Zelda World Championships Concept

While playing Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, but also NES Remix in the past, I personally had the most fun with the different challenges for The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II - The Adventure of Link, to the surprise of no one. As a Zelda fan since my childhood, those are the two NES games that I've played on an actual Nintendo Entertainment System and that I find the most enjoyable. And the rest of the NES games feels like a mixed bag, where I can't find the motivation to really dive into all the different challenges.

So, I had this idea that they should make a "Zelda World Championships" instead, which entirely focuses on Zelda and Zelda alone, spanning the majority of the classic games that are part of the Nintendo Switch Online service. This could be a great idea for the 40th Anniversary in 2026, as a nice way of re-experiencing the series in one competition-based package. On the successor to the Nintendo Switch, which should be a thing in two years, they could potentially even include GameCube titles, so we're looking at the following list:

• The Legend of Zelda (NES)
• Zelda II - The Adventure of Link (NES)
• A Link to the Past (SNES)
• Link's Awakening DX (GBC)
• Ocarina of Time (N64)
• Ocarina of Time - Master Quest (N64)
• Majora's Mask (N64)
  
• Oracle of Ages (GBC)
• Oracle of Seasons (GBC)
• The Wind Waker (GCN)
• Four Swords Adventures (GCN)
• The Minish Cap (GBA) 
• Twilight Princess (GCN)
  

That's 13 games in total, same amount as in the Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, so that's actually more than enough. Master Quest is probably the most exotic addition, taking a similar place to Super Mario Bros. - The Lost Levels, but the version for the Game Cube also was just an N64 ROM hack, essentially. It would even be nice to have it in the Nintendo 64 library on Switch at some point...

As for the two NES games, they should get a completely different set of challenges than what is already present in the current Nintendo World Championships, of course. For some of the more fun challenges, like defeating some Octoroks, they could simply bring it to a different screen. They could also go more into "spoiler" territories and include the Ganon or Thunderbird fights. And overall they probably don't need as many challenges this time, because they will be the least popular games in this collection.

Four Swords is missing in this list, because that's a tricky case. For it to work they would have to use the singleplayer mode from the Anniversary Edition, but that might not be an option... It would still be nice to have this, just so that some people may give it a try and like it enough to then play the new online version.

The Nintendo DS or Wii games aren't included either, but that's because of their different control styles. You want to be able to play everything with either a pair of Joy-Cons or a Pro Controller, effortlessly switching between different challenges from different games. Technically, Skyward Sword HD can be played that way, but they won't be able to emulate that version of the game.

As for the challenges, there is so much that they could do here, from basic stuff, like quickly defeating enemies and bosses or solving certain puzzles, to mini-games and exotic things.

In Link's Awakening they could make you steal from the shop as fast as possible, or clear the Dream Shrine. With Ocarina of Time they could emulate the Running Man Challenge, where they make you go from Gerudo Valley to Kokiri Forest on horseback. That Donkey Kong homage from a linked game in Oracle of Ages, where Vire has abducted Princess Zelda, is certainly a must. And in The Wind Waker they could make you win the battle in the Shark Island grotto, or hunt down all the kids in Windfall Island.

As for the 3D games, especially the ones from the N64, there is the question of how they will handle the controls and inventory. With most challenges they could just preselect the allowed or necessary items, and only assign them to the X and Y buttons, while the main menu is blocked. You don't want things to get too clunky and the menus were rather slow on the N64.

Beating entire dungeons from start to finish also isn't an attractive option for the 3D games, because it simply takes too long, save for something like the Bottom of the Well. But it should work fine for all 2D games prior to The Minish Cap. The best example is probably Link's Awakening, because the Chamber Dungeon from the remake already comes with some speedrunning aspects and this can be a lot of fun. And the dungeons are all quite short and sweet, also offering lots optional parts for optimization.

Anyway, this concept isn't meant to go into details, it's really just an idea. Do what they do with the Nintendo World Championships, but make it all about Zelda. Of course, this can be applied to other franchises as well, like Super Mario, Kirby or Metroid...

But Zelda probably has the richest history here overall, because they've made a new main game for every system, except for Virtual Boy. Metroid has skipped over the Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color. Or Super Mario had only remakes on the Game Boy Color and Advance. But with Zelda you go both through the history of the franchise and Nintendo's classic systems. And that's beautiful.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition (Review)

Are you a true American, who was born in the 70s or 80s and thinks that the classic Nintendo Entertainment System is the best video game console ever made? And do you still love to compete in who can do things quickest? Well, then Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition was made for you, congratulations!

If not, then you might be wondering whether this game is really worth it or not... And to be upfront, this really should have been part of the Nintendo Switch Online service's offerings, alongside Tetris 99 and F-Zero 99. Instead, it costs 30 bucks, or twice as much if you're going for the Deluxe Set physical edition.

Under the hood you will get what's effectively a reskin of NES Remix, with a couple of main differences. There are only individual challenges, so no stages where you do a series of tasks. There are also no remixed levels or special conditions, it's all about doing a certain task or reaching a certain goal as fast as possible. You also don't have any lives or tries, instead it will rewind whenever you potentially screw up or do things that you're not supposed to, like a majority of possible glitches.

The rewind functionality is rarely ever useful, however. The timer will keep running, so there is a huge penalty attached to it. With shorter challenges you're always better off to reset. In addition, you don't have any control about how far it rewinds, where it might set you back into a situation where you just fall into your death again, potentially even keeping you in a loop... So, you have to reset anyway.

And when you reset, the three second countdown at the beginning can get a bit annoying, especially since the this may take longer than some of the challenge themselves... It's still good to have, because you want to be ready and already started with the right button(s) pressed, but it could be shorter.

Also, what could be better is the button layout, where NES Remix gave you Y as a second Select button, which is very useful and more comfortable for a variety of games, e.g. Metroid and Zelda II. At least, you can use X as an alternative to B, so that's something... But there are no control options of any kind, which is always a negative and a general problem with Nintendo.

As for the emulation itself, it feels similar to the Nintendo Switch Online offerings, meaning that you will experience the games in all their messy glory. There will be significant slowdowns whenever there are too many enemies on screen in Metroid, for example. The timer won't slow down for you, though, so you will have to take this into account.

For each challenge they've created a specific RAM save state (essentially a Suspend / Restore Point), so you should get the same RNG on each try, to make things as consistent as it gets. In practice this means that you can predict enemy movements in certain challenges, because they always will be the same, which then enables you to become even faster.

That's it for the basics, in total there are over 150 challenges to play, spread over 13 different NES titles, which is far less than what the NES Remix games had to offer, but it aims to be a bit more of a quality selection. Here is a list of the games in question:

• Ballon Fight
• Donkey Kong
• Excitebike
• Ice Climbers
  
• Kid Icarus
• Kirby's Adventure
  
• The Legend of Zelda
• Metroid
• Super Mario Bros.
• Super Mario Bros. - The Lost Levels
• Super Mario Bros. 2
• Super Mario Bros. 3
  
• Zelda II - The Adventure of Link
  

This should cover most of the fan favorites and focuses on the early Nintendo games that have aged best, though none of them have aged particularly well, except maybe Super Mario Bros. 3. You will still get some stiff and clunky stuff in there, like Donkey Kong, Ice Climbers, or even Kid Icarus and Metroid. And your enjoyment of the Nintendo World Championships will heavily depend on the enjoyment of these games.

At least the challenges weren't spread out equally, so the more popular games get more challenges than something like Excitebike. Also, you don't have to play other games first in order to get to the good stuff. You can just focus on whatever game(s) you like best, because everything you do is rewarded with coins, based on your score and the difficulty. Those coins then can be used to unlock challenges and purchase player icons based on the 13 games. So, you can technically play the same challenge over and over again to unlock everything in the game, even though you probably don't want to do it that way.

The score is determined by eight different ranks: C, B, B+, B++, A, A+, A++, and S. For the S-rank you usually have to get close to perfection, with a little leeway. So, getting those can be quite challenging, especially if this is your first contact with speedrunning. But it also heavily depends on the challenge in question and the required times, where some will give you an easier time than others.

As for the challenges themselves, they range from "short and sweet" to "speedrun the entire game, please". In case of Super Mario Bros., for example, you start with picking up the first mushroom and collecting some coins. This goes over into entire levels, until finally you have to beat the entire game. To be fair, this is the exception and it can be achieved within a couple of minutes thanks to the warp zones.

That is the game's "Legend" difficulty challenge, where each title gets one such lengthier task, some more than others. In case of the two Zelda games you will have to speedrun the entire first dungeon. Meanwhile, in Metroid you only have to do the final escape sequence, where the developers were merciful enough to leave out the atrocious Mother Brain fight before it.

For those Legendary Challenges you can read hints, called "Classified Information", where it shows you the intended route for the S-rank or other useful tips, so you don't have to look at online maps or guides of these games to figure it out yourself. These hints look like pages from classic manuals or strategy guides from that era, which is really awesome and something that more games should do.

The manuals used to be a fantastic source of information and beautiful artworks back in the day, where Nintendo slowly economized this to a point where modern games don't came with any manual at all. It's understandable, but games like TUNIC and now Nintendo World Championships show how you can bring these back within the game itself. It's very lovely!

This is entirely subjective, but you may find the shorter challenges to be more fun and addicting. In those you really focus on one task to get it done just right. Fight that one Lynel at the cave to the White Sword as quickly as possible. Again, again, and again until you get that one near-perfect try. It gets you into the "zone".

The longer the challenges become, however, the more it goes into conventional speedrunning territory, where you have to put everything together and optimize both in large and small scale. In some cases, like Super Mario Bros., it even feels like all the challenges before are just there to teach you how to speedrun the game in its entirety. And that might not be to everyone's taste.

But these longer challenges also often have more leeway for the S-rank, where you can afford to make some mistakes and potentially still get it. The Parapa Palace from Zelda II - The Adventure of Link is a great example of this, luckily.

However, this wouldn't be the "Nintendo World Championships" if this was just about personal highscores. There needs to be some competition and the game let's you go at it in three different ways: Party Mode, World Championships, and Survival Mode.

Party Mode let's you compete locally with up to eight players. Here you get different themed sets of challenges, or you can just create your own. You then score points based on your placement and the winner gets it all... This is entirely separate from the rest of the game (the one player mode), so none of your highscores here will have any effect. And this can run out of steam quickly, so don't bank on it for this to become your next party game.

Otherwise, you have the two "online" modes, Wold Championships and Survival. For both you get the same set of five challenges, which are going to change every Monday. In World Championships you get to play these challenges individually and you can try to achieve a highscore. New highscores will be transferred into the singleplayer Speedrun Mode, even if you haven't unlocked the given challenges yet. But this won't work the other way around, so you have to make a good score for the running competition.

You won't see your standings until that competition is over, however, so there are no real leaderboards to follow until then. That's probably not to demotivate players from trying their best, because seeing the highscores on online leaderboards can be daunting. And there is a sense of wonder of how well you did in the end... But for those who really want to compete for the top this is a questionable decision at best.

In Survival you will play three challenges back-to-back against the ghost data of seven other players. Each round the bottom half gets disqualified and you goal is to make it to the end. This is divided into Silver and Gold levels, where for the former you get generally more easier opponents, while in the Gold Division you're often up against people's best attempts, making this fairly challenging.

Winning here will earn you some pins, where there's 183 to unlock in total, most of them from scoring an A-rank in all the individual challenges. These pins are like little trophies (and also what the physical pins in the Deluxe Set are based upon), where you can show off one of them in pride next to your username.

The other customization a statement, like "Game Boy Generation", your favorite NES game from a comprehensive list, as well the aforementioned player icons. The latter are unlocked via coins and can get rather expensive, e.g. the awoken princess from Zelda II costs 1000. The hardest challenges only cost 300 to unlock, in comparison, so this may keep you busy for a while, grinding all that virtual money.

Finally, if you're super crazy about all of this and can't get enough, there is the "Legendary Trial" to unlock, where you will have to clear all 13 Legendary Challenges one after another, which can take half an hour. Good luck with that!

Conclusion

All in all, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is another take on NES Remix, with a bit of competition sprinkled on top. If you enjoy speedrunning and mastering individually segments in video games, then you should have a good time with this, given that you don't mind the age of the games in question. Otherwise this title won't have much to offer...

Hopefully, Nintendo will move on from the NES with this concept and offer something for Game Boy and SNES generation in the future, or potentially even something based on individual franchises with a mix of different platforms.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition Impressions

Well, this is essentially NES Remix again... just with less games and less challenges per game and without any remix, but with online competition... without any leaderboards. The focus is a lot more on speedrunning individual chunks, where they've put quality over quantity with the selection of challenges.

And it can be quite addicting to the get one single thing just right for the S-rank, where I personally do enjoy these smaller tasks more than the longer ones. It can even ruin a potentially fun challenge if there's more to it than necessary, where the best example is probably the Ridley fight from Metroid. For some reason they thought it to be a good idea to include the room before in all its laggy glory.

To make things worse they let the game rewind whenever you might fall into lava, but you can't really set where you get back into the game, so it might just place you above the lava once more... The rewind is truly useless, especially if you're going for the S-ranks, because the timer keeps running, even as it rewinds. So, you're always better off just resetting.

Controls could also be better. Like in NES Remix, you still have X as an alternative to B, but Y isn't any longer a second Select button, which would especially be useful in Metroid for the missile switch. There are options for some things, e.g. how it displays the screen(s), but overall it's lacking.

My main problem with this game is similar to NES Remix, however: the only two NES games that I've ever played on the original hardware are The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II - The Adventure of Link. Those are the two NES games that I care about and not much else... I've also played and beaten Metroid, of course, but that's actually my least favorite game in the series. It's a bit too archaic for my taste, as are most NES games.

Now, there are 15 challenges for each Zelda game and I quickly got S-ranks in all of them. The only ones that gave me some trouble were "Labyrinth Champion" and "Rebonack Attack". The latter always was a painful bossfight for me, where here I really had to master it for the first time. And as for the Level 1 dungeon, I simply took a suboptimal route, because I've collected both keys in the rooms next to the entrance, where this isn't necessary. I should have looked at the "Classified Information" sooner, which are super awesome in this old strategy guide style, where being able to look at those is essentially a reward for itself.

Anyway, now I'm left with little motivation to go on. I'm giving some other games and challenges a try, also in combination with the "online" modes, but it just doesn't have the same spark. And while I am more interested in a potential SNES or Game Boy Edition, those still would come with many games and challenges I don't particularly enjoy playing, e.g. F-Zero.

What I'm trying to say here is that I personally would prefer something like "Nintendo World Championships: The Legend of Zelda Edition", where they focus on one franchise and include all games that are currently part of the Nintendo Switch Online emulation, so you would have up to ten Zelda games in total. This would really get me excited to complete everything and to compete in those weekly online tournaments.

It's understandable that they are doing this on a console basis, because otherwise many Nintendo games would never be featured at all. And hopefully these types of games are not stuck with the NES for all eternity, where a Game Boy Edition would probably be so much more fun for me. But they could also do these franchise editions in addition, at least for the most popular ones, like Super Mario and Zelda. Maybe as a free offering for the 40th anniversaries?

Got Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition Deluxe Set

Well, I already got this yesterday, because for some reason Nintendo decided with this fiscal year that their new games should launch on a Thursday... But this was on a Thursday, so I couldn't even be bothered to unpack it. Anyway, it's finally here, the big summer release that we've been waiting for... Not really, but it could be a nice diversion for in-between, where I already got hooked with beating some Octoroks as fast as possible.

As for the Deluxe Set, this is the only way of getting a physical copy of the game. It costs it much as a normal Nintendo Switch game would, but you get a variety of goodies on top:

There is a replica of the golden NES cartridge for the Nintendo World Championships, though they felt the need to use this game's logo on a black background, so it isn't exactly the same. And of course it's not a real NES game, it's just plastic, but it comes with even more plastic in the form of a standee, so you can put it nicely into a display cabinet.

In addition, you get a pin set, which is surprisingly nice, because it feels like little trophies. I'm normally not a big fan of such pins and I don't get Nintendo's obsession with them, but in this case it seems like a very good fit.

 

Finally, there is a card set with the original covers of all 13 NES games featured in the game. It's actually a very good selection, they've went with the absolute best games here, unlike NES Remix and NES Remix 2, where they had one too many of Nintendo's old games in there. On the backside you get some pixel arts:

And that's it. Nothing too special, but still neat. My only real complaint is that the cover of the card case still has the huuuge age ratings on it. Why is that? One of the biggest selling points of these Special Editions, at least for me personally, is to get a clean cover. And they are not even selling this separately!

Though, maybe they had planned to... The pin box also comes with a plastic wrapping that's normally used for My Nintendo stuff, complete with a bar code sticker for the item. Maybe they first made the retail game and those pins separately, but then decided to create this Deluxe Set instead. Add some more cardboard and plastic, and then sell it for full price. Oh, well, it's obviously working...

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition Announced

Well, Nintendo doesn't need a Nintendo Direct to announce new games, this one coming on July 18th. They've just posted a video, which is a bit cringe and dwells in the memories of past of Nintendo World Championships events. This never has been a thing in Europe, so other than the rare NES cartridge this isn't exactly some that you may have heard about outside of North America.

To me this looks a lot like NES Remix, which is one of the few Wii U titles that haven't made it onto the Nintendo Switch yet. The core idea is pretty much the same, where NES Remix 2 even had a remixed version of the original Nintendo World Championships. The main difference is that this is all about online leaderboards, because that's always fun, given that you love playing games to absolute perfection (I usually don't).

So, this is simply another title pushing the Nintendo Switch Online service, similar to Tetris 99 and alike, except that this one isn't for free. But it will still be eShop exclusive... unless you get physical "Deluxe Set". I will try to get my hands on the latter, but otherwise I probably won't bother with this.

The NES Remix games were diverting, however, some nice and casual fun, but I never found them all too engaging. I only ever cared about the Zelda and Metroid challenges, because those are the only NES games that I truly like.

It's also weird that they are calling this the "NES Edition", as if they are meaning to create a "SNES Edition" and potentially other editions later on. But there never has been a "SNES Remix" or a "Game Boy Remix", so this would be new territory. I would love something like this for Game Boy games, though.

NES Remix & NES Remix 2 (Review)

This review was originally published on ZeldaChronicles (formerly known as ZeldaEurope) and got translated for this blog in 2021 by the same author.

Currently Nintendo has some offers in the eShop concerning NES Remix: if you own one of the games, the other will cost less (6,99€ instead of 9,99€) and there are several discounted NES games as well. This is a great incentive to finally take a look at this mini-game collection, with a focus on the Zelda NES classics, The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II - The Adventure of Link. Is it any fun or just a waste of money?

NES Remix got released at the end of last year, on December 18th, and NES Remix 2 on April 25th of this year. If you've never heard of these games before, then all you need to know is that these are two download titles for the Wii U, where you have master short challenges in different NES games against the clock. These challenges are usually short snippets from the games, where for example you have to defeat enemies or collect things.

In the following you'll find list of all games, which are used in NES Remix and NES Remix 2 for the mini-games.

 

NES Remix (388MB):

• Balloon Fight
• Baseball (Bonus)
• Clu Clu Land
• Donkey Kong
• Donkey Kong Jr.
• Donkey Kong 3 (Bonus)
• Excitebike
• Golf
• Ice Climber
• Mario Bros.
• Pinball
• Super Mario Bros.
• Tennis (Bonus)
• The Legend of Zelda
• Urban Champion (Bonus)
• Wrecking Crew

 

NES Remix 2 (100MB):

• Dr. Mario
• Ice Hockey (Bonus)
• Kid Icarus
• Kirby's Adventure
• Metroid
• NES Open Tournament Golf
• Punch-Out!!
• Super Mario Bros. - The Lost Levels
• Super Mario Bros. 2
• Super Mario Bros. 3
• Wario's Woods
• Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

 

It needs to be stressed that these games aren't included as a whole, but only in short excerpts. There is a link to the Nintendo eShop for each game, where you can download them for Virtual Console, in case you like them. In a way this is like a collection of short demos.

NES Remix 2 spans a smaller number of titles, but the more sophisticated ones. With Zelda II - The Adventure of Link, three Super Mario Bros. games, Kid Icarus, Metroid or Kirby's Adventure you get a lot more depth than with the more Arcade-like collection in the first NES Remix. In addition, NES Remix 2 also comes with two entirely remixed games, Super Luigi Bros. and Nintendo World Championships Remix, the latter only if you also own NES Remix.

Super Luigi Bros. is a modification of Super Mario Bros., where you play as Luigi, who jumps a little higher, but doesn't have as much traction. Also, all the levels are mirrored, so you're actually walking from the right to the left. Essentially, you're getting a whole new version of the NES classic here, which on its own already costs 4,99€ in the eShop, so this feels like a good deal.

Nintendo World Championships Remix is based on the American event with the same name from 1990, where you had to compete for highscores in three different games on a special cartridge. In this case you have to collect 50 coins in Super Mario Bros., then 25 coins in Super Mario Bros. 3 and finally score as many points as possible in Dr. Mario. While the games are different from the original, it's certainly a nice to have gimmick. But as already mentioned, this only gets unlocked if you have both NES Remix games.

Sadly, there is no quick way of swapping between the titles. So, if you want to switch between playing challenges for Zelda II - The Adventure of Link and The Legend of Zelda, you have to leave the game and then start the other, which is a little inconvenient. It probably would have been better to have this as one big game.

 

Gameplay

So, how does the whole thing play? Every NES title gets a series of stages, where you have to master one or more short challenges. These challenges can be super trivial stuff, like "Take the item!", where some of it feels like a tutorial for the respective game. Later on the challenges get more complex and difficult, where you might have to finish whole levels or fight bosses.

In many cases you get a number of lives for this, where you can die or get hit with Mario, Link, Samus and co. a couple of times, until you've mastered the challenge. In some cases the time will run out before that, however, because many of the challenges have a very short time limit.

If you get a "Game Over", you are still able to jump back into the last challenge, but will only get one star. Each stage has a score of three stars, where two stars require you to beat it without a Game Over and for three stars under a certain time. If you're especially fast, you can also score three rainbow-colored stars.

The stars are used to unlock other games, as well as special Remix and Bonus levels. And this leads to the first problem: if you only want to play the stages for certain games, you might be out of luck and have to grind for stars to unlock them first. Zelda is actually a great example here, where as a Zelda fan you probably want to start with those stages. But in NES Remix you need 100 stars to unlock The Legend of Zelda and in NES Remix 2 it takes 110 more stars to get to Zelda II. And this can take a while...

So, whether you like it or not, you'll have to try the other games, of which some of them have aged quite poorly. For example the jumping in Ice Climbers or the arcade Mario Bros. (not to be confused with Super Mario Bros.) takes some getting used to, where it's easy to lose motivation. Another example would be Clu Clu Land, where it can be quite tough to get accustomed to its controls, even if they are simple on paper. And with many titles you get the feeling that the challenges are only fun, if you know and love the original game. It's just a lot of excerpts taken out of the context of the game.

The Legend of Zelda (NES Remix)

Fans of the Zelda NES Classics on the other hand should be quite unchallenged by the "challenges" and get the three rainbow stars in all stages in no time. The first tasks for The Legend of Zelda already speak volumes:

• Take the sword!
• Defeat all the enemies! (some Octoroks)
• Restore your life gauge! (at a Fairy pond)
• Buy somethin' will ya!
• Enter the dungeon!

Later on the challenges get a little bit more interesting, e.g. "Defeat all enemies without taking damage!", but for the most part you simply follow the key points of the game, where you collect the essential items, defeat all bosses and then finally save Zelda.

NES Remix also offers some more difficult levels for The Legend of Zelda, where you get challenges based on the 2nd Quest or have to defeat Manhandla with a single bomb. But sadly this isn't part of the game's actual list of stages, where instead those are hidden among the "Bonus Stages", for which you have to a majority of the stars to unlock them. Here it would have been better to unlock more difficult stages for the respective game, once you've cleared all its stages with three stars.

Zelda II - The Adventure of Link (NES Remix 2)

You would think that at least the stages for Zelda II - The Adventure of Link should offer some good challenges by default, but curiously they are even easier than the one for The Legend of Zelda. In many cases it's enough to quickly run right through the area and the bosses already got weakened so much that you can defeat them with a few hits. The mighty Thunderbird even dies after a single hit, turning one of the most difficult boss fights in the Zelda series into a joke.

It's all so simple that NES Remix 2 might even leave the wrong impression that Zelda II isn't so hard as they say after all. Maybe this was even intentional, so that some people might finally give this game a chance and purchase it on the Virtual Console, but for fans of the game the "challenges" are just utterly disappointing.

There's also less to do for Zelda II overall. The first Zelda had 53 challenges in 17 stages (not including the bonus and remix stages), while Zelda II only gets 22 challenges in 10 stages, where this could have been more, especially since entire parts of the game got skipped.

In The Legend of Zelda every single Triforce Shard gets visited along with its boss, where you basically are playing a summary of the game. But the stages for Zelda II don't contain anything from Death Mountain, the Midoro Palace, or the Palace on the Sea. The boss fight against "Gooma" at least gets featured in the bonus stages, but again you have to laboriously unlock that by grinding for many stars in the other games. And there are just many interesting parts of the game, which would have been perfect for some mini-game challenge, but don't get any attention in NES Remix 2 at all... And that's a shame.

Controls and Presentation

You can use all possible controllers for these games, which next to the Wii U GamePad includes the Pro Controller, a Wii Remote or a Classic Controller. The GamePad simply mirrors what's on the TV, so you can use it as an alternate screen at any time. Initially NES Remix didn't support all controllers, but this got added via an update in January.

The NES games themselves all get emulated, much like on the Virtual Console, and therefore are only different in resolution from the originals. The emulation is so faithful that it even has the drops in the frame rate. For example, if you go into a room with lots of enemies in Metroid, the game will play as slowly as in the original. According to the developing studio, indieszero, this was entirely on purpose, where this is supposed to add to the challenge. But it probably would have been nicer if the games ran smoother at certain points.

The Remix

At least the eponymous "Remix Stages" offer some graphical novelty, where you get nicer backgrounds or shadow effects, which is reminiscent of the "3D Classics" on the Nintendo 3DS. These remixed levels are effectively the main attraction, because this is where the games truly get modified and mixed.

Lights may be turned off, things appear twice on the screen, or the visuals suddenly turn into that of the GameBoy, but the highlights are with all certainty the crossovers. Link from The Legend of Zelda may try to save Pauline in a level of Donkey Kong – without the ability to jump, of course. Or the Link from Zelda Ii - The Adventure of Link might have to fight his way through a Super Mario Bros. level.

It's ideas like this which make the NES Remix games quite charming, but they certainly got the short end of the stick. There would have been a ton of potential for crazy ideas, as proven by fan games like Super Mario Crossover. And the entire idea of Super Luigi Bros. is based on a remix level from the first NES Remix with the same concept. This just shows how far Nintendo could have gone with this, but the focus of NES Remix sadly wasn't on the remix, but on the many, many demo stages...

Conclusion

It's hard to say who NES Remix and NES Remix 2 were made for. It's an interesting way to familiarize yourself with the NES era in a very playful way, but many of the titles simply haven't aged well and the short challenges might only be fun if you're familiar with the original games. Fans of the NES games on the other hand might be completely unchallenged by a majority of the stages and there was just not enough focus on the ingenious remix stages.

Despite all of this, it would be nice to get a GameBoy Remix or a SNES Remix in the future, where the corresponding titles could be a lot more appealing than the ones for NES...

The Good:

• Playful insight into the NES era
• Diverse highscore hunt
• Very nice ideas for the remix stages
• Support for all controllers
• NES Remix 2 comes with Super Luigi Bros.

The Bad:

• Many poorly aged games
• Too easy challenges for the Zelda games
• Too few challenges for Zelda II
• Unlocking all levels for a game takes too long
• Not enough remix
• Feels more like a demo collection