NES Remix 2
The sequel goes bigger and bolder — 12 later NES classics, over 160 challenges, Super Luigi Bros, and the wild Championship Mode.
NES Remix 2 is the follow-up to the surprise December 2013 hit, arriving just four months later in April 2014. Where the original focused on early NES titles, the sequel steps into the console’s golden era — Super Mario Bros. 3, Kirby’s Adventure, Metroid, Punch-Out!! and Kid Icarus all make their entrance. The result is a package with arguably stronger raw material than the first game, even if it features four fewer titles.
The core formula is unchanged and still brilliant: dozens of short, focused challenges drawn from each game, star-ranked by completion time, with twisted Remix stages unlocked as you earn rainbow stars. But NES Remix 2 adds two significant new modes. Super Luigi Bros is a complete port of Super Mario Bros. played as Luigi with every level mirrored — a standalone bonus game of real substance. And Championship Mode, accessible only if you have NES Remix 1 downloaded, is a timed scoring gauntlet inspired by the actual 1990 Nintendo World Championships.
NES Remix 2 focuses on later NES releases than its predecessor — the heavy hitters of Nintendo’s mid-to-late catalogue. Super Mario Bros. 3, Kirby’s Adventure, Punch-Out!! and Metroid are all here, making for a genuinely stronger lineup of marquee titles. The trade-off is four fewer games than the original’s 16.
The Remix stages are the reason to play, and NES Remix 2’s are even more creative than the original’s. Unlocked by earning rainbow stars across the main challenges, they splice games together and mutate the rules in ways that are delightfully broken. Having Kirby wander into an SMB3 world, or making Link collect coins in a Zelda II dungeon, hits differently when the games themselves are classics you actually care about.
Remix I highlights:
- Invincible Mario in SMB3 — Star-powered Mario must defeat 10 enemies in World 1-1. The SMB3 music is remixed for the occasion.
- Moving virus in Dr. Mario — Instead of stationary viruses, one blue virus is actively moving around the playfield. Chase it down.
- Clone Mario — Complete a World 1-6 level with fake decoy Marios moving on either side of you. Ignore them and reach the goal.
- Kirby collects coins — Kirby, in a custom SMB3-style level, must collect 10 coins. His floaty jump makes coin geometry feel completely alien.
- Peach in SMB3 World 5 — Princess Peach (using her SMB2 float mechanic) must navigate through a Warp Pipe section without taking damage.
- Boos stalk Kirby — Kirby fights Whispy Woods, but four giant Boos slowly close in from behind as he faces away from them.
- Autoscrolling airship Warp Pipe — Mario on a fast-scrolling airship must enter a Warp Pipe before the screen leaves him behind.
Remix II highlights:
- Toad fights Octoroks — Toad (from SMB2) must defeat three Octoroks in a custom arena. His throwing mechanic against Zelda enemies is a genuinely funny mismatch.
- Link collects coins — Link, in a Zelda II side-scrolling dungeon, must collect 10 coins within 50 seconds. He has no idea what coins are.
- Iced Lost Levels — Mario tackles a Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels stage that’s been completely frozen over — sliding physics, remixed music.
- Disappearing airship — The SMB3 airship periodically turns invisible. Mario must navigate by memory to enter the pipe.
- Birdo vs. Dr. Mario — The Birdo from Wario’s Woods appears as an opponent in a Dr. Mario VS Mode battle. Surreal.
- Zooming camera on ? Blocks — Hit all six ? Blocks in a Lost Levels stage, but the camera slowly zooms in on Mario — then snaps back each time he hits one.
- Fast-autoscroll Peach — Peach in a rapidly autoscrolling SMB3 World 1-3 must collect 8 coins in 45 seconds. Her float is the only thing that saves you.
Bonus game included
Super Luigi Bros is a full port of the original Super Mario Bros bundled inside NES Remix 2 — but with Luigi as the hero and every single level mirrored, so you move from right to left. Luigi handles as he does in The Lost Levels: slightly higher jump, slightly less traction. The combination of reversed level design and different physics makes even World 1-1 feel surprisingly fresh. It’s a proper bonus game, not just a gimmick.
The concept grew directly out of NES Remix 1’s most memorable Remix stage — the one where Luigi runs through World 1-2 backwards. That challenge was so popular that Nintendo expanded it into a full standalone game. The Year of Luigi was technically over by the time NES Remix 2 launched in April 2014, but Super Luigi Bros was widely seen as one final send-off for Luigi’s year.
Completing all 32 levels of Super Luigi Bros requires serious Mario knowledge repurposed — you know every stage by heart, but the muscle memory is completely wrong. Warps, secrets and hidden blocks are all in mirrored positions. It’s genuinely difficult and genuinely rewarding to finish.
Championship Mode is NES Remix 2’s most unique addition — a timed competitive scoring mode directly inspired by the real 1990 Nintendo World Championships, which toured 29 American cities and challenged players to achieve the highest combined score across three NES games. You need NES Remix 1 downloaded to access it.
The total time budget is 6 minutes and 21 seconds — exactly matching the original tournament. The three challenges run back-to-back in order:
The key insight is that the Dr. Mario stage is where scores diverge dramatically — a player who blazes through the first two challenges banks three or four extra minutes of Dr. Mario time, and higher combo chains in Dr. Mario can push scores exponentially higher. It’s a deceptively deep competitive mode that rewards mastery of all three games simultaneously.
NES Remix 2 earned a 73 on Metacritic — a couple of points above the first game — with critics broadly agreeing that the stronger lineup of featured games made it a step up, even if having four fewer titles gave it a slightly thinner feel overall. The consensus was that if you enjoyed the original, this was a must-buy.
Super Luigi Bros in particular drew praise as genuine added value rather than a throwaway bonus, and Championship Mode was singled out as a clever competitive addition for players who wanted something more structured. The most common criticism was that 12 games felt slightly sparse compared to 16 — and that Metroid and Kid Icarus, while iconic, generated fewer interesting challenge possibilities than the Mario titles.
- NES Remix 2 was released just four months after the original — one of Nintendo’s fastest follow-ups to a digital title. The team clearly had the sequel in the pipeline from the start.
- Super Luigi Bros grew out of the original NES Remix’s most beloved Remix stage: running through World 1-2 backwards as Luigi. The response was so strong Nintendo built a full game around the concept.
- Championship Mode requires NES Remix 1 to be downloaded on the same console to unlock — a deliberate incentive to own both games. The total time of 6:21 matches the original 1990 Nintendo World Championships exactly.
- The 1990 Nintendo World Championships used Rad Racer, Super Mario Bros and Tetris. NES Remix 2’s Championship Mode replaces Rad Racer and Tetris with Super Mario Bros. 3 and Dr. Mario.
- Hidden 8-bit Luigi sprites are scattered throughout stages as a Year of Luigi callback — similar to the Luigi sightings in New Super Luigi U and Super Mario 3D World.
- Wario’s Woods, one of the 12 featured games, holds the distinction of being the last officially licensed NES game released in North America (1994) — the console’s genuine farewell title.
- In Japan, NES Remix 1 and 2 were released together on a physical disc called Famicom Remix 1+2 on 24 April 2014 — the same day as NES Remix 2’s Japanese digital release.
- A physical NES Remix Pack bundling both games was later released outside Japan, finally giving Western players a disc version of the collection.
- Kirby’s Adventure (1993) was one of the last NES games Nintendo developed at full quality — it pushed the hardware further than almost anything else on the system, which made its NES Remix 2 challenges some of the most visually impressive.
- NES Remix 2 was the last game in the series. Despite strong critical reception and obvious fan interest in an SNES Remix, Game Boy Remix or N64 Remix, no further entries were made.
Four videos from our channel covering NES Remix 2: