When you step out of the warp pipe and enter Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Hollywood, it feels like you’ve been transported to the Mushroom Kingdom. Every inch of the theme park is meticulously decorated and perfectly on-theme. No matter which direction you look, every element of the park sells the illusion that you are indeed in the world of Mario and Friends, from the interactive Coin Blocks 🐬on every wall to the animatronic Goombas, Koopas, and Pokeys marching back and forth on each level of the impossibly high walls surrounding the land. Disney has alw🎃ays been the master of immersive theme park environments, but even the most impressive Disney Park attractions pale in comparison to Super Nintendo World.
It’s remarkable how much detail Universal has packed into such a small space. Peach’s Castle serves as your entrance into the park, while Bowser’s Castle sits on the opposite end and houses the land’s sole ride, Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge. In between you’ll find the 1UP Factory gift shop, the Toadstool Cafe, meet-and-greet areas for Princess Peach and the Mario Bros., and loads of interactive objects and mini-games to play with if you purchase a Power-Up Band (more on that𝄹 later). Wit✱h just one ride, shop, and restaurant, it’s the smallest theme park land at any of the Universal or Disney parks, but it’s also the most densely packed.
Bowser’s Ch🐠allenge doesn’t disappoint either. The queue takes you through several Mario-themed environments not seen in the general park area - including a brief stair climb through the storybook world of Yoshi’s Island, before taking you through the various chambers of Bowser’s Castle. The ride itself uses some impressive AR technology that gamifies the experience. Four riders pile into a kart wearing visors shap๊ed like Mario’s hat, and each person has a clear display attached to the kart that clips into the visor. Once attached, you’ll be able to see virtual objects in front of you overlaying the environment, kind of like a HUD in a video game. As your kart slides and spins around the track, you’ll be instructed to turn your steering wheel left and right and launch shells at Bowser and the Koopalings when they appear in front of you.
It’s a somewhat overwhelming experience. Not only are you moving erratically through a dark ride, you’re also trying to steer and shoot shells at enemies. When the ride begins you see the other racers form up on the track around you, but once it gets underway the other characters will come in and out of view floating through the air in front of you rather than actually grounded on the physical world. It doesn’t give the sense that you’re in an actual Mario Kart race, even though it has all of the familiar characters and tracks. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mario Kart VR already exists, but this is something very different. You do get to blast down Rainbow Road at the end though, which is easily the best part. Disney has been moving towards trackless ride and projection images with its recent attractions like Rise of the Resistance, Runaway Railway, and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see more of🍰 these AR dark rides at both Universal and Disney parks in the future.
If you have the Power-Up Band, you can save your score from the Bowser’s Challenge and check it on the daily leaderboard. You can then use that band to interact with all of the Coin Blocks and mini-games scattered aroundജ the park. The Power-Up Band is a $40 bracelet that’s sold at all the gift shops around Universal, and at automatic kiosks within Super Nintendo Land. It comes in six different designs and it looks like a wristwatch, but it doesn’t tell the time. It lets you do things in Super Nintendo Land and has some Amiibo functions for the Switch, but that’s it.
Universal has a similar add-on in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. If you purchase a wand you can use it to cast spells around the park and make things light up or float. Personally, I don’t think anything should spend𒀰 money on Harry Potter merch♛andise anymore, but when I got a wand years ago I thought the in-park functionality was a nice way to add value to the toy, even though the wand itself has intrinsic value, both as a wizarding prop and ꦺsentimental piece of Harry Potter memorabilia. The Power-Up Band is the opposite. Its only value is what it allows you to do in the park. It’s not like Yoshi𓆉 is famous for wearing an Egg-shaped bracelet, after all. Couldn’t it at least double as a real watch?
The band lets you do a lot. Placing it against certain walls will make images of Nintendo characters appear. Punching Coin Blocks will add more coins to your bank, which contribute to your daily high score both in the Universal app and on scoreboards around the park. If you’re willing to wait inꦑ queues for the mini-games, you can punch blocks to battle a giant Piranha plant, toss a shell with perfect timing to knock out a Koopa, enter an underground area to interact with a light-up wall of ? Blocks, and even enter Bowser Jဣr.’s Castle for a Bob-omb-swatting, fire ball-slinging boss fight against the OG Koopa Kid. This isn’t a novelty like the spells in Wizarding World, this a core part of Super Nintendo World experience, and it’s paywalled behind otherwise useless $40 bracelets.
Microtransactions are a sore spot for me, as I imagine they are for all gamers visiting Super Nintendo World. After paying hundreds to visit the park, $50 for parking, $75 on lunch at Toadstool Cafe (which was delicious) and another $40 so my partner and I could enter Super Nintendo World early and beat the rush, it felt a little insulting to be asked for another $80 so we could get the full experience. But without the bracelets, all we could do was walk around the park and look at all the cool experiences we weren’t allowed to be part of. If you try to punch a Coin Block without a Power-Up Band, it makes a sad error noise, negging you for trying to have fun without ponying up the ca💜sh first. I understand paying to get in the park, but paying for content when I’m already in feels like a bridge too far. Such is the reality of DLC and microt𓆏ransactions today.
Super Nintendo World in Universal Studios Hollywood is much smaller than the Universal Studios Japan equivalent, which has a Yoshi-themed People Mover ride and multiple shops and restaurants. Universal is set to open a fourth park in Orlando in 2025 which will house its much-larger version of Super Nintendo Land, which is rumored t🃏o include a Donkey Kong Country section and possibly even a Legend of Zelda attraction. Universal is at the top of its theme-park game right now and outshining Disney by a wide margin. Here’s hoping future additions won’t♊ require us to buy a battle pass before we can get on the ride.