Platform: Switch Age: 3+ Verdict: ★★☆☆☆ Nintendo World Championships – NES Edition Nintendo World Championships – NES Edition - a challenge from Legend of Zelda A compilation of 13 Nintendo titles from the golden NES era? Sign me up! But wait, not so fast. This would be a tasty menu of mid-80s marvels – bulked out with a little filler – were they the full games. But Nintendo has other ideas here, reviving the concept of speedruns through sliced-and-diced sections of its NES catalogue.
The notion is a callback to the eponymous real-world esports competitions Nintendo used to run in the 90s, which in turn gave rise to a couple of game spin-offs for Wii U and 3DS entitled NES Remix. This new NWC – NES edition presents a long series of challenges (approximately 150) carved out of 8-bit classics such as Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros 1, 2 & 3, plus a few not-classics such as Balloon Fight and Ice Climber. Rather than asking you complete levels in their entirety, the game presents you with mostly bite-sized tasks such as reach a certain area, grab a particular object or defeat a certain number of enemies – all against the clock.
Some missions, which we’ll generously call tutorials, last no more than seconds and are insultingly easy. In the Legend of Zelda’s first challenge, for instance, hero Link must scurry approximately 30 pixels on-screen and grab a sword. Taa-daa! Clearly, the trials become more elaborate but, crucially, you’re encouraged to r.