Blair Loveday
In 1990 Nintendo hosted a massive tournament in the US using short modified versions of Rad Racer, Super Mario Bros and Tetris.
The goal, to get the best score and earn some sweet sweet cash. Well now 34 years later, you can enjoy a sweet version of the speedrunning action, from the comfort of your own home of course.
Jumping into the action, the main single player mode is Speedrun mode.
Here you get presented with each of the 13 games that you can do levels from. Each of them lets you play a level, and getting great scores on them allows you to unlock later levels. Initially it feels far too simple as you have super short levels where, for instance, Mario just needs to run and grab something. The initial The Legend of Zelda one for example literally just has you run up into a cave and grab a sword. Early levels are regularly under 20 seconds, as long as you don’t balls it up of course.
It turns out you should enjoy these early ones, as they get longer and harder fast. For example the Super Mario Bros. levels go from needing to collect some coins in a few seconds, to having to nail a couple of minutes of the level with the jumping fish on the first try. Even scaling the damn stairs at the end of a level can be frustrating if you don’t time your jumps absolutely spot on.
The levels carry on even if you die, it just reverts you back a couple of seconds, but with the timer still going. I can’t tell you how many times I had to go back and forth as I tried to get past Bowser perfectly to get the damn axe.
The Speedrun mode gives your rankings based on the time you complete the levels. You need to get high enough ranks to earn enough currency to unlock later levels. This alone was enough for the game to have been a whole heap of fun. The great news is there are even more options for you once you smash this out. There is Survival mode which has you play 3 rounds against ghosts of other players which is awesome. Then there is a local co-op version which has you and up to 8 people competing for times, and then world champs has you do 5 levels and your score goes up on an online leaderboard.
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition might not be the next great Nintendo game, but it’s a damn fun side game. It lets you enjoy slices of classic Nintendo goodness that respects these icons in short bite sized and fun ways.
Released: July 2024
Rating: G
Platforms reviewed: Nintendo Switch
Genre: Sports
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo