NES Remix 2

I think we all have periods in gaming where we get that itch for nostalgia, we'll revisit old games because they in some way, shape, or form affected us and our gaming habits. I've been on that kick myself lately, visiting games from the PS1 era, but I wasn't ready for the gigaton nostalgia bomb that is NES Remix, and it's sequel, Nintendo Remix 2 continues where the first game let off, giving you bite sized chunks of all your old favorite NES games. With a better selection (even though I loved Wrecking Crew) of games, and some pretty fun challenges, NES Remix 2 is going to have you reliving all those tense moments you remember as a child, along with a few new ones as your old games receive the Wario Ware treatment.

This list of games contains some of Nintendo's best, and feels like a great improvement over the original. Punch-Out!!, Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Kid Icarus, Metroid, Dr. Mario, Wario's Woods, Kirby's Adventures, and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, of the ten game roster only one felt like a dud to me, and that was Wario's Woods, but even then I don't find it to be a bad game, it just had some of the more frustrating challenges to achieve three stars on. And the collection is a little heavy of the Mario games, but they all have unique challenges so it gets a pass. The challenges themselves aren't terribly tough, and usually don't take more than a few seconds for each stage, although there are some that put players on the spot for up to two minutes at a time. You're given three lives to clear each set of challenges, and depending on your time, you'll be awarded one to three stars. The more stars you get the more Remix stages you'll unlock, where Link can break bricks to collect coins, or Little Mac has to fight a super powered Glass Joe. There's a fair amount of variety between the objectives, with only a few repeats, and for the most part they are all a ton of fun. Funny enough, I find myself wishing I could just play full versions of the games they included on here, I had forgotten how much fun Punch-Out!! is. There's a little over 160 different objectives, which will run a dedicated gamer a little over three hours to complete, whether or not that's with three stars on all objectives depends on how fast your reflexes are.

There's also a bonus pack-in game, Super Luigi Bros., which is a mirrored version of the original Super Mario Bros., making players move from right to left, and as the Year of Luigi draws to a close it feels like a fitting send off. It's kind of funny seeing this revision of the game featuring all of the original's graphical foibles, which actually can be said for all of the games, it's pretty much perfect emulation, flaws and all. The other bonus that players can unlock come in the form of stamps that can be used when posting things to the Miiverse, it's just too bad that those stamps can't be carried outside of the game, because some of them are pretty cool.

NES Remix 2 is a definite improvement over the original for me, if only because it feels like a better of selection of games was used this time around. The only downside to a collection of mini-games like this is that once you've beaten the whole collection there is little incentive to return. You could always try to go for the hidden rainbow score on each stage, which requires some incredibly tight timing to achieve on some of the game's tougher stages, but beyond that there's not much in the way of extras. That said, NES Remix 2 gives players more of the same Wario Ware styled gameplay, with a heavy heaping of Nintendo fueled nostalgia, and it feels just right.