Preview a portion of Universal Orlando Resort’s Epic Universe
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UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. – Universal Orlando Resort is building its fourth theme park, Epic Universe, to join Universal Studios Florida, Universal’s Islands of Adventure and water park Volcano Bay.
Although Universal executives have yet to share many details about this fourth park, one section under construction already displays a similar footprint to the Super Nintendo World expansion that opens Friday at Universal Studios Hollywood. (Other lands at Epic Universe may be themed to “Fantastic Beasts,” “How to Train Your Dragon” and Universal Classic Monsters.)
To get a sneak peek at what’s coming to Florida when Epic Universe opens there, likely in 2025, I visited Universal Studios Hollywood earlier this month while Super Nintendo World, home to characters from the Super Mario Bros. video games, was open in “technical rehearsal.”
As Mario would say, “Let’s-a go!”
Visitors access Super Nintendo World via a green pipe that will be familiar to anyone who’s played the Super Mario Bros. games since the franchise began in the mid-1980s.
Upon entering SNW, prepare for an assault on the senses with a land that looks like you’re inside a Super Mario Bros. game and features a soundscape to match, including familiar music and sound effects from the video games. (For visitors with auditory sensitivities, earplugs might prove helpful.)
Brightly colored and dotted with active animatronic figures — cute dinosaur Yoshi circles a tree, mushroom-like Goombas totter back and forth, piranha plants sway to and fro — there was a lot to take in.
How much time you’ll want to spend in Super Nintendo World will largely be a function of whether you purchase an interactive Power-Up wristband ($20 each, available in SNW from video vending machines; they’ll work in other Universal SNWs, too).
The wristband allows the wearer to interact with elements throughout the land. Press it up against a hidden letter M on walls, and see an 8-bit version of a Super Mario Bros. character illuminate. Find a yellow question block cube, reach under and tap the band, and earn digital gold coins and hear a sound effect from the game. Linking the band to the SNW portion of the Universal Studios Hollywood app allows you to accumulate points and collect digital stamps.
While Universal Studios Hollywood is the first to open a Super Nintendo World in the U.S., it was preceded by a version that opened at Universal Studios Japan in 2021. The Florida iteration will likely have more in common with the SNW in Japan, which boasts two rides and is getting a third. The SNW at Epic Universe in Florida might have up to three rides, including its own version of Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge, debuting this week in California.
The Universal Creative team, now every bit as good as their peers at Walt Disney Imagineering (and sometimes better when Disney’s bean counters force imagineering to cheap out with bland 2-D character cutouts), fill the Mario Kart ride queue, largely consisting of a walk-through of turtle-like antagonist Bowser’s castle, with loads of details including books on “Sibling Rivalries and How to Exploit Them” and a photo of Bowser’s obsession, Princess Peach, on his throne.
Mario Kart is both an on-a-track driving ride and a shoot-em-up similar to Disney’s excellent Toy Story Mania. But Mario Kart is a bit more challenging, as it asks riders to do two things at once — steer the car and shoot at bad guys — as riders on Team Mario try to keep Team Bowser from winning the Golden Cup.
Riders don a Mario-style red hat, and when they get in the ride vehicle, there is a visor with an eye shield that uses magnets to snap into the front of the hat. The game play is largely projected on that eye shield and might be individualized based on experiences recorded on the rider’s wristband, which taps against the M on the steering wheel.
Arrows on the eye shield screen direct riders to turn right or left, while the direction a rider turns her head dictates where turtle shells will be tossed, activated by pushing thumb buttons atop the steering wheel.
Unlike some video game-like rides, where it doesn’t always feel like you have an effect on the action (looking at you, Legoland’s exhausting Lego Ninjago ride), on Mario Kart I felt completely immersed and that I made an impact in the game. Each kart seats four (two in front, two in back), and at the end of the ride a display shows each player’s total points.
You’ll want to experience Mario Kart more than once because there’s so much happening simultaneously, from the game play on your visor to the practical effects alongside the ride route, which goes through different landscapes, including under the sea, which has been calibrated to be more humid and feel like a dank environment.
Aside from Mario Kart, SNW features the Toadstool Café, a sit-down dining experience serving Toadstool Cheesy Garlic Knots, a Luigi Pesto Chicken Burger and Princess Peach Cupcakes, and four challenges that can be accomplished only by using the wristband.
Without the wristband, SNW at the Hollywood park is pretty much just the Mario Kart ride. With the wristband, there’s a secondary gameplay experience.
Successfully complete three of four challenges in SNW, and you’ll earn keys that allow access to face off against Baby Bowser in the Shadow Showdown that requires players to stand in an assigned place and use their shadows, projected on a wall in front of them, to swat away animated falling objects, from balloons to bombs. That boss battle seems poised to have the longest line, because each round admits only 12 players at a time.
As with all franchise-based theme park attractions (see: Disney’s “Star Wars,” Universal’s Harry Potter), the degree of a visitor’s devotion to the media property might impact their level of enjoyment. But even as a non-video game player, the appeal of SNW to modern gamers — and their parents who grew up on the original 1986 Nintendo Entertainment System — is clear. The April 7 release of a new animated Universal “Super Mario Bros.” movie seems likely to further juice interest in the Hollywood iteration of Super Nintendo World and stoke anticipation for the expanded Florida version.