Bite-sized fun... for a bite-sized time.
I’m old enough to remember hours and hours of entertainment provided by my family’s NES console. We never had a R.O.B. or a Power Glove — but my friend Chris had both, and the only thing I remember about them both is that neither lasted very long — but we did have a light gun and played the combo of Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt on a seemingly everlasting loop.
I also remember riding my bike about 15 minutes down the road to the Confederation Mall Blockbuster so I could take part honest to goodness NES Championship matches. Or, rather, trials. Which I never got very far in; The Wizard I was not.
Regardless, it’s that feeling of competition that Nintendo World Championships NES Edition is going for, providing a series of speed-running time trials to solo players, to groups of local players, or opened wide up to online leaderboards (providing you’ve got a Nintendo Switch Online account).
I started with single-player action as most of the review period took place while online functionality was offline. Here, you’ll start with a small supply of in-game coins, slowly working your way through challenges tied to NES classics including Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Excitebike, The Legend of Zelda, and so many more.
Challenges range from 5-6 seconds long (grab the first mushroom in Super Mario Bros.‘ Level 1-1), to minutes long (complete all of Super Mario Bros.‘ Level 1-1). An initial screen will show you exactly how the challenge can be completed, and some challenges will even feature on-screen arrows to help you succeed (in the case of reaching Zelda‘s first dungeon).
The best possible ranking available for a perfect completion is an S, which grants you the most coins to then use to unlock new challenges. You’ll also receive coins for besting your own records and the like.
In terms of single-player action, that’s about it… as too it is for Party Mode, which is that gameplay expanded to groups of up to 8. For the purposes of review, I grabbed my husband and challenged him to a series of small tournaments, grouping challenges by game or by theme.
My husband went through five such tournaments — maybe taking a half an hour at most — before declaring he’d had enough.
“Is there more to this?” he asked after we traded tournament wins pretty much back and forth (and I note that he asked after essentially beating me 3-2).
Truthfully, there isn’t. He enjoyed the Mario 3 mini-boss tournament but made me redo a challenge involving Excitebike as he’d never played it. Where I had the benefit of a lot of nostalgia to keep me playing (though admittedly I was reaching my limit too), he did not.
This is the important bit to get about NES Edition. This isn’t the thrill of biking over to Blockbuster to play a section of a game controlled and timed by a junior staffer, it’s a bite-sized portion of a game carefully programmed and curated by Nintendo. Think you could do better in a run? It’s not a matter of practicing for next year, it’s just literally practicing in-game and producing immediate results. That’ll work for a lot of people, but it takes the magic out of things for me.
Truthfully, Nintendo World Championships NES Edition made me more nostalgic for the actual games found within — Super Mario Bros. 3 and The Legend of Zelda specifically — and the need for a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to properly play meant I could go and actually play those games through emulation. I don’t know if that’s fully a win or not.
Ultimately, I’d imagine most players will likely get about an hour’s worth of satisfaction from Nintendo World Championships NES Edition before finding themselves exhausted, though parties with a bunch of players will help sustain that feeling. Players who are utterly focused on besting their own scores — or those of others online — will likely spend far more time with things. It’s ultimately up to you if that offering is worth its $50 AUD asking price.
Nintendo World Championships NES Edition was reviewed using a promotional code on Nintendo Switch, as provided by the publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.
| Nintendo World Championships NES Edition18 July 2024Switch |
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FAQs
There, contestants played a special Nintendo World Championships 1990 cartridge for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The cartridge contains three customized minigames based upon the popular games Super Mario Bros. (1985), Rad Racer (1987), and Tetris (1989).
Who won the 1990 Nintendo World Championships? ›
Results. Three World Champion titles were given. Jeff Hansen won in the 11 and under category, Thor Aackerlund won in the 12-17 category, and Robert Whiteman won in the 18 and older category.
What happens when you beat Mario NES? ›
After completing the game once, the player is rewarded with the ability to replay with increased difficulty, such as all Goombas replaced with Buzzy Beetles, enemies similar to Koopa Troopas who cannot be defeated using the Fire Flower.
What were the three games featured on the Nintendo World Championship cartridge? ›
It features one game of the Super Mario franchise—Super Mario Bros. —as well as Rad Racer and Tetris as the other two games. The Super Mario Bros. challenge gave players 99 lives, although they had to collect 50 coins in the shortest time possible.
What was the first ever Nintendo Game Boy? ›
The Game Boy launched in the Japanese market in April 1989, followed by North America in July, and Europe in September of the following year, backed by a $10 million marketing effort. Sales of the Game Boy and its successor variants (including the Game Boy Color) continued until March 2003.
What was the first video game ever played? ›
Technician Robert Dvorak spent about two weeks building the device. After a little debugging, the first video game was ready for its debut. They called the game Tennis for Two. Players could turn a knob to adjust the angle of the ball, and push a button to hit the ball towards the other player.
Who was the legendary Nintendo CEO? ›
Book overview. Satoru Iwata was the global president and CEO of Nintendo and a gifted programmer who played a key role in the creation of many of the world's best-known games.
Who rivals Nintendo? ›
Nintendo's competitors
Bandai Namco is a provider of entertainment-related products. Activision Blizzard is a developer and publisher of interactive entertainment content and solutions. Electronic Arts (EA) is a company that provides digital interactive entertainment.
Who was the CEO of Nintendo in 1995? ›
Hiroshi Yamauchi (山内溥, Yamauchi Hiroshi, 7 November 1927 – 19 September 2013) was a Japanese businessman and the third president of Nintendo, joining the company on 25 April 1949 until stepping down on 24 May 2002, being subsequently succeeded by Satoru Iwata.
Has anyone beat every NES game? ›
One speedrunner, The Mexican Runner (TMR), undertook the NESMania challenge to play every NES game released in North America. It took from 2014 May 28th to 2017 February 26th, and he clocked around 3,435 hours of total play time by the end (the NESMania archive itself also falls under this trope).
Is “Mario” the brothers' last name? That would make Mario's full name “Mario Mario” and it would make Luigi's name “Luigi Mario.” That's a little Koopa-kooky, but that's exactly the choice that was made in the 1993 live-action movie Super Mario Bros.
What kills Super Mario? ›
Poor Mario can die in-game in many different ways, whether it's an enemy attack, game mechanic, timer, environmental hazard, or a big bottomless pit. All deaths are not equal, as some can completely mess with your head as a player or frustrate you during a long play-through.
Will there be another Nintendo World Championship? ›
The best Splatoon 3 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe players from around the world will battle it out at the World Championship 2024.
What are the big three gaming console? ›
As of 2024, there have been nine console generations, with the current leading manufacturers being Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, colloquially known as the "Big 3." Past console manufacturers have included Atari, Fairchild, Mattel, Coleco, Sega, NEC, 3DO, Fujitsu and SNK.
Who made the first game cartridge? ›
Gerald Anderson Lawson (December 1, 1940 – April 9, 2011) was an American electronic engineer. He is known for his work in designing the Fairchild Channel F video game console as well as leading the team that pioneered the commercial video game cartridge.
What was the first video game in 1990? ›
1990 marked the release of the Super NES, along with the much awaited Super Mario World. In order to fend off the new competition, Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog.
What was the first game to be featured in a competitive gaming tournament? ›
The earliest known video game competition took place on 19 October 1972 at Stanford University for the game Spacewar.
Which video game was the first video game played in space during the 1990's? ›
Serebrov (b. 15 February 1944) became the first person to play a videogame in space when he packed a Game Boy and his personal copy of Tetris (Nintendo, 1989) for his trip to the MIR Space Station in 1993.
What did Nintendo do in 1990? ›
1990. Japan entered the 16-bit market by releasing the Super Famicom in the autumn. Game Boy was launched in Europe and established what would become an astronomical worldwide installed base for the Nintendo handheld console.
