Nintendo’s amusement park expansion expands outside Japan for the first time.

With Universal Studios Japan’s goal being delivering the feeling of movie magic to guests, it might seem kind of odd that the Osaka theme park is also home to the video game-inspired attractions of Super Nintendo World. USJ has a long history of partnering with Japanese pop culture franchises, though, and is pretty much the only non-Disney amusement park in Japan with the scale and budget to do justice to Nintendo’s top-tier series.

Of course, Universal Studios Japan isn’t the only Universal Studios park in the world, and now the original, Universal Studios Hollywood, has announced the opening date for its own Super Nintendo World expansion.

The sights shown in the video preview look like exact facsimiles of the ones that wowed us on our first visit to USJ’s Super Nintendo World: Peach’s castle, Bowser’s fortress with an AR Mario Kart ride, and interactive activities with question-mark blocks and a giant Piranha Plant. Even the Toadstool Cafe and 1-Up Factory gift shop are there. It’s all enough to make you feel like you’ve really gone through a warp pipe to the Mushroom Kingdom, leaving Hollywood behind (though technically Universal Studios Hollywood is located in Universal City, not Hollywood, but that’s some serious So Cal native nitpicking).

So when’s opening day? February 17, 2023. That unfortunately means fans in the U.S. probably won’t be able to enjoy the cool Christmas-themed Nintendo merch that’s on sale right now at Universal Studios Japan, but they will at least be able visit the U.S. Super Nintendo World before the opening of the new CG Super Mario Bros. Movie.

Source, images: YouTube/Universal Studios Hollywood
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

Follow Casey on Twitter for more about video games and localized Southern California geography.