Good news: we finally have an opening date for Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Hollywood! Sounds great, right? Well, unfortunately, there’s a catch: there’s some bad news to go with the good. And the news is unfortunately pretty bad.
Super Nintendo World at Long Last?
Universal Studios Hollywood has just announced on Twitter that they’re finally bringing Super Nintendo World to the US with a clear release date in mind. Well, for certain definitions of “clear”. These are their exact words in their post:
“#SuperNintendoWorld is opening in 2023 at Universal Studios Hollywood! Level up with exclusive merch at the Feature Presentation store, opening soon.”
So yeah, as it turns out, we’re finally getting Super Nintendo World in 2023. Unfortunately, Universal Studios doesn’t give a release date any more specific than that. No day of release, or even month of release. Just next year as of this writing, and nothing more. I guess this is just a case where we have to wait for more official news later. Fortunately, it’s not going to be a long wait, relatively speaking. Unfortunately, now we come to the bad news.
Something Seems MIA
First, some background info. The Super Nintendo World currently only in Universal Studios Japan features 2 attractions: Mario Kart: Koopa’s Challenge, and Yoshi’s Adventure. The former is an interactive dark ride housed within Bowser’s castle that uses augmented reality tech to make riders feel as though they’re in one of the Mario Kart games, while the latter is an omnimover ride spanning the area around the amusement park that features, well, Yoshi and other characters from the Yoshi games. There is technically a third attraction called Power Up Band Key Challenges, but it’s less an attraction and more of a mobile game using the official Universal Studios Japan app.
Now with the background info out of the way, let’s talk about what’s missing from the Super Nintendo World in Universal Studios Hollywood. According to Inside the Magic, the land area for the Nintendo theme park in Hollywood is smaller than the one in Japan, due to needing to fit the whole park into one of the lower lots. They speculated that because of that smaller land area, certain rides may get cut from the Hollywood version. Indeed, a video of the ongoing construction from February 28, 2021 shows what appears to be Bowser’s castle under construction, but the multi-story building housing Yoshi’s Adventure is curiously absent.
The last piece of the puzzle clicks into place from Theme Park Tribune. They confirm that Yoshi’s Adventure will indeed be absent from Super Nintendo World in Universal Studios Hollywood. Even though it’s understandable, it still sucks. Especially when you hear about what they have planned for Universal Orlando.
Universal Orlando’s Super Nintendo World: The Better Version
Universal Orlando is planning to have their own Super Nintendo World, and it already looks better than the one in Hollywood. This is all due to Orlando having a much larger land area to work with. Thus, they can fit in a lot more attractions. Theme Park Tribune confirms that not only will Orlando have both Mario Kart and Yoshi’s Adventure, but they will also have a Donkey Kong rollercoaster ride on opening day. The only downside is that we will have to wait until 2025 to see this version of Nintendo’s theme park. With how much bigger and more impressive the Orlando version is though, it seems like something worth waiting for. At least, more so than the Hollywood version. I guess we will just have to see when it opens next year.
Source: Twitter, Inside the Magic, Theme Park Tribune, Theme Park Tribune
