The first real-life Super Nintendo World is coming to Japan this summer
Have any summer plans? Love gaming? Pack your bags, because you need to make a pilgrimage to Osaka, Japan. That's the location for Nintendo's inaugural Super Nintendo World theme park, which looks like a veritable haven for gamers as well as a rainbow-hued adventure that both kids and adults will want to go absolutely wild in. Super Nintendo World isn't a standalone park, but instead an extension of Universal Studios Japan, and you'll be able to enter its colorful confines as early as this summer. After much fanfare, the park is set to open ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics for anyone who's ever wanted to enter the world of their favorite Italian plumber.
Nintendo held a special presentation earlier this week offering some of the first details about the park, and it sounds like it just might be the closest thing we've ever gotten to living in a real-world Mushroom Kingdom. The event was accompanied by a whimsical music video that acts as a trailer of sorts for the park opening. Featuring a new track from artist Galantis, featuring Charli XCX, the clip is actually a showcase for the official Super Nintendo World theme song: "We Are Born to Play." There isn't any real-world footage of the park in the clip, but the mock-up 3D look certainly makes it seem like a place any Nintendo fan would love to visit.
According to Bloomberg's Kurumi Mori, who translated the Japanese event, Super Nintendo World is meant to feel like a "life-size, living video game."
When visitors enter the park, they'll get to utilize smart wearable wrist bands called "Power Up Bands." Much like Disney World utilizes bands for visitors that act as their tickets for entering and exiting the park, the Power Up Bands will store important information about Super Nintendo World. More importantly, they're meant to help visitors feel like they're really "part of" the game world, as they can track how many digital coins players earn and offer other fun bonuses. Plus, they come in a variety of styles, including Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Toad, and Yoshi.
The bands will be used in tandem with a special mobile app that comes packing a map to help find attractions, track achievements earned while in the park, and store user profiles. Nintendo hasn't yet divulged what you can do with any of the aforementioned coins you might collect as you wander around the colorful park, but it seems as though there could be some fun rewards waiting for anyone who collects enough coins. Possible redemption centers? Mario dolls? There's also the potential that earned digital coins could be a part of some other games or attractions in the park.
Unfortunately, for right now the only park opening on the horizon is set for Osaka this summer. But following its successful launch, Super Nintendo World will come to Hollywood, CA; Orlando, FL; and Singapore locations. There isn't any sort of time for when we can expect the new branches of the original Japanese location to open, nor much else about what the park will offer just yet, but as many Mario fans know, when it comes to Nintendo, things are usually worth the wait.
