Three Ways NES Remix is Better Than Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition – Editorial

Nintendo’s summer offering to satisfy the thirst of old-school Nintendo fans is Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, which is essentially a collection of speedrunning challenges. Instead of igniting discussions about who’s the fastest or most clever when it comes to titles like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, it reminds us of how Nintendo frequently drops the ball when it comes to online functionality and how its cheap cash-ins are a major disappointment compared to its more creative and unique projects. One of those projects was the NES Remix series that started on Wii U and also ended up on the 3DS. I’ll offer three ways that the NES Remix games are better than the ironically named Nintendo World Championships (NWC).

1. Leaderboards

The most glaring omission of NWC is its lack of consistent online leaderboards, which even the most basic of score, and speed-based titles have managed to integrate. To be fair, the game does have competitions with a rotating set of challenges where players can compete for a world ranking, but your ranking isn’t actually revealed until after the competition ends, so there’s no feeling of trying to catch up to the faster times of others or see how friends are doing. It was obviously a choice to not include a persistent ranking system where players could compete against friends and the world, and it begs the question of how Nintendo can even use the word “World” when so much of the experience is centered on competing against yourself to set a new personal best.

While it didn’t have them from the outset, NES Remix and its sequel had a Championship Mode that unlocked if you owned both games. This extra mode tasked players with collecting 50 coins in Super Mario Bros. and 25 in Super Mario Bros. 3, and then going for a high score in Dr. Mario. While somewhat limited in scope compared to the actual remixed challenges present elsewhere in the game, this was a persistent ranking that you could keep working on, which is itself an improvement over the scheduled competitions of NWC.

2. Familiar vs. Fresh Experiences

The Speedrun Mode of NWC is where you play and unlock challenges from 13 different NES classics. These vary from collecting an item or set number of coins to completing a boss fight or single stage as fast as possible (no warp pipes allowed!). The final challenge from Super Mario Bros. actually tasks you with finishing the game as fast as possible. As someone who grew up with these games, it’s hard not to feel a very strong sense of the familiar; I’ve finished SMB dozens of times, and now I’m just playing segments of it–or maybe the whole thing–as quickly as I can. We’re all privy to the question of how many times Nintendo can release Mario’s first platforming adventure, and it doesn’t feel like we are getting much more than that with NWC.

NES Remix, on the other hand, offered both simple challenges like those of NWC but also much more in the form of its Remix stages. Examples include weather effects and disappearing platforms in Super Mario Bros., a dark screen illuminated only by a single spotlight in Donkey Kong, or knocking over rival racers against a green background in Excitebike. These were new ways of experiencing games many of us have gone through countless times. The fact that none of the NES Remix games are on Switch is an absence more painfully felt after spending time with NWC.

3. Game Variety

NWC draws from 13 different NES games, including relatively lesser played titles like Balloon Fight, Kid Icarus, and Ice Climber. Along with Donkey Kong, this foursome has the fewest speedrun challenges compared to the other nine games. As you might expect, the four Super Mario Bros. games (Yes, the Famicom version of SMB2–The Lost Levels–is also present here) make up the lion’s share of NWC’s 150 or so challenges. Mario-style platformer fans have ample opportunity to ply their craft, but the overall lack of variety is another nail in the coffin for this game’s longevity.

Given that you could have used the same $29.99 USD to purchase both NES Remix Games on Wii U or Ultimate NES Remix on 3DS, it seems fair to compare the total number of NES games that each of those options had on offer. Remix 1 and 2 drew from 28 different NES titles, while Ultimate Remix drew from 16. Whether portable or home console, either prospect meant more variety than what NWC brings to the table. I particularly enjoyed all of the sports games that made an appearance in the Wii U offerings, like Baseball, NES Open Tournament Golf, and Ice Hockey.

As it is at present, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition presents as a lackluster and fairly empty filler title for what is likely the Switch’s final year as Nintendo’s main console. It pales in comparison especially when put side-by-side with the unique and charming NES Remix games, which remain trapped on older hardware whose digital storefronts are now closed. While it may be unlikely, updates to NWC such as full leaderboards and a greater library of NES games would go a long way to making it worthy of recommendation. Today, though, I’d rather dust off my Wii U and enjoy the sight of Link smashing bricks and collecting coins in a Mario bonus room.