![]() ![]() Nintendo’s own Switch video game console has sold more than 122 million units, making it the third-best-selling console ever, and Super Nintendo World arrives weeks before a new “Super Mario Bros.” film and at a time when HBO’s game-based “The Last of Us” is the most popular series on television.īut more than that, games and game-like trappings have gradually infiltrated many aspects of our lives. ![]() Super Nintendo World is full of movement and color. “Super Nintendo World” is not only the most game-focused theme park land in existence but a love letter to the medium that has, over the last 40 years, gradually come to dominate our lives and pop culture. True-life inspiration became a fantasy interactive world, which has now come full circle to exist as a physical space, one housing an elaborate “Mario Kart”-inspired attraction, a triumphant creation where the tactile and the imaginary, built sets and the animated world, all spring to life on a track-driven ride that blurs the boundaries between game and reality. Fast-forward to where we are now, those limitations are no longer there. “So creating a dark space, or something you could climb to, those are the experiences we were trying to create within the limitations to make a game. “Looking back at my childhood experiences, the times I was running around, the times I was climbing things and went into dark areas - that was kind of trying to create the connection between my real-life experiences with the 8-bit world,” said Miyamoto via a translator. And Miyamoto’s own time in nature as a child played a part too. ![]() This physical, real-world space that guests can now visit had its basis in the 8-bit games of the early 1980s, where pixel limitations meant Miyamoto and the team at Nintendo sought recognizable but off-kilter images to denote a sense of scale and fantasy. It’s larger-than-life mushrooms rather than trees that dot the center of the area, but they glisten and have a rubbery, bouncy sheen that beckons us closer and invites us to touch.Īnd for all the architecture, technology, engineering and landscape design behind Super Nintendo World, it’s rooted in the mind of one person: master game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. We’re surrounded by brash digital colors, and yet Super Nintendo World feels made of this earth, as watercolor hills grace the entrance and sketch-like animations comprise some of the visuals.Īs weird as all this may seem to those unfamiliar with the Mushroom Kingdom, the namesake land of the “Super Mario Bros.” games, it’s all presented in luminous, cheery tones that signal a sense of comfort. Plants chomp, a thumping, angry-faced block hovers and slams over a cave, and familiar-but-odd critters wander above us while our eyes adjust to an appealing clash of wintry and desert environments. Laid out like an obstacle course, with creatures, characters, moving platforms and mushrooms beckoning us to explore, everywhere we look we’re greeted with an inviting but loud contrast. After walking through an oversize green warp pipe - and hearing the three-pronged digital zaps familiar to generations of “Super Mario Bros.” players - we’re in a brightly colored fantasy world that immediately feels interactive. ![]()
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