So we're just eating Toad now?

A re-release of a game I already own, but 
with marginal improvements? Yes please!

I'm not like, an amusement park person. The crowds, the terrible food, the nauseating rides, oh, and kids, there's tons of kids. I don't hate amusement parks, they're just not for me. Because I hate them. But if I say, found myself in Japan and had a day to kill, it isn't not like I wouldn't not go to the Nintendo theme park. I'm only human, and, like a lot of my generation, a sucker for nostalgia. It's a weakness that the video game industry has exploited again and again and then again, but with better graphics.

The latest exploitation of fond childhood memories is part of Universal Studios Japan. It's called Super Nintendo World and it's rather ambitiously supposed to be opening on February 4th. So...maybe don't buy tickets just yet.

'Don't-a worry so much. The pandemic, she's a no big-a deal."

-Dr. Mario, who, to be clear, isn't a real doctor,

not that we listen to real doctors anyway...

Yeah, and Guillermo del Toro
directed Blade II, so...

There's a new video out where Shigeru Miyamoto gives a brief tour-whaaaa? You mean you don't know who Shigeru Miyamoto is? For shame! He's the chain-smoking graphic artist turned video game developer who created Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, and both regular and Super Mario Bros. He's responsible for some of the best and most influential games of all time and also Urban Champion. Anyway, he's a delight and walks us through the amusement park and some of the interactive attractions based on his most recognizable character who, absurdly, is a middle-aged plumber.

There're question blocks you can punch and Bob-ombs and Koopa Troopas walking around. There's even a Mario Kart attraction which, paradoxically isn't go-carts. You heard me. It's a ride based on a game based on go-carts, that isn't go-carts. I'll give you a moment.

"What if you could ride irony?"

-someone at Nintendo evidently

Cute? Sure, but also a grim harbinger
of your repeated failure to find the Princess.

Still there? Ok, so park looks like fun, if you're into that kind of thing. I'm not, but again, I'm a sucker for video game stuff. It's full of interactive animatronics and surprisingly faithful recreations of settings from the games. It's an amusement park, so of course it's full of nonsense you can buy, t-shirts and plushies and food. There's a café themed around Toad which has these LCD "windows" that look in on CG Toads in the kitchen making the food. Incidentally, I feel should clarify that Toad isn't a toad, Toad is the little mushroom person who tells you the Princess is in another castle. 

"Eat me!"

-Chef Toad

I know, it's confusing, but don't worry, I'm telling you all this for a reason. An unsettling reason! So Toad's Café serves all kinds of Mario-related dishes, burgers, pizza-bowls, deserts. You can practically taste the synergy. But here's where it gets grim: the food in Toad's Café is all mushroom-based. And, uh, so is Toad. If you follow this line of thought through to the inevitable conclusion, you'll see my issue with this: these little cartoon mushroom people are serving their own kind up to the park guests.

And look, maybe I've just been holed up indoors for ten months-wait, no, I've definitely been holed up for ten months. But that's some nightmare fuel right there, right? It also raises some uncomfortable questions about the Mario burger...

"It's-a me, Mario!"