NES Remix Reviews
[F]or the time being, this totally unexpected surprise ranks as one of the Wii U eShop's most engaging and downright enjoyable downloadable titles.
If you can get behind the notion of old school difficulty and adore the WarioWare formula, NES Remix will hit all the right notes. It doesn't shy away from its retro roots, but rather fully embraces them.
Let me make this clear -- if you find yourself playing any of these games yearly, whether it's for nostalgia or because you think they're genuinely good games, you will love NES Remix. It lacks a lot of bells and whistles that newcomers may find inexcusable, but I had a smile on my face almost the entire time, and experienced the same controller throwing moments (although a GamePad against a wall would be more disastrous) that made me persevere until I got it right.
Simple, addictive, and incredibly replayable, NES Remix is one of the smartest games Nintendo has made in ages. No one in gaming (save perhaps Sega) owns as rich a back catalog as Nintendo, and this is a great way to rework all those musty black-box NES games into a form that feel palatable to a contemporary audience. It even manages to make Urban Champion kind of fun; truly, a Christmas miracle.
Could be fun for nostalgia buffs, but don't expect any innovation
A great idea that fails to capitalise on the full extent of Nintendo's 8-bit legacy, although whether that's through greed or foolishness isn't yet clear.
NES Remix is a game that you desperately want to like but just can't. The NES was a great console with great games and the idea of playing them all with cool new mechanics and twists is a good one, but NES Remix falls far short of its potential. It feels rushed, which is appropriate since it released on the same day that it was announced!
NES Remix may bring back fond memories if you've played the games it features, but it doesn't actually capture what made some of those games great in the first place.
Don't dust off your old Nintendo carts. Just play NES Remix.
It plays out like cold-hearted cash grab, seemingly spat out just so the Wii U has something on its eShop this holiday season. A stuttering, stunted selection of nothingness.
Minor quirks aside, NES Remix is a real treat that came out of nowhere. It always amazes me how Nintendo can keep things so secretive and, in this case, make no mention of it until the release day.
NES Remix is intelligent, well-designed Nintendo nostalgia
NES Remix actually stands as a Nintendo example of an iOS game. Loads of pick up and play charm, mixed with the Nintendo magic. Memorable games, numerous challenges, and great MiiVerse integration creates a nice little package for a reasonable price. Some however will resent these being the same games they've played (and paid for) numerous times already. The remixed stages serve as a reminder to what this game could have been, but as such its content, whilst entertaining, will not be new and different enough for everyone.
NES Remix is defined more by the sum of its parts than its individual pieces, so have no hesitation in jumping headfirst into this excellent retro experience.
'NES Remix' is a gateway drug. It's just enough to remind us of better times and better highs. But it's not enough for sustained enjoyment. Despite the sometimes engaging final challenges and remix levels, the majority of your time is spent achieving the most minor of goals for minor rewards. You might as well just buy the full games themselves and skip a marketing ploy when you see it.
Although it has flaws, you have to hand it to Nintendo for spicing up their eShop catalogue with something a bit different. Well put together by a developer who have a nice little niche carved out when it comes to this sort of thing, indieszero have made the most of the raw materials that EAD have given them.
A quirky trip back to the well, but dig a little deeper and you'll find that these small injections and remixes of classic NES games are more enjoyable than the full experiences they hail from.
Remember: NES Remix only pretends to be a simple game. Nintendo understand the deadly allure of both nostalgia and perfection: they introduce new players to The Way Things Were; they also challenge long-time players to prove their skills. Make no false move in any given level and be granted three "rainbow stars," an award for mastery and masochism in equal measure. I've lost hours to repeated attempts at meaningless three star scores.
Despite the range of games on offer (everything from motocross to pinball) there is an inevitable sense of repetition, perhaps because the original games themselves were, behind the artwork, less distinct than they first appeared. As with many reconstituted products, NES Remix is immediately delicious, but inspires an obsession that it can't sustain for long.
Despite the glaring exclusion of other NES favorites, the no-mercy difficulty, and some bland challenges, NES Remix will resonate positively with any NES fan who welcomes a taste of the past and the feeling of satisfaction you get from the mastery retro games require to win.