The notion of a Nintendo theme park has been floating around for a while now, but it was only recently that the company’s partnership with Universal Studios began to feel real. Hot on the heels of Nintendo registering a Super Nintendo World patent to be used for the upcoming park, there’s now a trailer to go along with it.
The trailer is largely CGI and doesn’t exactly show what the final product is going to look like (presumably because the parks aren’t finished yet), but it does offer an idea of the mood and sense of magic the the Universal and Nintendo partnership is striving for. The trailer depicts park-goers interacting with Mario as he scales familiar blocks and flagpoles of the Mushroom Kingdom, and can be seen below. If the real-life counterpart comes anywhere close to what’s shown here, there’s little doubt Super Nintendo World will be a big hit.
Meanwhile, Nintendo continues its initiative to keep 3DS alive despite the overall shift in focus to Switch, with a new trailer for the upcoming sidescroller Hey! Pikmin. I shared my thoughts on the game previously upon getting a closer look, though I’m still itching to go hands-on and find out for myself just how well Pikmin‘s mechanics do or don’t translate to two dimensions. Of course, a third dimension is swiftly regained in the form of 3DS’s stereoscopic effect, but the title progresses from left to right rather than the series’ tradition top-down style nonetheless.
Notably, Hey! Pikmin is not the long-awaited followup to Pikmin 3 supposedly being worked on by Shigeru Miyamoto – that game, as far as we know, is still under wraps. Still, the title serves as a nice reminder that the series is still active, and if Nintendo Land taught us anything, it’s that Pikmin and theme parks go extremely well together. Here’s hoping Super Nintendo World includes Pikmin in its plans.
Hey! Pikmin launches exclusively for 3DS July 28th. For Super Nintendo World the wait is going to be a bit longer, with a targeted Japan grand opening in 2020.
