As someone who has spent countless hours delving into the world of retro gaming and speedrunning, I was initially thrilled to hear about Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition. Having grown up playing these classic games, I saw this as an opportunity to test my skills against others, both locally and online.
Nintendo is widely recognized and justifiably praised for fostering the growth of esports and speedrunning communities in the gaming world, which have gained immense popularity in recent times. Nintendo’s role was pioneering with events like the Nintendo World Championships being among the earliest high-profile publisher-led esports initiatives. Furthermore, numerous renowned speedrunning records are built around classic NES games. Therefore, it is no surprise that Nintendo would leverage its historical significance by launching Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition on Nintendo Switch. Although the features may seem basic for dedicated speedrunners, this hybrid tutorial and online competition effectively showcases the thrill of improving your best time by the tiniest of margins.
At the start of the Nintendo World Championships, you’re invited to create your profile in an engaging manner. You browse through emblems representing classic Nintendo games for NES, as well as beloved third-party titles and Famicom listings. The “favorite games” selection is varied, ranging from nostalgic phrases like “Plays With Power,” to more recent slogans such as “Retro Game Collector.” This customization adds a personal touch, making you feel part of Nintendo’s rich heritage.
After setting up your account, you have the option to select either Solo or Multiplayer Mode. In Solo Mode, the One Player tab presents you with three gaming choices: Speedrun, Championships, and Survival. The majority of single-player experience is provided by Speedrun Mode, which consists of a vast assortment of challenges derived from 13 classic Nintendo games. These challenges are also integrated into solo online play and Multiplayer Mode tasks. Among the games included are the NES Super Mario Bros., Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Excitebike, and Balloon Fight, among others.
As someone who’s spent countless hours honing my skills in various video games, I can truly appreciate the thoughtful design of this particular challenge system. The quick nature of each challenge, ranging from a few seconds to just a handful of minutes, keeps me engaged and motivated.
Several of these features can be disabled, yet they collectively offer an experience that deviates from the standard goal-setting in games such as The Legend of Zelda or Metroid. Instead, this game focuses more on instructing players to learn and start executing tasks at a rapid pace. It may not reach the immersive level of an interactive museum like Atari 50, but it effectively introduces speedrunning basics to newcomers.
As a newcomer to this speedrunning platform, I find the interface and tools quite welcoming and user-friendly. However, I’ve noticed that there aren’t many advanced customization options for experienced speedrunners. For instance, runs are solely judged based on completion time without any disqualification settings for factors like taking damage. This means that sometimes, getting hit without a penalty can result in a faster time than carefully avoiding obstacles. Furthermore, there are additional criteria to meet, such as not overheating in Excitebike, which you only learn about after making mistakes and receiving penalties. The grading system is also unclear; while you receive letter grades (C to S), the interface doesn’t specify which time-marks correspond to each grade. To earn an A-rank with its special reward, you need to surpass the target time without knowing what it is until after achieving it.
The thriving speedrunning community is known for its ingenuity in devising fresh challenges to surpass themselves. Sadly, this aspect is compromised for ease in the given context. Thus, it serves as an accessible entrypoint for those intrigued by the community or seeking a novel approach to revisit their cherished retro games, but it doesn’t offer advanced explorations beyond that.
Another aspect of Nintendo World Championship is that for each game, there’s a free extra challenge to attempt. Once completed, these challenges reward you with coins to access more difficult challenges. However, as the challenges become tougher, the coin cost to unlock them increases. This design seems inconsistent with itself since you only obtain coins upon finishing a challenge. Consequently, if you opt to restart a challenge due to an error, you won’t earn any coins to spend. Speedrunners frequently use quick-restarts while perfecting their runs, making it less satisfying that they only receive compensation for the final successful attempt. Even receiving a poor grade in a completed challenge awards some coins, so often, it’s better to complete an imperfect run than starting over – despite the time investment required. Initially, unlocks come swiftly, but the final challenges are much more costly, leading you to grind for coins.
As an avid player of this game, I understand that to unlock all the challenges and earn enough coins, it’s essential to participate in its asynchronous online modes. These modes offer new challenges regularly, allowing me to engage with them and improve my skills. The World Championships Mode is particularly exciting because it lets me play five challenges of varying difficulties an unlimited number of times to set my best record. At the end of each competition period, I can check my ranking against all other players, which is a great feature for younger kids competing against their peers or older gamers like myself who appreciate the challenge, even if we may not be as fast as teenagers. Survival Mode takes things up a notch by allowing me to race against the ghost data of seven other players in three random events, with eliminations after each challenge. Although it’s not live competition, seeing the runs of other players concurrently with my own makes it thrilling and keeps me coming back for more.
As a gamer, when it comes to the Party Mode for couch co-op, you’ll find yourself going head-to-head with up to seven other players in the same room. This is different from the online modes where you compete against each other asynchronously. With Party Mode, you take on challenges together in real time, using a selection of pre-designed packs of levels or even creating your own speedrun competitions. It’s an instant and straightforward way to engage in friendly competition with your friends right next to you. However, if you want to make the most of the eight-player limit, you might need a rather large TV to accommodate everyone.
In the online versions, there are some additional elements compared to Speedrun mode. For instance, you’ll hear virtual crowd sounds that react to your performance – applause when you complete a task, and disappointed “awws” when you underperform. Furthermore, you’ll receive coins at an accelerated pace, which is essential for unlocking all the challenges and custom profile pictures. Lastly, it appears that this mode offers ample opportunities for innovation, as Nintendo could create weekly themes or game-specific events.
Nintendo World Championship: NES Edition functions not just as a game but as a platform, providing beginners with a gentle introduction to the world of speedrunning. Its name, “NES Edition,” implies that this is only the beginning and that there’s more to discover in the future. I hope it lives up to expectations, as it has the potential to be an excellent gateway into the speedrunning community for newcomers.
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2024-07-17 15:40