Nintendo has really been doing a lot to try to tap into the nostalgia market. More and more, we’re seeing advertising and positioning for new titles that try to capture the elements of the classic 80s vibe. You’ve got extreme commercials, merchandise that I would have actually bought as a kid, and, now, the return of the Nintendo World Championship. A fierce competition of skill, accuracy, and dedication, the event has gone by the wayside in recent years with less and less fanfare than the days of Super Mario Bros. 3. Thankfully, with the release of Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, players around the world can now show exactly who amongst us has dedicated far too much time for far too little.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is somehow both very no-nonsense and also very silly at the same time, which is quite a feat. On the one hand, you have a minimalist menu that has no fanfare or preamble before thrusting you into the target of the game. Your objective is to compete in multiple events chosen from a handful of classic NES titles (Excitebike, all of the Super Mario titles, both Zeldas, and more). Completing a target gives you coins (that can be used to purchase new missions) and a digital badge if you do well enough. Missions range from Easy to Legendary on the difficulty scale, and the most extreme of the tasks will even come with a helpful guide to show you how to succeed because you honestly may not be able to without outside guidance.

This helpful guide really reminds you how much Nintendo hated its fans back in the day.

On the other hand, putting in a shocking amount of time to accomplish the best possible time for getting a mushroom, entering a door, or jumping onto a platform can be, well, a strange affair initially. For players who are longtime NES veterans, tasking you with being the absolute fastest at “pulling a veggie out of the ground” in Super Mario Bros. 2 can seem like a ridiculous affair. It’s something that you did without thinking for years, simply to move the game forward, and now it’s the sole goal for this “stage” of gameplay? There is a part of you that almost rolls your eyes at the concept, like you’ve been told you’re gamifying how long it takes you to open the fridge or put on your shoes.

But that’s the crazy part: Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition makes you WANT to be the very best at these things. The idea of having a timer, a ranking system, and getting coins for killing four snakes in Kid Icarus or swallowing an enemy at breakneck speed in Kirby is deliciously addictive because it is so simple. Sure, you can definitely get the first mushroom in Super Mario Bros., you know where it is better than where the state of Oklahoma is on the map (middle-ish?). But can you get that mushroom a full 0.2 seconds faster than the next guy on the leaderboard? Even better, faster than yourself?

WOO! Suck it old me! New me is so much better and definitely not behind on car payments!

This is where the “championship” aspect takes hold, and the competitive nature of players on speedrunning suddenly comes into sharp, delirious focus in terms of victory. While there have been many, many titles with online leaderboards, none of them have been official NES games with the hyperbolic word “WORLD” in the title, getting you the idea of going against the entire globe for supremacy on “who can get to an exit fastest in Metroid.” You have the drive, you have the talent, but now you need the very real risk that someone might try and take the ONE THING that’s important to you to keep the ball rolling.

And there are many, many ways to keep these stakes in mind. Players doing the weekly World Championship mode are coming in with fresh takes every time. There’s nothing like being taunted by your own victory when trying to get a new high score in an event. “Oh, you finished in 5.46? Well, you managed to do this before in 5.38 when you weren’t competing, so step up your game, buttercup.” You don’t know the global results until the championship has concluded, so the worst enemy is truly living in your mind, and they are always just a bit faster than you at getting to that flag pole.

Survival Mode is probably the most affirming game mode to show you the scope of players. Nintendo has made a smart move with Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition by having players compete against the ghost data of other players’ most recent attempts, allowing for much faster matchmaking and parity. This works as a double-edged sword because you can enjoy your victories in real time, but your failures now exist as permanent markers that haunt you and the gaming world wins because of your mistakes. Players should absolutely start in the Sliver competition so they can understand the struggle we all work with: it’s rife with people who are simply trying their best, like me. If you want punishment, go onto Gold and see what gaming is like against someone whose favorite game from the NES era is Tiny Toons Adventures.

Japanese dude who loved Nuts & Milk is about to turn my colon inside out.

And the party mode is as fun as you make it out to be. This is a game of minute differences and absolute zero-second comparison, so it doesn’t always land correctly for some players. For example, my daughter and I got the exact same time on “be the first to climb a ladder” in Donkey Kong, and the game graciously awarded us the same points and S rank, much to her delight. In the same game, she also took almost thirty seconds longer to jump up to the second level in Ice Climbers and got a C ranking with three points less given to her than my stellar, five second jump landing. The rewards and parity scale with the number of players, so no one can have a runaway in a smaller game: but an eight player brawl may result in a single player getting left way behind.

Players will invest exactly as much time as they want into the Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition. There are badges to unlock, new character icons to select that you can pay with coins, and promises on the horizon for more things to come. There’ll be a mix of different challenges in the future, more opportunities to be the best, and even stronger self-pressure to deliver a faster run to get the poison mushroom first in Super Mario Bros: Lost Levels. If you don’t fall in love with the concept immediately, I highly doubt you will. After all, this is all that the NES boiled down to the fundamentals: precision button pressing, level memorization, and perfect execution on imperfect hardware. It asks a lot and, honestly, gives players very little in return.

Yet when you do the Survival Mode challenges, there’s the roar of an imaginary crowd as you attempt to get to the hidden heart container in The Legend of Zelda as fast as possible. There are points and coins given for every attempt. The game has been fine-tuned to respond in a tight, acclimating sense, allowing you to quickly cancel out of an attempt with the fast press of both Z triggers, even if you’re doing an online competition. This title understands the speedrunning community and doesn’t waste time with story, setup, or reasoning. You’re here to play to your fastest ability and that’s all, and that’s all the player base is asking.

This crap was hard enough to do without a stopwatch judging my poor controller handling.

I’m really glad Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition exists in the condition it’s arrived in, and I hope that players also enjoy it to the same degree I did. Tight, senseless and fun, you do the thing and do it again, and keep doing it until you’re satisfied. Be the best even if the best is only in your own heart. Get hyped for seeing how well you can slay Moblins, grab Morph Balls or just land on the Goal Pole. This is a time for champions and hopefuls, and you, my friend, you have the real making of a champion. Good talk, now let’s get out there and inhale those enemies.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is available now on Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition was provided by the publisher.