Ultimate NES Remix is a 3DS game which is essentially a compilation of two Wii U games, NES Remix and NES Remix 2. The first two games in the series featured small challenges from a wide variety of classic NES games, with some unusual twists and turns on the mechanics of those games. While I haven't played either of the previous two, I believe that all of the challenges on this game come from the previous two, although Ultimate NES Remix certainly represents a "greatest hits" approach to the game, both in terms of the games selected, and the challenges included. The game, however, lacks any third party NES games, which will obviously limit its appeal to those who fondly remember Castlevania, Mega Man 2, Ninja Gaiden, or dozens of other very high quality games on the system.
For example, the original NES Remix seemed to focus primarily on black box games released in the early days of the NES, including classics like Super Mario Bros. and Balloon Fight, but also stinkers like Pinball and Baseball. It also omitted notable late release games for the system like Super Mario Bros. 3 and The Legend of Zelda, which takes away a lot of the nostalgia for the system, particularly as the NES really didn't start to sell very well until those quality later titles appeared. The number of people who have positive memories about Golf are dwarfed by those who enjoyed Metroid, but the focus on the truly retro games in the first one was at least admirable! The second added in the vast majority of those classic first party games, but also included a few weird titles like Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, which was never released on the NES.
The game selection is not ideal due to its lack of third party games, but I think they did as much as they could with it. Paying Capcom, Konami, and Tecmo for some third party games would likely have cut into the margins heavily, but also probably would have sold more copies. I think a partnership with Capcom probably would have worked best, as you could have included a few of the highlights from the legendary run on the NES including Mega Man 2, Mega Man 3, Duck Tales, and 1942. But if the only option to maintain profitability was to limit it to first party games, I don't think they excluded any that should have been there, and only included a few average to above average filler titles like Kid Icarus, Mario Bros, and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Below is a list of all of the games included in the game:
- Balloon Fight
- Donkey Kong
- Donkey Kong Jr.
- Dr. Mario
- Excitebike
- Kid Icarus
- Kirby's Adventure
- Mario Bros.
- Metroid
- Punch-Out!!
- Super Mario Bros.
- Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels
- Super Mario Bros. 2
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- The Legend of Zelda
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
The challenges are generally divided into two sections, with more remixed challenges, such as defeating Bowser in Super Mario Bros. 3 with Princess Peach from Super Mario Bros 2, in one section, and little sections taken directly from the games themselves in another section. As you complete more challenges, you earn more stars based on how quickly you finished the challenges, and as you earn more stars, more games and challenges open up to you. This gives you a nice positive feedback loop for completing challenges and trying to improve your times to get more stars. There are also online leaderboards which keep track of your progress relative to both your friends and players in your region, which is a nice feature.
In addition to this, a few extras are included in the game. The first is the Nintendo World Championships Remix, which is very fun. This is a take on the classic NWC approach, only instead of playing Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer, and Tetris, you're playing through Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, and Dr. Mario, which is frankly much more fun the original. Like the original challenge, most of your points are scored in your success on the final challenge, which means you need to finish the first two as quickly as possible and then crush some viruses! I enjoyed playing this a lot, and ended up getting in the top 100 on my regional leaderboards, although I was absurdly behind the top guys. The other new challenge is a game they call Speed Super Mario Bros., which is a sped up version of Super Mario Bros. It sucks, and I really wish that they had just included the regular version of Super Mario Bros. with the game instead.
The game largely delivers what you might expect, namely, a shot of nostalgia and good old fashioned fun playing around with great games in bite sized chunks. I do wish that they had included a few third party titles, but understand why they didn't. I also feel like there were probably too many basic challenges and not enough truly difficult ones. The final challenge in each game should have been to finish off the end boss of the game, but in games like Punch-Out!! you never even get to move past Bald Bull, let alone face off with Iron Mike...errr...Mr. Dream. Yeah... The game truly sparkles in the times in which the games are mashed together, such as when you are facing off with the tree boss from Kirby's Adventure, but Boos from Super Mario Bros. 3 are chasing you, necessitating you to turn around to stop their advance, or when you have to climb to the top of the first level of Donkey Kong as Link, who can't jump! I wish they had included more of these crossover challenges, and fewer straight challenges from the games, as I had far more fun with the unique ones. The regular challenges tend to drag on a bit, and you'll find yourself doing ones that aren't terribly fun just to get more stars and unlock more games and challenges.
I also appreciated the tutorial/reminder aspect of some of the challenges, as they inspired me to revisit some old games I haven't played for a while with some new strategies in my arsenal. After finishing up Ultimate NES Remix, I immediately started playing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! on my NES, and used the knowledge of timings that I learned from the compilation to advance farther towards beating Iron Mike than I ever had before. Unfortunately my cart was glitching, so I'll have to wait for a replacement to move past the Major Circuit, but I had an absolute blast stepping into Little Mac's shoes again, and only have this game to thank. I also remembered just how fun Dr. Mario is, and spent about 3 hours facing off against my wife in the game last night, and she's now officially hooked, much like Dr. Mario's patients are on his prolific prescription medications.
One thing that I didn't like about the game was the controls. Rather than do the sensible thing and swap the controls so that you use the B button as A, and the Y button as B, they made it so that you could either use the buttons as they're labeled, or used X as an alternate B button. I ended up, as would all rational people, using the A/X combo, but it would have been nice to have both options, or at least allow you to reassign buttons. The dogbone controller sucks due to the button layout, and recreating it was a bad idea.
I also have to say that having never played Balloon Fight before, I'm now a big fan!
Anyway, there's plenty of value here, even with a few little flaws. If you like NES games, you'll definitely enjoy this one. And just like my wife, you may find that the simple pleasures of the NES strike you better than you might think, even if you are a cold-hearted modern gamer demanding technical complexity in your video games. Relax and live a little! I'll give the game a 8.9/10.
I still haven't the slightest clue what I'll be playing next on handheld, so stay tuned!
-TRO
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