All information accurate at time of visit, October 2022
Since the original announcement that the Osaka outpost of Universal Studios would host the very first Super Nintendo World, video game fans around the world have been patiently waiting to make their next or first visit to Japan to time with its launch. Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario and Zelda, has often been cited as the Walt Disney of video games, more down to the fact that mainstream press needed a handy soundbite to describe him in terms their audience could understand than a direct Mario vs Mickey comparison. But if we follow the Disney parallel to its inevitable conclusion, a theme park version of Super Mario Land/World (delete where applicable) is in many ways a long time coming.
However, since the 90’s and the likes of the Super Mario Bros live-action film and infamous Philips CD-I spin-offs, Nintendo have been far more cautious of teaming up with external partners when it comes to realising their IPs in other mediums or on other formats. But in recent years, there has been a gradual thawing in Nintendo’s approach, from mobile games to cross-overs, but exemplified most notably through its team up with Universal. The Super Nintendo World/Universal Studios project goes hand-in-hand with the animated Super Mario Bros Movie, created by Minions-maker Illumination. It was through Super Nintendo World that Miyamoto met the animation studio, co-owned by Universal. The movie’s release date delay from December 2022 to April 2023 coincides with the first Super Nintendo World outside of Japan, opening at Universal Studios Hollywood next year. It just so happens that an early example of a Nintendo and Universal Studios team-up took place in The Wizard, a strange cross-country road movie/extended commercial for the NES, famous for its Power Glove cameo and finale set at a video game tournament at Universal Studios, complete with chase sequence around the King Kong monorail and grand reveal of Super Mario Bros. 3 for the first time in the West.
With Nintendo HQ based in Kyoto, not much more than an hour train’s ride away from the theme park, Universal Studios Japan (USJ) in Osaka made perfect sense as a location. The grand opening of Super Nintendo World though would take place in February 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic, with international travel to Japan all but impossible. The Nintendo characters ordinarily welcoming arrivals through posters and signage displayed around Osaka’s Kansai International Airport greeted next to no one. The vast majority of fans outside of the country had to make do with local-based vlogger, bloggers and journalists to provide their first glimpses of the attractions and experiences. And so Super Nintendo World remained a dream for many for that little bit longer.
My own (unrelated business) visit to Japan had been booked for October 2022 with expectations that tight visa requirements and Covid safety controls would be in place. Then in September, the news I had been waiting for: an announcement that a week before my arrival, restrictions would be eased. A major obstacle on my road to Super Nintendo World has been removed just in time. But there was something else in the way: USJ’s confounding ticketing system. At time of booking, the only payment method available on the international website was via Apple Pay. My attempts at purchasing a ticket via the Japan website, which would accept credit cards, seemed to be making steady progress: registering my information, adding the Universal Studio Pass in the basket, selecting the date and time of my visit. However, while the site would accept my UK address details to register my account, a mandatory Japan prefecture field for my billing address meant I could proceed no further. Enlisting the services of my wife, the only Apple-product user in the household, would be necessary, and tickets were finally successfully bought, with e-tickets issued via QR codes and, thankfully, not tied to a specific name or ID either.
As part of the complicated ticketing process, I opted for a Universal Studio 1-Day Pass for ¥8900. However, entry into Super Nintendo World is timed-entry only, and while you can purchase a timed-entry ticket while in the park on the day, its popularity can mean you might only be able to access the area later in the day, experience much longer queues, or possibly miss out entirely. I therefore opted for a Express Pass add-on, which nearly doubled by total ticket price at ¥7800. But if I was only going to have one shot, I wanted to make the most of it. My add-on ticket included a specific timed entry to Super Nintendo World at 10.20am, as well as timed fast track for Mario Kart: Koopa’s Challenge, the main ride in Super Nintendo World. As it was October, it was also Halloween Horror Nights with additional themed attractions, parades and monsters roaming after dark, a popular time especially for teens and students to visit and dress up in costume. As such, I also got express entry for Universal Monsters: Legends of Horror, with the likes of Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, and The Wolfman (which I didn’t get round to), Cult of Chucky (a horror house with the possessed murderous doll terrorising a mental asylum, and us punters), and Biohazard: The Extreme+, inspired by the Resident Evil 2 remake with both a Leon and Claire “route”, in which you are chased around Raccoon Police Department by zombies and lickers, lunged at by Mr. X, and gun down a rampaging bioweapon. As a fan of the survival horror series, it was fun stuff.
Not less than 48 hours since I landed in Japan, the moment had arrived. A heady combination of jetlag and the kind of excitement usually reserved for kids the night before Christmas meant I was operating on maybe four out of forty winks. Blue skies and blazing sunshine greeted me as I took the subway to Universal City. I knew I was heading in the right direction as dozens of fellow park-goers boarded, already in Mario mode, wearing the iconic plumbers’ hats, Princess crowns and Bowser headpieces. I arrived a little after its 9am opening, tired from the lack of sleep, sweaty from the heat, but thrilled to be there. With an hour or so before I could be admitted into Super Nintendo World itself, I killed time with the Spider-Man 4D ride, took a wrong turn and ended up in Hogwarts, and made a mental note of the surrounding stores where I could pick up some sweet merch later.
Super Nintendo World itself is located in a far corner of the park, next to the Waterworld live show – still going strong. As you make your approach, staff greet you to check your timed entry ticket and then launch into their catchphrase of the day where you are obliged to join them at every opportunity with a fist raised up and a hearty “Let’s A-Go!”. As with the Happiest Place on Earth, the Super Nintendo World staff did everything they could to make sure you had the best time possible, offering to take photographs, going out of their way to assist you and explain, and complimenting me on my floral face-mask and (unofficial) Game Boy t-shirt.
The walk to the entry is paved with familiar pixel font charting your distance, the noise of coins starts ringing out around you. And then behold – a giant green warp pipe. Thankfully, its horizontal for ease of access, though a set of smaller vertical pipes you can appear to emerge from are available for photo-ops. The journey through the warp pipe is simple but effective, green strips of light stream above you and the classic warp sound adds to the experience. You emerge in a familiar foyer, Princess Peach’s Castle a la Super Mario 64. To your left and right, lenticular paintings of Bob-Omb Battlefield and Tiny-Huge Island. A stained-glass window of the Princess herself above. You step out through the Castle doors, blinking into the light. You have arrived in the Mushroom Kingdom.
Even having looked at footage of Super Nintendo World from afar, nothing could have quite prepared me for just how magical this first moment would be. Having grown up with Nintendo, having owned and played every system from the NES onwards, Mario a constant presence in my life since my early childhood, to see a moving, living, large-scale version of this video game world is incredible. The area itself is not all that massive, but through forced perspective and basing the main areas across two levels, connected via large staircases, it creates a big impression. Though no doubt helped by enjoying a bright blue sky on the day of my visit (not that clouds don’t appear in the Mario games, they just tend to have eyes), the colourful hills and blocks and coins and enemies that comprise the landscape of Super Nintendo World looked vibrant and vivid. The attention to detail is remarkable: the motion of the coins spinning, the Goombas and shells moving back and forth, the Piranha Plants biting and bobbing their heads, all impeccably realised. It also dawned on me at that moment just how much the Mario world is the perfect fit for Universal’s own Magic Kingdom, with its castles, dungeons and forests evoking Disney’s enchanted lands.
A world that looks like it comes straight from a video game is one thing, but a world you can interact with and play with as if it were a game itself is another matter altogether. Super Nintendo World’s USP and at the forefront of its marketing strategy is the idea that “We Are Mario”, and this is represented through the Power-Up Band. When purchasing my ticket and timed entry to Super Nintendo World online, there was the option to pre-order one for collection at the park, but no matter how many times or methods I tried, I could never add it to my basket. However, I needn’t have worried, as stalls around the entry to Super Nintendo World had plenty on sale in a variety of styles based on the Mario characters. At a cost of ¥3,800 each, on top of my Day pass and Express Pass Ticket, it may seem like an expensive cherry on top of an already pricey cake. And I was initially sceptical about whether it would add anything to the experience, or even work effectively. But in practice, I was genuinely impressed with the Power-Up Band.
Depending on which Power-Up Band you purchase, you are assigned a Team. I was Team Luigi, because of course. By interacting with different elements of Super Nintendo World, completing special challenges and riding attractions, you can collect coins which are added to your personal and team score, and unlock stamps depending on how many times you’ve done a task or how many enemies you hit with shells on the Mario Kart ride, and the like. Coins can be found by simply punching the bottom of question mark blocks throughout the park, or completing mini-games with staff on hand to assist. There are further challenges which are more involved, such as solving a puzzle before a Bob-omb blows up or hitting a Pow block in time to launch a shell out of a pipe. Completing these will add one of three keys to your score. Collect three keys, and you are granted access to a special extra challenge, Bowser Jr, in which you face an on-screen Bowser Jr in a mini clown car, with your silhouette projected beneath. By leaping around and waving your hands, you can dodge projectiles and swat them back his way in order to defeat him. It’s an enjoyable extra and worth collecting the keys for, given those challenges and fun enough in of themselves.
Although there are terminals dotted around Super Nintendo World where you can check your progress, by downloading the USJ app and registering your Power-Up Band, you can keep track of your quests, coins and keys through the app’s Super Nintendo World portal. Free Wi-Fi is available extensively in Super Nintendo World at least, so you won’t have to worry about incurring data roaming charges, so long as you switch your data off as a precaution. Although ultimately your personal and Team scores matter very little and there is no possible way to collect all the stamps in one visit, for those who expect to return, or add a little sportsmanlike competition with friends or family members, or even just to make the most out of what Super Nintendo World has to offer, it comes recommended.
The rides themselves though are something of a mixed bag overall. The main attraction is Mario Kart: Koopa’s Challenge. As you enter Bowser’s imposing castle, you are greeted by a statue of the King of the Koopas himself, followed by familiar Kart trophies on display. Venturing deeper into the castle, you encounter a library of Kart techniques and tracks and a workshop creating items, before being ushered into the Mario Kart TV studios where Lakitu and staff outline how to play the ride through Mii-starring video explainers. Everyone is kitted out with a Mario cap-style headset before you are seated in your four-player jumbo-kart. Once aboard, you slot an AR visor into the headset. Through collectively steering the kart with your individual steering wheels, you navigate the track, while buttons on the wheel allow you to use items that you collect as you go. The direction of projectiles is based on where you are looking through the headset – so by looking up, your green shell for example will target enemies above, or looking ahead you can fire away at enemy racers in front. Your aim is to collect 100 coins in total and defeat Bowser and the Koopalings in your race through a medley of courses, culminating in a dazzling Rainbow Road finale.
As exciting as this all sounds, a Mario Kart spin on the excellent 3D Ratatouille ride at Disneyland, it’s a tad underwhelming. The trouble with interactive rides, particularly when shooting targets is involved, is that it swifty descends into a messy free for all. It’s not always clear whether what you are doing as any impact and your items swiftly get depleted in the chaos, leaving you hanging around waiting until you can replenish. Moreover, the awkward mix of AR coins and characters and real-world locations means you’re not entirely concentrating on either and missing out on all the details. It’s probably more fun a second time around, but given the non-Express Pass waiting time rarely dipped below two hours, and I had exhausted my only Express Pass entry which was still a roughly 30-minute wait, meant another go would be off the table this visit. It’s still certainly worth a go during your time at Super Nintendo World, if only for the immersive fun of the queue of all things. But the Mario Kart VR ride I had enjoyed at the (now closed) VR Zone Shinjuku centre a few years previous was a far superior experience.
At least Mario Kart: Koopa’s Challenge offers some thrills. Yoshi’s Adventure is anything but adventurous. Admittedly, as a man in my mid- to late-thirties, I am not the target audience. It is clearly designed for the little ones while the bigger kids are karting. But you would be hard-pressed to find a child who would find the few minutes ride worth the end of a 75-minute wait (based on my experience). The queue itself is pleasant enough for a short while, with Yoshi’s Island and Yoshi’s Story iconography and music from the games piped in. That is until a queue-extending outdoors detour down an unremarkable grey alley, puncturing the magic with a slice of concrete reality. At least just before the ride itself, Toadette, or Kinopiko as she is known in Japan, is there to greet you via video screen. But it is small comfort. Boarding one of the variously coloured Yoshi’s, you trundle along one of the highest hills at the edge of the park, offering at least some nice views at the Mushroom Kingdom below. Yet, apart from a brief moment in a tunnel with Baby Mario escaping Kamek on Yoshi’s back, and a recognisable Mario enemy or Baby Yoshi here and there, there is very little you see on the Yoshi’s Adventure ride that isn’t perfectly visible from anywhere else in the park area. Even the interactive Power-Up Band moments where you have to indicate what colour Yoshi Egg you encounter didn’t seem to function as it should. If your time in Super Nintendo World is limited and you don’t have toddlers in tow, you won’t lose any sleep from having skipped it.
Aside from the rides and attractions, Super Nintendo World also offers a variety of stores, selling various exclusive items. As is the case throughout, Mario is the predominant theme, though there is not a great deal that feels especially “Super Nintendo World” rather than just plain “Nintendo”, which is a shame. It still didn’t stop me from dropping over ¥15,000 on goodies and gifts, and at least the receipts have a charming red-silhouetted Mario landscape on the reverse. There are kiosks selling theme park standards like popcorn and soda pop in unwieldly looking plastic monstrosities resembling question mark blocks and the like. But those looking for more substantial fare should visit Kinopio’s Café, named after Toad as he is known in Japan, who appears on a video screen as you queue whipping up a range of meals. It’s worth checking out the entrance to the café before you plan on dining, as timed entry tickets are handed out to offset demand, especially at peak eating hours.
The wide-ranging menu offers a variety of mains, sides, desserts and drinks, but I opted primarily for the most Mario-looking items available (sorry, but a burger with a Mario cap just isn’t going to cut it). The Super Mushroom Pizza Bowl is a perfect replica of a Mario mushroom, with a soft doughy top with poppy seed pots, concealing a satisfying mix of tomato, mozzarella, and, of course, mushrooms. The Piranha Plant Caprese Salad is too light for a main, but works well as a side, with a flavourful dressing and fresh ingredients. The Question Block Tiramisu isn’t especially like a tiramisu, but it’s creamy and pleasant enough, with a buttery biscuit exterior. And the Super Star Lemon Squash is refreshing if ordinary and overpriced, with bright gummy chunks like tapioca pearls in the mix. The café itself is more cafeteria style than cosy, but screens on the walls play out a rotating Mushroom village vista which add a little ambience. At ¥4,350 for the lot, it wasn’t the cheapest option, but as theme park food goes, serving thousands of customers a day, it was all tastier than you might expect.
Outside of Super Nintendo World, there were other Mario merchandise and food options available, notably a store and café side by side, centred around the phrase “Whose Cap?”. The designs of the various shirts, stationery and, yes, caps, are nice enough, but the catchphrase raises more questions than the question itself does. It’s a little clunky and doesn’t really have anything to do with Mario and unfortunately adorns everything on the shelves. Better though is the café, a must-go for those in the mood for dessert, selling cap-shaped pancake sandwiches, filled with cream and topped with fruit, in Mario strawberry shortcake or Luigi grape no-bake cheesecake flavours at Y700 a pop. These can be washed down with cream sodas in strawberry, green apple and (Princess) peach flavours for Y600 each. They all looked great and gave a real sugar rush boost of energy to see out the rest of the day out, even if at the time I ordered the standing room café area was for the photo opportunities only, with eating and drinking to be taken outside amongst the chainsaw-wielding maniacs (reminder: it was Halloween Horror Nights).
Overall, I spent around 5 hours in Super Nintendo World alone. Granted, around two hours of which were in queues, and only then with an Express Pass for one of them. Plus, a solid chunk of time browsing and buying in the shops. And a toilet trip (too much information maybe, but aside from some underwater enemy art, don’t expect to be relieving yourself into a warp pipe or anything). I didn’t even get round to the photo opportunities with Mario and Luigi or Princess Peach (even someone in a Toad costume appears from time to time, which couldn’t have been great in the sweltering heat). If you have little interest in Nintendo (and have made it this far through my review), chances are a lot of the magic and wonder of what it has to offer will be lost on you. Or if you like certain Nintendo games but Mario isn’t your thing, you’d come away disappointed too (only a few hidden Pikmin no doubt Miyamoto himself personally placed in the park suggests anything beyond the platforming plumber’s titles). The rides themselves are either fine or for the very young (and at least one suffering grown-up accompanying them). And without the Power-Up Band, you’re missing out on maybe its most appealing activity. If you are happy to bide your time, the Donkey Kong expansion may sweeten the deal when it opens in 2024, promising more interactive areas and a fully-fledged roller-coaster (a mine cart ride perhaps?). It may also be even easier to visit, with the hope Covid rates decline and flights come down in price. And the USA version will also add an additional option into the mix.
But for a Nintendo kid who grew up in the 1980s, I finally had that moment other franchise fans have found in their own theme park visits. To paraphrase Han Solo in The Force Awakens, “Luigi, we’re a-home.”
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