Forget the European Football Championship - the Nintendo World Cup is starting soon
27.6.2024
Translation: machine translated
In "Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition", the aim is to beat high scores in speedrun challenges from old NES classics. I have played the Nintendo World Championships in advance and am delighted.
On 18 July, Nintendo will release "Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition", a speedrun compilation based on the legendary former Nintendo World Championships. Nintendo organised the "Nintendo World Championships" in the USA 34 years ago. In this tournament, participants had to master three popular NES games ("Super Mario Bros.", "Rad Racer" and "Tetris") and collect high scores. The event was repeated in 2015 and 2017 with various modern and retro games.
I have already played the game at a preview event and became Nintendo World Champion. Well, sort of.
The addiction of speedruns
In "Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition", there are several game modes that always centre on the same game principle. The aim is to play through small snippets of thirteen legendary NES games as quickly as possible in speedruns. Some of these challenges literally only last a few seconds, others can take several minutes.
First, I let off steam in the simple speedrun single-player mode. In this mode, I can master individual challenges at will and try to increase my high score. Sometimes I have to get to the finish line as quickly as possible in "Excitebike". In a "Zelda" challenge, I have to eliminate all the opponents on a screen as quickly as possible. And in "Donkey Kong", I have to climb the ladders at lightning speed to save Pauline from the monkey. A short preview video shows me what I have to do in each case.
Source: Nintendo
After each challenge, my performance is awarded a grade - C, B, A or the ultimate rank: S. The faster I am, the more coins I earn. I use these to unlock new challenges. In the short time I play the mode, I become addicted. I don't want to let go of the controller. Just one more round. Just one more quick S rank. Just one more challenge to unlock.
Source: Nintendo
The spirits I called are beating me up hard
Next, I try out the "Survival" mode. In this mode, I compete against recorded ghost data from other online speedrunners. Several challenges are played one after the other. After each challenge, half of the participants are eliminated. Battle royale with speedruns, so to speak.
I easily master the easier silver level. Among other things, I smashed balloons in "Balloon Fighter" in record time and was the fastest to smash all the pots in a "Kid Icarus" level.
In return, the ghosts really put me to the test in the Gold level. I jump too imprecisely in "Super Mario Bros. 3" and don't manage to climb a mountain fast enough. And in "Kirby's Adventure" I generally make a fool of myself because I don't understand the controls. But the challenges are still fun. Here, too, I feel this "just one more try" urge. I have to be able to get through this damn gold level!
A "legendary" fail
In the second half, I switch to local multiplayer mode with the other participants in the preview session. It has the potential to join the ranks of multiplayer classics like "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe" and "Mario Party Superstars" in my home. I laugh, cheer and shout my way through the challenges as if it were a matter of life and death.
We start with a tough challenge - a "legendary" challenge that lasts several minutes. In this challenge, we have to play through a level of "Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels" as quickly as possible. The game is notorious for its ultra-difficult levels. Before we tackle the challenge, we look at an "instruction manual" with insider tips. This is reminiscent of booklets from old NES games - really cool.
Despite tips and tricks, I have to surrender in this legendary challenge. I am not alone. Of the four participants, only one makes it to the finish line. What a legendary fail. But I'm not frustrated. On the contrary, the failure spurs me on to top performance in the next multiplayer mode.
I am world champion ... so to speak
Finally, we play the party mode, in which we have to master several challenges in packs one after the other. Depending on the rank we achieve, we receive points for each challenge. At the end of the game, a "world champion" is crowned. At least that's the highly official title we agreed on during the preview session.
Source: Nintendo
The challenge packs are organised thematically. Some are about finding the first mushroom in various Mario games. Others, on the other hand, are about destructiveness. In a package in "Super Mario Bros.", for example, we have to destroy a certain number of blocks as quickly as possible or smash floor tiles in "Zelda II".
I have the most fun with the challenge packs, which contain short and crisp speed runs. The duels in these compact challenges are the most exciting. And there are insane situations in which milliseconds often make the difference between victory and defeat.
My two highlights from the packages I played are two of the simplest challenges: In Super Mario Bros. 3, we have to fall (yes, fall, not fly) through a level with Mario and open a door on the ground. Sounds simple, but Mario's falling physics make for some laughs. It's difficult to predict where the plumber will land. A mushroom challenge, also from "Super Mario Bros. 3", is absolutely insane. A fellow player and I both end up in first place and get the mushroom in the same hundredth of a second. Unbelievable! I look forward to epic moments like this during multiplayer evenings at home.
I'm proud of my performance. I won the world champion title in two out of four challenge packs. And I failed spectacularly in the other two
The anticipation is great
After the short play session, I'm really looking forward to the game's release on 18 July. The local multiplayer mode in particular will make for some heated sessions at home
With the release of the game, I can make my World Champion title a little more official. Nintendo promises numerous online functions with leaderboards and weekly challenge packs. Whoever makes it to first place in these events can truly call themselves Nintendo World Champion. I'm ready.
Header image: Nintendo
Domagoj Belancic
Senior Editor
Domagoj.Belancic@digitecgalaxus.chMy love of video games was unleashed at the tender age of five by the original Gameboy. Over the years, it's grown in leaps and bounds.
