LOS ANGELES — Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Hollywood brings a lot of firsts to the theme park industry. It's the first major land in North America themed entirely around a video game property and it contains the first serious implementation of augmented reality in an attraction. It's also visually inviting, a colorful world full of movement, games, character interactions, animation and a plenty of silliness.
Expect the most interactive theme park land ever created, one with a mission that the future of entertainment will involve a whole lot of play. The goal is to place guests inside the Mushroom Kingdom of "Super Mario Bros.," to make them feel as if they're tourists inside a game rather than visiting a giant place filled with games. In turn, the land looks like an obstacle course, a mash-up of various Nintendo landscapes — a desert to the right, blue-tinged snowcaps up ahead and a foreboding, villainous castle as its centerpiece.
The land is a win for Universal Studios Hollywood, doing for Nintendo what the Wizarding World of Harry Potter did for the fantasy franchise: build an all-encompassing world with detail designed to make guests hang out longer rather than come for a ride and bolt.
