Aside from the four Mario games, which are relatively pure for speedrunning due to their predictability and repeatability, the games are quite diverse. Zelda And Zelda IIfor example, emphasize close combat, while Metroid It’s about managing the jumps. Kirby’s Adventure is a wonderful game that is explicitly designed for slow, light play, making for a somewhat frustrating speedrunning challenge, while some of the inclusions (Little Icarus, Ice climber, Ball Struggle) are so complicated or random that I had to abandon my quest to get all A ranks or higher. For now.
These Switch-compatible NES controllers are expensive but feel exactly like the originals from the 1980s.Credit: Tim Biggs
For some, the Joy-Con controllers that come with the Switch console are a poor substitute for the hyper-precise NES controllers. You want big buttons and preferably a D-pad, so the official Pro Controller is a good option, but the best bet is Nintendo’s NES controller, which sells for $90 a pair.
The other offline option is Party Mode, where up to eight people can compete simultaneously on a single TV. You can pick any challenge in the game, and there are also curated playlists to get you started on the go.
I had a lot of fun playing this mode with other retro fans, and I gave it to a group of kids aged four to seven on a group outing and they loved it. The group gets to practice each round first, and the scoring system is such that things even out if you’re good at one game and bad at another. Still, I don’t know how many times you could play it before it gets boring, and if there’s one person in the group who’s much better than the others, it’ll ruin all the fun.
Conquer the world
The remaining two modes are all about online competition but, being Nintendo, things are a little different from other competitive online games.
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You first have to create a braggadocio profile, and I love how kitschy it is. As you play more, you can unlock pixel-rich profile pictures and trophy pins, which you attach to your profile, as well as a dozen “hype tags” and a choice for your favorite game. Nintendo has provided a list of hundreds of NES and (Japanese) Famicom games to choose from, so your favorite will be here.
Different challenges are offered each week. At the World Championships, you simply choose one and post your best score. You can try as many times as you like during the week, after which you will see a ceremony showing your place in the overall competition and an idea of how you perform among other players based on your birth year.
As you might expect, the competition at the top level is extremely tight. The first World Championship included a challenge to complete the first level of super mario brosThe overall winner ran a time of 21.11 seconds, while my personal best time of just 0.05 seconds slower placed me 363rd. You can watch a replay of the winner’s race, but at this point it’s a little late to get any indication.
The other competitive mode is Survival, which simulates a three-round single-elimination tournament. The game downloads seven runs from other players around the world, and you race against them as if you were all playing at the same time. It’s a really fun mode with an element of luck, since you’re paired with different people and the order of the events changes each time. If the event you’re worst at comes first, you have a better chance, since you only need to finish fourth to move on to the next one.
Room for improvement
Despite all the joyous fanfare, and as much as I enjoyed participating in the competition during the first week, I can’t help but think about all the ways the package could be more engaging and well-rounded. Why can’t I see how people on my friends list did on the various challenges and compete directly against them? Shouldn’t there be permanent leaderboards for each mission with replays, so I can learn from the best? Wouldn’t a daily challenge make sense in addition to a weekly challenge? On a more philosophical level, the game would obviously benefit from expanding the pool to include a few games not originally published by Nintendo. Tetris, Mega Man And Castlevania everything comes to mind.
There’s something about the way this game fits into Nintendo’s broader paid subscription service that doesn’t feel right to me either. It’s a $50 game, and a $30 annual subscription is required to access the online modes (which is most of the fun once you’ve played through each challenge yourself).
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Full versions of the 13 NES games are not included in Nintendo World Championshipsbut they’re included in Nintendo Switch Online via the downloadable NES app. So in a way, what you’re getting here is a $50 speedrunning mode for games you’re already paying for, with no guarantee of how long the online competitions will last.
Still, I’m looking forward to revisiting the challenges each week to try to master each league. And if nothing else, having the challenges in hand will be a much more enjoyable way to introduce newcomers to some of these games than just starting them from scratch.
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