5 tips for hitting S Rank in Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition

Anyone can become a Nintendo World Champion in Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition for Nintendo Switch...but you’ll need to be fast! The quickest times in each of the 156 challenges in the game will reward you with an S Rank, and we’ve pulled together five tips to help you achieve just that.

1. Run, don’t walk!

It goes without saying that if you want to finish quickly, you’ll need to move as fast as possible! Dashing in all four Super Mario Bros. games can be achieved by holding the B Button, and dashing in Super Mario Bros. 3 will increase your power meter allowing you to jump higher and further once it’s full.

If you double tap right in Kirby’s Adventure the titular pink puffball will pick up the pace too, while making good use of your Turbo (by holding the B Button) in Excitebike will also help you cross the finish line faster.

2. Jump to it!

Timely jumps over terrain and enemies are a must in certain challenges, but don’t overdo it! Holding the jump button in those challenges will give you more height, which can be safer, but it can also slow you down. Keep jump heights to a minimum to maintain your momentum!

3. Know your enemies

Many enemies are creatures of habit, and will steadfastly follow a set path. Study their movements carefully, and once you know where they’re headed, attack them in quick succession – or more easily avoid them all together! The same can be said for the bigger baddies in the boss battle challenges. Learn their attack patterns by heart and you’ll be able to punish them accordingly in no time flat!

4. Learn from the best

View recent champion replays in the World Championships mode to see how the cream of the crop have completed each weekly challenge. Use the controls to progress frame-by-frame and keep a close eye on the button inputs to learn the optimum path through each challenge. It can even pay to keep an eye on competitors in Survival Mode to discover faster routes and approaches to improve your score too!

5. Swot up

Check out the Classified Information documents on Legend Challenges for tips on the fastest route to the goal. But there are also handy hints included there that can give you an advantage in other challenges too. For instance, in Donkey Kong, Mario can grab the ladders when he’s off-center, shaving precious milliseconds off your time.

Play it like it’s 1990 in Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, out now on Nintendo Switch. Check out the official gamepage for more info!