- Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels
- Kirby’s Adventure
Now, obviously, not all of these games were created equal. Some are universally beloved classics, while others, like The Lost Levels, are more recent additions to NES canon, and still others are… Ice Climbers. (Sorry/not sorry.)
As such, the game’s 150-ish challenges are not evenly divided. Excitebike, for example, only has six, while Super Mario Bros. 3 includes some two dozen! Still, each featured title, regardless of its overall number of challenges, has at least one in each of the four skill categories.
Normal challenges are base-level experiences like pulling up a vegetable in Super Mario Bros. 2 or inhaling an enemy in Kirby’s Adventure. Hard challenges are a bit more involved—ascending all the way up to the Harp on the first stage of Kid Icarus—while Master challenges are harder still—like reaching Pauline in Donkey Kong. Last (but certainly not least) are the Legend challenges, which are incredibly complex and tend to span wide swaths of the game in question.
The most obvious example of this is completing World 8 in Super Mario Bros. Yes, you’re instructed to use the hidden Warp Zones in Worlds 1-2 and 4-2, but even with these shortcuts, it’s a bit of a trek with that omnipresent timer ticking up the milliseconds. Just as in all the challenge levels, if you die or take a wrong turn, the game automatically rewinds, but—and this part is important—the clock is still running! These missteps are factored into your overall time.
To help players through Legend challenges, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition offers both the demo playthrough (like it does for all the challenge levels) as well as some “Classified Information.” These tips and tricks appear to be ripped straight from classic issues of Nintendo Power, and, in addition to being the ultimate in old-school gamer nostalgia, they’re indispensable with their easy-to-understand visuals and simple instructions.
While the controls in Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition are dead simple—you really just need a D-pad and the A and B buttons—there are also two combo commands that you can use in case of emergency. To restart your run, just press the L and R triggers. To give up (because there’s no shame in admitting when you’re licked), press ZL and ZR.
It’s important to note that your performance will receive both a letter grade and reward coins upon completion, with bonus perks (in the form of collectible pins) awarded for A- and S-ranks. The coins can be used to unlock more challenges and player icons, while new pins become available in your Pin Collection where they can be examined and picked as your new favorite.
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition offers even more in the form of two online modes that pit you against players from around the world. The titular World Championship Mode features a weekly rotating suite of five challenges. Here you can compare your best time against others and watch the world’s fastest run for some pointers.
Similarly, Survival Mode is an eight-player elimination match wherein you compete against other players’ ghost data across three challenges, with players eliminated from eight to four to two to one super-fast winner. This mode consists of two divisions, Silver and Gold, with the latter offering significantly stiffer competition.
However, if what you truly long for is the old-school challenge of a household speedrun competition (with a distinctly modern twist), Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition offers an expansive Party Mode. Simple dock your Switch and up to eight competitors can participate on a single system. Players can choose from themed Challenge Packs or play through single challenges one at a time. Either way, all the challenge content is unlocked, so it’s perfect to show off the title to your friends and family.
It’s no secret that the Nintendo Switch is my family’s favorite system, and that’s partially because, with its expansive library offering various play modes and difficulty levels, many Nintendo Switch titles take an all-things-to-all-people approach. Interestingly, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition doesn’t do that; despite its unparalleled breadth, it’s a singular experience that it executes flawlessly.
Play NES classics—fast—alone, with your friends, or with players from across the world.
That’s it. And that’s more than enough.
While I’d love to see more iconic games from the NES library added in the future—Where’s my Castlevania?!—and a couple of the initial offerings aren’t exactly my favorites, I still can’t fault the game as-is. There’s far too much content (not to mention too much fun) for me to nitpick.
A must-buy for old heads, new players wishing to experience that original Nintendo renaissance in the most accessible way possible, and especially those of us who want to share this gaming history with a new generation, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is a release truly worthy of all its inevitable hype.
Review materials provided by Nintendo of America. This post contains affiliate links. I love the Power Glove; it’s so bad!
