Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition Reviews
Like NES Remix and WarioWare before it, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition offers a good way to revisit challenging moments from a selection of classic NES games.
A tribute to the timelessness of some of Nintendo's earliest classics and while the whole package is rather thin it's impressive how entertaining it still manages to be.
Nintendo World Championships is a fun introduction to competitive speedrunning with tons of nostalgia, even if its customization tools could be more robust.
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.
Nintendo World Championships NES Edition is a tribute to the great classics that marked a generation and a fun and refreshing experience to enjoy 13 iconic works under a new approach. By bringing the speedrun mode to a wider audience, Nintendo once again demonstrates its great development skills.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
All in all, Nintendo World Championship: NES Edition is a fantastic way to discover or reminisce over the titles that formed the basis for many of the franchises that still dominate gaming today. The compulsion to get better and better is perhaps the purest distillation of video gaming available and the more competitive modes offer a challenge for a long time to come. Any Nintendo fan (or gaming fan in general) should pick this up and take on the clock. I look forward to seeing you all on the World Championship leaderboards!
If you loved NES Remix, you will also appreciate Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, which, in addition to several new challenges, offers a small essay on game design. Otherwise, the package is a bit pricey (€29.99, to which you have to add the cost of a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to enjoy all the features), and not all "remixed games" have aged well in the same way.
Review in Italian | Read full review
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 offers a pleasingly brisk and enjoyable format that makes it the unexpected party game hit of the Summer.
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition doesn't make a great first impression. It's a downgrade in many ways to NES Remix and there's not as much variety or effort put into the challenges, nor any graphical tweaks to speak of this time around. However, stick with it, get into the competitive mindset, and start collecting up all the pins, icons, and top-ranked times on offer, and you may find yourself fully entertained. It's a slight thing, purely speed-focused, but we expect that'll suit plenty of folk who want a competitive outlet to display their old-school skills. And hey, it also doubles as a handy history of some iconic Nintendo gaming moments and mechanics.
While I’ll surely continue to chip away at my best times, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition feels more like practice than the big game itself. It’s a great way to learn the basics of speedrunning, but the outlet for those acquired skills is in another castle. Maybe it’s all building toward the return of the real Nintendo World Championships. If that’s the case, cue the ’80s training montage music. I’m going big time.
For retro enthusiasts with access to likeminded friends and family, this Switch challenge collection is a genuine local multiplayer hit. For solo players and those looking to compete with others online, however, it’s a far less impressive package.
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is a game tailor-made for speedrunners, and played alone it risks losing its appeal in a short time. It's a creature made for a well-thought-out competitive ecosystem, which with online challenges could keep the interest of its select audience high for a long time, or at least until the arrival of an eventual SNES Edition. Perhaps not for everyone, but intriguing if the challenge doesn't scare you.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition presents a promising concept, but a lack of features to support either dedicated speedrunners or any sort of serious online competition limits the package's appeal. There's certainly fun to be had revisiting this lineup of golden oldies, but Nintendo has only scored a bronze at the Nostalgia Olympics this time around.
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition perfectly translates the simple gameplay of the 8-bit era into a competitive-focused release that adds a fresh spin on retro titles. The UI is well designed making it quick and easy to replay challenges, incentivizing you to improve on your last attempt. Each game remains in its original format and due to this, newcomers may struggle to get to grips with the more rigid movement of certain games. With a wealth of online options on its way and chaotic multiplayer, this could be a standout title for retro enthusiasts and become a staple in the speedrunning community.
Summing up, Nintendo Championships NES Edition presents itself at the appointment with fans as an authentic love letter to the history of the Japanese giant, with an eye to the phenomenon of speedrunning which has its most archaic roots on the iconic 8-bit home console.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Unless you're a real fan of speedrun, competition and retro games, you may not find what you're looking for in the long run with this new originality from Nintendo.
Review in French | Read full review
Celebrating the speedrunning community whilst breathing new life into classic titles, there’s a lot to like about Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition.
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.
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition for the Switch valiantly tries to evoke the speedrunning spirit of Nintendo's real-world, 1990 competition, but the challenges are too flimsy for a 2024 release.