Amin Abbas
The Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is a commemorative release for the 35th anniversary of Nintendo World Championships on Nintendo Switch.
It focuses on various speedrunning challenges from 13 vintage Nintendo Entertainment System games such as: Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Kirby’s Adventure and more.
The main objective of the game is finishing challenges (over 150 microgames spread over 13 classic Nintendo Entertainment System titles) as fast as possible.
Players are given specific grades for completing these challenges based on how fast they completed them and are given coins to spend on unlocking new challenges.
While challenges will always be about speed, their goals will often change, the initial batch for each game introducing players to certain mechanics before upping the ante and putting what they have learned to use whilst having them complete whole sections of a level.
In Super Mario Bros. for example, initial challenges focused on grabbing Super Mushrooms or collecting coins while latter tasks forcing players to memorize entire levels before finishing them with a speedrun through the whole game.
The game also provides players with a lot of useful information to improve their speedrunning ability. This is done primarily with its side-by-side screens. After clearing any challenge, players can try again for a better time with their previous attempt playing simultaneously beside the current one.
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition has other modes such as: World Championships mode, where it features a rotating group of challenges with players competing for the top spot in the leaderboard each week.
Survival mode meanwhile will place players up against the ghosts of seven other players in three random challenges, the field getting cut in half every round.
The party mode offers up to eight players able to compete locally on a single screen either by choosing any of the 150 plus challenges one by one, or taking on groups of them with points awarded each round based on quickness.
The rewards of finishing the challenges can be very charming for some players who are keen to get all the pins and icons of their favorite characters from NES games era.
Overall, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is a loving celebration of the event’s origins and fun game that offers exciting challenges for classic Nintendo games that can be played by both old and new retro gamers fans.