Nintendo World Championships NES Edition Review (Nintendo Switch OLED)

by Jim Smale · Published July 23, 2024 · Updated July 23, 2024

Nintendo World Championships NES Edition Review, Take on over 150 retro speed-running challenges in Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition for Nintendo Switch. Hone your skills and see if you have what it takes to be a champion! Set, beat, and perfect your times in the single-player Speedrun Mode. See how quickly you can grab the first Super Mushroom in Super Mario Bros. or how fast you can gobble up an enemy in Kirby’s Adventure.

Nintendo World Championships NES Edition Review Pros:

Awesome 8 Bit NES graphics.
424MB download size.
Own in-game achievements like a system with earning pin badges.
Two play modes – One player and party mode.
You get an initial introduction to what the championships are and when they happened.
Player icon which goes by your profile name, you get a fair few to start then you buy more with coins.
Hype tag again goes on your profile and these are excellent as they have tags like *I wrote my name on my games* or *first time playing a NES game*.
You set if you are a NES player or a Famicom player and then pick your favorite game from the extensive list.
Online features are optional, it lets you compete against other players in world championships and the survival mode.
Three game modes – Speedrun mode, World Championships, and Survival mode.
In Speedrun mode your fastest clear times are saved and you earn coins to unlock more challenges.
Each challenge in Speedrun shows a demo video playing (can be fast-forwarded), showing the objective, info on the game, personal best time, and highest rank.
Challenges have a star rating difficulty rating.
You play challenges in speed run mode in a splits reen style, your best run shows on the right, and your current attempt on the left. It uses the traditional speed run timer and shows button inputs.
The style and presentation are excellent from the timer font to the way it’s all shown to you.
Restarting challenges or replaying them is instant loading.
Very addictive as you try to beat your own score.
13 games you play – Kirby Adventure, Mario Bros 2 lost levels, the adventures of Link, Mario Bros 3, Balloon Fight, Ice Climbers, Excitebike, Mario Bros 2, Kid Icarus, Donkey Kong, Metroid, Legend of Zelda, and Super Mario Bros.
Coins in Speedrun let you go through the challenges in your own way.
Game settings – hype tag, favorite NES game, Speedrun mode split-screen mode on/off, gameplay instructions, online features, and birth year rankings.
Weekly challenges that allow you to replay them as much as you want.
Survival mode is where you play against ghost data records of players from online, you play in an elimination style round Robin. You have Silver and Gold divisions.
Every mode has an initial mode description pop-up.
It’s so addictive and fun to play.
The controls for the game show on the screen before you start.
In any game you can rewatch your best run replay, it shows your profile data, etc, and looks excellent.
Earn a rank based on your speedrun performance.
The pin art looks awesome and you can look at them in 3D and flip them around.
This is a game that also serves as an excellent trainer for speed running not only in these games but speed running in general.
World Championships let you pick and choose in which order and indeed which challenges you want to do.
The world championships are only one screen, you still get the video demo and controls. You get shown your best time and how many players have taken the challenge.
The last challenge of each game is to beat the full game! You do get an optional manual-like guide to help with tips and shortcuts.
If you die the game automatically rewinds time a few seconds and you carry on.
There are 501 player icons to collect.
Party mode supports up to 8 players on one console.
When the online championship ends you get a cool breakdown of your performance from leaderboard to data on the game.
You can watch the number 1 position run on the world championships once it ends.

Nintendo World Championships NES Edition Review Cons:

Initially, all you can do is play the Speedrun mode, it acts as an introduction but some people like me, want to go straight into settings.
Cannot remap the controls at all.
You only get a brief description of the game and no manuals or anything.
The game doesn’t have a museum-style menu showing off the history of the championships with images, text, and videos.
No way to save or share your best run replays.
I wish you could load in the top or any other player’s ghost/replay so you can see what they did and also compete in the speedrun mode.
More an FYI but you don’t get the actual full games to play.
Would be great to see more games added.
Feels criminal that you cannot have a friends-only leaderboard or be able to see your friend’s best times.
Cannot download ghosts of other players.
The only real reward systems it has are pins and profile icons.
You have to wait until the survival mode has populated players before you can quit.
I wish you can get some idea on to what the times are you should be going for.
The championships don’t give any idea of how you are performing.
You cannot pause the game, it’s short but still.
Had the game showing a connecting timer on screen that was random and so was the amount of time.

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