Tom’s Honest Review of EPIC UNIVERSE – Part 3: Super Nintendo World

Tom’s Honest Review of EPIC UNIVERSE – Part 3: Super Nintendo World

[Music] We have been slowly working our way methodically through Epic Universe with our honest review series. So far, we’ve covered Celestial Park and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter Ministry of Magic. But now, we’re heading over to Super Nintendo World through the warp pipe. So, join me as we visit the third Super Nintendo World at a Universal Park. [Music] This one is weird because this is the one we have the most background with. Um, for those unaware, Super Nintendo World opened at Universal Studios Japan uh 5 years ago, not a completed version like what we have now. Um, it opened with just the Super Mario side, which is very similar to what Epic Universe has received. Then um what was supposed to open in 2024 would be Donkey Kong Country at that particular location. It finally opened um supposed to open in the spring. It opened much later and so that finally opened and so they have their completed Super Nintendo World. Along the way to Epic Universe, another Super Nintendo World open. That would be the one at Universal Studios Hollywood, which is what I would call the incomplete version of of Super Nintendo World. It’s only attraction is Mario Kart. It has the powerup band uh key challenges and things like that, but um uh that’s about and it has to stool cafe, but it’s it’s a much lesser version of what exists in Japan and what exists in Orlando. And then we have Epic Universe. Now, what was originally supposed to happen was Universal Studios Florida was supposed to get Super Nintendo World originally. The space that is kids own some backstage area in other space was going to be Super Nintendo World. That didn’t happen because Universal decided, hey, this would be a great anchor for a new theme park. Uh, same thing happened with the Ministry of Magic Ride. They they pushed Super Nintendo World and the Ministry of Magic Ride off to a new park because it’s nice to sell additional days of ticket sales instead of strengthening Universal Studios Florida, which, let’s be honest, could use the strengthening. But either way, Epic Universe, the home of a portal that goes into a warp pipe that then goes to Super Nintendo World. So, we already have an honest review of the Japan land as it originally existed pre Donkey Kong. So, I’m going to try to not go as indepth on those topics as uh we will go into other attractions and things in in other reviews or even as in-depth as we’ll be about Donkey Kong Mine Kart Madness and Donkey Kong Country in this review. Um, you’ll have to go check out that previous honest review from Japan. I have a lot of concerns with Super Nintendo World. Some were addressed, some couldn’t have been. Um, and and I’ll mention them briefly here, but they’ll I’ll go in way more depth in that review as not to make this any longer than it needs to be. And as you know, these are long. I can talk for a while, as some of you have indicated in the comments. When people stop watching them, I’ll stop talking for this long. Uh, my first problem is the portal. My first problem here is the fact that it’s a portal to a pipe. It’s two portals. And this never struck me when when I went in Japan. There’s just the pipe. And that makes sense. The pipe is the is the way we’re getting to Super Nintendo World. For the means uh for the purposes of Epic Universe, we have to go through a portal, but the portal goes to a pipe and the pipe then goes to to the Mushroom Kingdom and Super Nintendo World. That’s two portals at once. I don’t think it works well. I think it should have just been the pipe. Like I don’t know. I get the portals are a thing. I just don’t understand going directly into the pipe or maybe there could have been some transition space before the pipe. Um in Japan there’s a big long leadup. There’s this giant p because they had to get you out to the back of the park behind Jaws. And so there’s this whole long path where Nintendo music kicks in and you have, you know, there’s um some embedded um metal pieces in the floor that show like the years or dates of important Nintendo releases in the history of Super Mario. And there’s coins and there’s like a whole journey to that entrance. And the entrance is cool. It has a sign that says Super Nintendo World. There’s a photo op in a pipe that guests can take part in. Um there’s there’s like I don’t know the entry era just feels right for Nintendo and we lost that with this version because we had to have the portal. So there’s no pipe photo op for guests to take part in. There’s no big Super Nintendo World sign. Um which I get doesn’t work in in the way Epic was designed, but it seems weird when when they started to put Epic together. I think the first thing in it was this. And so I I think that’s just weird that it ended up being the portal that works the least. It’s very odd. It’s very odd because it’s just there’s a wall that goes above the pipe and then it very clearly it’s very clearly a wall even though it’s not supposed to be. It’s painted to not look like a wall. It’s supposed to be like a burst of energy or something and it’s not. The other thing that killed it is they had to put the fire suppression on top of the pipe. So on the top of the pipe there’s like a stick. It looks like a stick. It’s it’s the sprinkler. Um and it really it’s very noticeable especially at night. Um yeah just I love even Hollywood. I don’t like look at all three of them. I hate the way it looks from the outside. It’s terrible. It doesn’t work. It’s just flats, which look, the flats work when you’re in the land. No doubt the flats work in in in creating the world because the the Mario video games begin in two dimensions. So, you can have in the distance a flat backdrop and it’s believable because it’s a cartoony video game world. That works fine. From the outside, it doesn’t. If you’re trying to establish that Celestial Park is its own place and not connected to these places, the weird flat like movie set background flat of green rolling hills doesn’t work. Um, it’s even worse in Hollywood where they’re very clearly like rectangular panels. It looks bad. It just doesn’t look good. Making a seamless flat backdrop isn’t hard. It hasn’t been hard in decades in the theme park world. So why it is why Universal did it like this? I don’t know. But the the Stuckco version of it that’s just kind of there’s some trees blocking it but not really. It’s very visible from a lot of places. This the path that goes on the left side of Super Nintendo World up to Celestial Park is the worst part of Epic Universe. I think the park is for the most part very pretty. And that path like the entrance of the Atlantic that I know there’s an expansion pad there. I understand that. But beyond the expansion pad, there’s an area that the expansion pad is not even visible from. It is the big concrete wall that encases Super Nintendo World. And all that’s blocking it is a very small popcorn stand and some trees that even in 50 years aren’t going to get the job done. So I I don’t like it. I don’t think it works. Um, that being said, for the for the pipes themselves, the pipe up going up the escalator, whatever. I I get it. You want the escalation change because in in Japan, you work your way up a hill naturally and that allows you to enter on the second floor, which works for the reveal. The reveal in Hollywood is terrible. the reveal once you get through the portal of of the Mushroom Kingdom. Not to mention that the Comcast building appears alongside Mount Beanpole simultaneously, which is asinine, pardon my French. Um, you know, that reveal is immaculate. So, I get you want to get people up there. The pipe like immediately going into an escalator, I don’t know. I will say I love the ADA and everyone’s mentioned this already, the ADA entrance for those who, you know, if you’re in a stroller or a wheelchair, um, where it goes through this crystalline lit rocky cave and then through a pipe, which actually the pipe doesn’t change elevation, but then you’re in Peach’s Castle and there’s a bay of elevators in Peach’s Castle. That is a superb entrance to Super Nintendo World. The up the escalator and then into the castle. From that point on, it’s all great. The the castle entrance with the P portraits paying homage to Super Mario 64. It’s great. And then once you merge through that door, that reveal will forever be one of the greatest theme park reveals of all time. The land is alive. Everything’s moving for the most part. Everything’s moving. Uh all this movement, the music, which Nintendo Nintendo and Disney are right here. the two most prolific companies when it comes to earworm lovable, memorable music. Um, and so how could you not the moment you walk out and hear the how could you not be excited? Um, I think Lee, um, Eric’s significant other is not even into Super Mario, but the moment she emerged from Peach’s Castle, she said, “I love this.” And I think before that, she said, “I don’t even care if we go in that portal.” Which again, similar to Pandora at Animal Kingdom where people said, “I don’t care about that franchise.” And walked in and went, “Oh, this is amazing. I think that means you did the best job possible.” When someone doesn’t care about the IP and walks in and goes, “Oh, no. This is cool. You’ve you’ve achieved it. You’ve done it.” Um, and Super Nintendo World does. The the the overall look, the scenic design is remarkable. It is a wonderful land to look at. Now, if you go and watch that Japan review, it’s wonderful to look at. It doesn’t operate well. Um, the way the Japan one is laid out is a nightmare. I regret every time I’ve gone in there because you just get inevitably stuck somewhere. I got stuck once for five minutes in a path because the lines for the key challenges were pushing out to the path. So, there was a single file like up and down on the path. Um, and someone stopped to ask a team member a question on this side. And so we were blocked for five minutes until that was resolved. You couldn’t even get excused me. You couldn’t even say excuse me to pass because the people going this way were just kept coming. And we all just got stuck there for like five minutes. Um, I will want to say this. What what amazed me most about Super Nintendo World at Epic is how they were able to mitigate the problems. When you’re replicating something multiple times and you work when you work for a multi-billion dollar company and you’re trying to replicate things in multiple places, it’s often very hard to deviate and have them be very, very different. Look at Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge. Um, there’s some variation, but not a lot of great variation between them. And there are things they could have done to make the Hollywood Studios one stronger, realizing that they really designed it first for Disneyland and then plopped it in there. Um, but they didn’t. Uh, in the case of Super Nintendo World, look, the Hollywood one was a rushed mess. I don’t have anything positive to say about the Hollywood version of Super Nintendo World. I It’s clearly the worst. It’s clearly the one no one cared about. I know people are going to come in the comments and be defenders and go, “Oh, they had that’s the this that’s the space they had to work with.” The art of theme parks is making things work in the space you have to work with. There are so many great examples through theme park history of things where there wasn’t really space and genius ideas had to be hatched to make things work within the space allowed. Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland comes to mind. Even Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland where they decided this isn’t big enough. We’re going to have to drop them out and take them out beyond the train and go beyond the burm. And um same with Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. Uh Disneyland’s a park that always had spatial constraints. Um, and lots of these parks, Universal Studios Japan, uh, Tokyo Disney, they all other than Walt Disney World and like Disneyland Paris maybe, they all have space constraints they have to work within. And the magic is when they problem solve so expertly that you don’t even know that they did it. And Hollywood was the opposite where you you could tell um the fit and finish of the land, how it was laid out some nonsensical areas. You could tell it was not a priority for anyone. Um but I’m proud to say the epic universe one feels like it was it was the priority. Japan, I think, is the one where they had to take the initial idea and sort of squeeze it in. And I think to their credit, I don’t know what the order of operations is or what what the order of events I should say was, but it seems to me that for Epic, they took a long hard look at it and figured out what the problems were operationally. Um, the magic of the bottom floor exit. Um, for those that don’t know, there is an exit that comes out the side of the land. It heads towards that that Nintendo store. um that the castle-like Nintendo store that’s actually out in Celestial Park. There are doors there that you could exit from. You could also enter from there. Someday they might do the the you know the virtual cues or the return times to enter the portals and so you won’t be able to do this. But even in the morning you want to beat that rush in. Um sometimes those doors are open. Um and for those if you’re in a wheelchair, ECV, stroller, whatever, they’ll let you go that way if you don’t want to fight the escalator rush or elevator rush I should say. um up into the main entrance of the portal. Um but throughout the day, that being accessible, if you just want to book it to Donkey Kong or even to Yoshi or anything that’s on the bottom level and the ability to exit through there without going back through the rigomearroll of going up the stairs and over the side and through the castle and down the pipe like to not have to do any of that is fantastic. That’s great. Good job. Because the Japan one is the opposite. you have to fight back upstairs and then go out a side door. Um, Hollywood doesn’t have a problem. Hollywood, they did build an exit that is pretty far removed. And because it’s all one floor, it works out pretty well. They they have a second floor. There’s almost nothing there. It makes no sense other than it being Q for Mario Kart. Um, but they have a second floor, but thankfully it doesn’t require you to, but then you lose all the magic. I will say the tears of the land are the magic and the design and it really makes it feel like you’re in the Mushroom Kingdom, like you’re in a Super Mario video game. Uh, and I wouldn’t trade that reveal for the world, but thank you for figuring out having an exit where we don’t have to go back up there. That’s great. Love that. Um, and I’ll say as well the layout of of the land that some of the key challenges and things are are in slightly different spots or the seating areas are in different spots and they they seem to relieve the pinch points to the best of their ability. Um, the entrance of Mario Kart seems to have enough space to breathe. The key challenges seem to be set off enough that even if they have a queue, it doesn’t block the path. Um, now that being said, I have only experienced the park with limited capacity. Um, I’ve seen them slowly dial it up. I’ve been there on days with 10 to 15,000 guests, and it feels like a lot, but it doesn’t feel like what the Japan one does. I I have had I have never had a good day in the Japan Super Nintendo world. Obviously, that park has much higher attendance than Epic Universe and probably will for the foreseeable future because I think Universal realizes they did not build enough capacity at Epic Universe to actually hold the 40,000 people that the park’s capacity supposedly is. Um, you know, we’ll address that in a later video. Not going to talk about that today. But, um, for now it works. I don’t know what it’s going to feel like when 40,000 people enter the park, but for now it’s okay. Um, early entry it can be a bit of a mess. That’s again a whole thing we have to talk about in another video. Um, not this one. It’s not necessarily a reflection on the design of Super Nintendo World. More on park operations at this point than anything. Um, but I’ll I’ll say a quick quick oversight of the thing quick overview of the things I’ve already reviewed previously in Japan. Mario Kart is good. It still has one of the best, if not the best cues in the history of theme parks. It is a amazing queue. It has phenomenal music. Uh, the propping is spectacular. Uh, there’s so many fun details. There’s so much to see. As a Nintendo fan, it is a lifelong dream come true and my favorite part of Super Nintendo World. I wish the ride was anywhere near as good as the Q was because the Q is everything for me. It’s everything. Uh, the ride I will say again, um, they built magnificent sets. It is a marvel. It’s beautiful set design and it’s ruined by a game mechanic and an AR headset that just aren’t super fun. It’s just not really fun. It’s not what I wanted. I have played the video games. I could go get a Switch 2 and play Super um Super Mario Kart. Mario Kart World. It was called Super Mario Kart when I was a kid. I’m very old. I could go play Mario Kart World. And I live that I play the game on a screen all the time. That’s what it’s always been. That’s what I fell in love with. But the magic of the theme park is I want to go live it. Let me live it. You’ve shown with this set design. You could do it. You could absolutely do it. It didn’t need to be an AR headset interactive shooting ride. It’s not fun. Like, oh, time to turn. Time to turn. Time to t. Like, that’s not fun. I’m not really driving. In fact, all I’m doing is shooting, which is not the main component of Mario Kart. The main component is the carting. It’s racing people. The secondary is using weapons to win the cart race. It’s so disappointing. It’s so disappointing. I don’t think the ride is bad. I think I said in the old review that I hate the ride and it’s terrible. It’s not great. It’s just okay. I think it has enough merits that I can say it’s all right. But is it an E ticket? Is it everything that a ride based on the most popular video game of all time should have been? No, it’s just not. And I’m not saying it should have been fast. I’ I’ve been down this road before. I’m not even saying the ride needed to be fast. Even if it had been an intricate dark ride version of what it is now. Get rid of the headset and put animatronics or at least beautiful animated figures of the characters in their carts and and the like. It could have been a spectacular ride. It all comes down to the AR headset. I will say the tech seems very refined. Um, of the three I’ve been on, of all three that I’ve been on, it’s the one where everything seems to line up the best with the headset. The headset technology, the air technology seems to work as flawless as it can in the Orlando version. So, good on them for that. Um, I just it’s me reliving I I tell these stories all the time, but my I had such a love and affinity for the Universal Parks until, you know, Jurassic Park was one of my favorite movies of all time. And I remember going to that Islands of Adventure preview center. And I remember looking and going, “Wow, we’re going to get the real thing. I’m going to get to go to Jurassic Park.” And I went on that on River Adventure and it was the most disappointing theme park experience of my life coming the the year before Disney had built a dinosaur ride and I’m sorry to tell you folks it was a better dinosaur ride. Countdown to Extinction was a better dinosaur ride than any Universal had built. It’s just to that point at least. You want to argue about later stuff? We can. The Jurassic World ride in Beijing is certainly in the argument. Um, but Jurassic Jurassic Park River Adventure just isn’t or Jurassic Park the ride from Hollywood, whatever you want to call it. Just wasn’t. The animatronics are bad. It’s a pretty basic flume. You just you go up and you turn and you go down and they just build theming around it. Um, it’s no Splash Mountain for sure. Uh, that was super disappointing. And Mario Kart reaches that disappointment for me. The land didn’t disappoint me. The land is beautiful. Um, and I like Toad Stool Cafe. I think the food um most of the food’s very very good. Some is not, but for the not the hamburgers, the things I I should delineate the things I like to order at Toad Stool Cafe. I love like the mushroom soup. The desserts are fantastic. Um, the squash drink is good. I like the fiery meat, the big spicy meatball. Um, there’s good stuff there. And the atmosphere is very, very fun. Um, and I like the key ch Let’s talk about the key challenges. I like them. I think it is a really fun experience. Um, running around, hitting the alarm clocks in the Piranha Plant game. Uh, the not even just the key challenges, but the other fun interactive things, the the music blocks with the hidden songs, too. There’s hidden songs you can unlock. Um, and it plays again that music. How you you can’t help but smile every time a different recognizable Super Mario song comes on in Super Nintendo World. You can’t help but just ear to ear. can’t help it. Um, the slot machine game where you hit the you hit the slot machine and try to match the icons. Um, my favorite the underground. The underground the if if it wasn’t for the queue in Mario Kart, the underground portion in Super Nintendo World would be my favorite thing in the land. Um, you go underground, there’s a game to play. bricks and you go through a hallway, a bomb blows you up, so you shrink and then everything is oversized. Incredible. Then you play a game while undersized and then you find a mega mushroom and you grow. This is They nailed it. No notes. Could not be more perfect. But all the key challenge games are really fun and even the baby Bowser finale is excellent. It’s a really good time and it feels like a a worthwhile ending to the whole experience. I love it. My problem is maintenance. Look, uh again, Super Nintendo World design-wise, putting that all outside and having all these moving elements outside is amazing. The problem is it’s very hard to maintain. um throughout the preview period and through the opening period, there are games um I’ve played that weren’t fully functional. The green Koopa game where you hit the POW blocks and try to send a shell up to hit him. Um he hasn’t moved in months. He’s been stuck and it really kills the game. Like you don’t know that you succeeded. He doesn’t fall over. It doesn’t happen. um the Goomba game where you you crank you work the crank to race to get him to fall back. He he’s in horrendous shape. His face like the coloring’s coming off the face where the um mechanized eyebrows are and they don’t really move. So he’s just like always in this state and there’s like white just pure white around portions of his face. Um that was broken for several days. The giant piranha plant didn’t move for several days. Um, and I’ve seen these problems in Japan, too. The maintenance can’t keep up with it. And that’s the problem is the point of these theme parks is is as much of it has to be in beautiful pristine condition every day because every day is someone’s first day. And think about if this if this trip to Super Nintendo World, if Nintendo is your thing and you’re like, I cannot wait and you cannot wait to play these key challenges and you go and they’re not half of them aren’t fully functional. That’s bad. That’s not good. Um, so they they have to figure this out. They have to if they have to redesign them, they have to redesign them. Um, but it has to be resolved. Especially when you’re asking people to pay to play. You are asking people to buy a device on top of their park ticket to be a part of. It’s the same with the wand experience. It has to be fully operational or at least almost fully operational to the point in which no one notices that you sold them a device and maybe one window or one game isn’t working that day. You have to find a way to work around that. Uh it’s a shame. Again, they’re super fun and when they’re fully operational, you can’t help but get into it. It’s It’s so fun to hit that POW block and watch that shell go up and he’s walking by and he falls backwards. It’s amazing. It’s everything you want as a lifelong Nintendo fan. But it it has to work when you go. We’re We’re not selling annual passes to this park. And for most guests, you know, we’re the minority. Passholders are not the the majority of the guests. Majority of guests go once in a lifetime, maybe twice. And so, it’s important it works for them. And if it’s not only down for a single day, but we’re talking about multiple days or weeks or months that effects aren’t working for in these games, that is a problem that needs to be addressed. And it’s a shame because I I love it. It’s so much It’s such a good time when they work. Um, it’s also a good time when they don’t have 40-minute waits each because that’s the other problem is capacity with them. Now, right now, Epic’s handling it well enough because they’re not letting 40,000 people in the park. But in Japan, and there’s times I’ve been to Hollywood where I actually in Hollywood, I don’t think I’ve ever played the games. I think the lines have always been so long every time I’ve gone that I just walk away. Japan, I waited I waited 20 or 30 minutes for each game and they were still very fun, but that’s way too long to be waiting for something that’s requires a paid add-on and and isn’t a ride. That’s that’s too long. It’s way too long. Um, so there’s some I think there’s some things to figure out and I hope over time they will look at refreshing the games. um more reliable games, different games, keeping it fresh for people moving forward. Um in Donkey Kong Country, they’re not plentiful. Um the only real game I would say is the I mean there’s two technically. There’s the drums. I like the drums. The drum game is fun and and Rambi the Rhino comes out and it’s great. Um then there’s the barrel which is okay. It’s just a screen and you you know push it to to get your prize. Um, and you get the stamps in your app, which the stamp collecting is fun. I like that aspect. It makes me want to bring it makes sure that I bring this back every time, and I look forward to going back every time and riding the attractions more to get more stamps and doing the key challenges again to get more stamps. I like collecting things, even if they’re virtual. I That’s where the game component works. I didn’t need the game component to be Mario Kart. I don’t need there to be a game component on Yoshi with the egg the egg game. I get it. It’s a ride for small kids, but even the small kids, I think, are like, “Okay, Billy, what color egg is that? It’s red.” And I I don’t think the kids are getting a big rise out of that. I think the kids would have been excited enough if it was just a cute dark ride through the Nintendo world. Um, I love the key challenges. I hope they figure if they can figure it out and have them reliable and keep those lines moving, then I wouldn’t have any complaints. Uh, meet and greets are great. the talking characters, Peach, Mario, Luigi, uh you have Toad, um Donkey Kong. These are all great. Who doesn’t love these characters? It’s great to be able to meet them. Um a wonderful offering to have. Uh speaking of Yoshi’s Adventure, people are very divided on this. Some people are like, “Oh, it’s cute and it’s for kids and that that’s enough.” And other people are like, “What a waste of time.” And I had a lot of disappoint disappointments with the Yoshi ride when I wrote it in Japan. The first thing I said was, “It’s too short.” Um, I think people expected a people mover kind of ride that took you throughout the entire land. That’s what people expected. I still think it’s too short. I think it’s ridiculous that it has a restraint system that is restrictive to people with certain needs or people of different sizes um for a ride that is the slowest slowest dark ride on Earth. Um, but I will say when maintained, when all the figures are moving and everything works, the the music is charming, the scenes are very cute, it’s a fun little ride. Would I wait over 30 minutes for it? No. But it’s a fun little ride. And I will say again, I was amazed with how much was improved. They really made the best version of this ride. It’s considerably better than the Japan version. Um, there are little scenic changes. There’s a little more propping in places that hides some things you’re really not supposed to see. It fills out the scene a little more, a little more shrubbery. Um, things are placed a little better. Um, the staging is better, if you will. Uh, I think it’s considerably better here, but again, the consistency of the moving outdoor props is a problem. I’ve seen the thamp at the end of the ride move once. Um, most days the red shell um bad guy who’s crawling back and forth on the upper level. Most days he’s not moving. Most days the um cacti guy doesn’t do his thing. Um there there’s a real inconsistency to these outdoor characters and and whether they’re moving or not. And um it certainly affects the guest experience. People can argue with me all day about oh guests don’t notice blah blah blah blah blah. Guests know. the guests know that these characters are supposed to be alive and moving. Um, and it’s a big loss. I I think about like what a great moment it is at the end of that ride when the thamp comes down. You’re like, “Oh, it almost got me.” And to lose that moment peop sad because I think that’ll stick with people. I think a lot of those things stick with people. It’s they know all this stuff from the game. They’ve grown up. They’ve lived with these games their whole lives. whether they’re 12 or 40 or 60, they they’ve lived with this for 40 years of their lives, they know what these things are supposed to look like. And to Universal Creatives credit, when it all works, you’ve sent them into the world for real. You’ve achieved it. But it has to be maintained or all that work is for nothing. You can design and build the most wonderful theme park ever made. If it is not maintained and all the intended effects do not work, then all of that work was for nothing. I hate to tell you, but that’s how it goes. If I if my one time in my life on Rise of the Resistance, I get a bunch of B mode scenes, then the artistic integrity is lost. The value is gone. If it’s not everything it’s supposed to be, people are going to feel that. It’s going to be they’re people are going to be like, “That bride wasn’t as great as people say it is. I don’t think that’s that great.” Um, they they got to keep this stuff working. They’ve got to keep it working. Um, won’t talk about the shops too much. Mario Motors is a very cute store at the exit of Mario Kart. OneUp Factory is is what it is. The music’s great is what I’m going to say for everything, even if I don’t like it. The interior is just I don’t know. It’s like little factory. This there’s not a whole lot of movement. There’s a lot of screens. It’s not my favorite. The the store in Celestial, and I said this in the Celestial Park review, the Nintendo store in Celestial Park is gorgeous. It is beautiful. I love it. The the stained glass windows, the fountain outside with the spinning coins, the mural on the ceiling with the constellations of characters, the shelving, the custom shelving is wonderful. It is a my It might be my favorite store in any theme park. I love it. Um but OneUp Factory OneUp Factory leaves a little to be desired. Mario Motors is solid. It’s good. It makes sense. works. Um, but let’s let’s venture into Donkey Kong Country because this is um uncharted territory for us. Uh, Donkey Kong Country includes Donkey Kong Minecart Madness, the roller coaster attraction. It includes Funky’s Flying by, which is a very small shop in a plane, which I have no notes on that one either. It’s exactly what it should be. It’s great. Looks looks cute. Takes a good photo. Holds all the Donkey Kong merchandise. Mission accomplished. the Donkey Kong meet and greet with his house. Um his his treehouse, wonderful character costume is is awesome. Wonderful meet and greet. And the reveal again, you have that first reveal in Super Nintendo World. That second reveal coming through the tunnel into Donkey Kong Country is amazing. And the music kicking in, the drums and all this this vista of the carts going by and the waterfall off the temple and the carts. It’s great. It’s really great. It’s a great leadup to it. Yeah, the scenic design is is no notes. No notes in Super Nintendo World. Uh the queue the Q’s okay. The extended queue in that weird pocket like it’s you go under the track and you’re in like this pocket between the facade. Thankfully the facade’s gorgeous. Um and the track and it’s it’s okay out there. And then even the temple, a lot of the temple is just gold stucco wall. It’s like it’s okay. It’s all right. Um, it’s nice that there’s an interactive element in the middle of the queue. And then there’s also the there’s the gold monkey at the beginning of the the indoor queue. And then in the middle of the indoor queue, there’s um an effect where there’s two statues and if two different guests on different sides activate at the same time, you get the rainbow uh banana in the ceiling. Looks like fiber optics, but it’s LED. Everything’s LED now. Um, the pre-show with Cranky Kong, I love Great Animatronics. Horrible placement. Horrible placement. Um, you don’t end up spending a lot of time there. You never really get the whole show. And he’s explaining important story elements. So, how am I supposed to know what the attraction is about if I don’t stand there long enough to get the whole pre-show? They should have just built a room. They should just put people in a room and then let them out. I know. We hate when that happens. Or staged it different. if he was in, you know, you could have given him a longer pre-show and put him in the other room, the bigger room off to the left, and that way everyone knows what the story is and understands what we’re there for. But that doesn’t happen. Then from the Express Q, you you are so far removed from it and there’s no weight back there that you don’t really get to experience it either and you don’t get a you don’t get the clearest shot at it either from the Express Q. So, um, yeah, it’s kind of the queue is disappointing. Q is disappointing. Now, the ride. This is another one that’s been very divisive. When the first videos came online, a lot of people said, “Oh, it’s real short. I thought it was going to be longer.” Um, a lot of people have been complaining, “Oh, it’s so rough. It’s unenjoyable.” I I am very surprised at my take. I love mine cart madness. I love it. There is. It’s so fun to be in that cart and fire through the barrel and hear the noise and you hit the track. You hit the track and then moments later your mind. Now, we know how the ride works and I’ll tell you why. Everyone knows how the ride works in a minute. It’s the one thing I absolutely hate about this ride. Um, it hits the track and you go into the the tunnel and they come right at you and you know how the ride works, but it doesn’t matter. your brain still is like, “Oh, we’re going to hit them.” And then you don’t. And it’s a great moment. It’s a great moment. There’s lots of figures and animatronics along the way. It has really cool scenes, the indoor and outdoor scenes, the end scene. It’s It’s a really fun family coaster. Is it rough? Yeah, it’s real rough. And I’m worried from a from a maintenance standpoint, I’m concerned because to me that roughness equates to it’s rattling a lot. Like it’s so the if you don’t know how the ride works, I think you do, but if you don’t, there’s a real track underneath and then an arm, a steel arm that that the cart is hooked to. So you’re hooked. This is the track. There’s this big arm and your vehicle’s here and that’s how you’re riding along the attraction. If it’s that rough, if you’re feeling this kind of movement, this ride’s going to have some structural problems down the road. I’m not an engineer. I’m not. But to me, that indicates you’re eventually going to have structural issues. Am I right? It will remain to be seen. We’ll revisit this in five to 10 years. Um, but I’m I’m a little concerned. That being said, do I think it’s too rough to enjoy? I think it depends on your age or your um, you know, your uh, sensitivity. Um, I think everybody’s different. Different roller coasters, you know, I ride Stardust Racers and it’s like that’s so smooth and fun and there’s other people have been on it with me and they go, “Ah, that’s I can’t do that again.” Everybody’s different. Um, and so for mine cart, I don’t know if the it’s intentional. Um, but I I think it’s okay. I think it’s on the borderline of being bad. Um, but I love all the scenes. I love the the the way this ride system works and I love that feeling of firing and landing on track and being out of control, skipping the water. Um, but I’m going to there’s two things I’m going to talk about that I really dislike about this attraction. Number one is why do you ruin the effect on the first turn? Why when we leave the load station do you immediately show me how the ride works? Why do you immediately give away? You went through all this trouble to design a ride system that makes it feel like and look like you are flying off the track and back on. And in the first five seconds of the ride, you’re showing me the first train leave the station. You’re showing me the entire arm mechanism. Just hide it. Hide it from me. I don’t want to. I know how it works. I don’t want to see it. I want to be lost in that illusion. What are you doing showing it to me when the ride starts? Put it away. Don’t let me see it. Also, that big gate, the big unthemed gate right on the left at that beginning bothers me so much. I love the rest of the ride. Why did you do this? The other thing is the water. The water skip in Japan. You hit the water and there’s like a whole little wave that comes off the side of the cart. What happened here? You get to the edge of the track and it’s just a little like a little spurt like a little spurt and you go the rest of the way across the water and there’s no fountains. Is it unfinished? Did they not finish it or is this what it’s going to be? It’s disappointing. You’ve you’ve created it. This is along the guest path. It’s meant to be this cool moment you can photograph or take video of or enjoy while sitting and and eating your sundae from um the bubbly barrel. Uh and it doesn’t deliver. It’s disappointing. But they fix those two things. I love minecart madness. I think it’s great. I think it’s exactly what I wanted out of the Donkey Kong mine cart ride. I think it works really well and it’s one of the best rides in the park. And I understand why. If you don’t think it’s one of the best rides in the park, I totally understand why because you think it’s too rough or you think it’s too short. And I don’t necessarily have a great argument for those except that I think it’s long enough um for a family coaster and I think uh you know I I think it depends on the I think every ride I’ve been on it a handful of times. I’ll tell you every time I’ve felt a different level of intensity for that rattling. So, you know, I’m not going to knock anybody because I don’t Maybe you got rattled harder than I did and I totally believe that. But I really like it. It It’s a very enjoyable, fun ride. And um you know, I I I gave a point earlier where I put Disney above Universal. I’m going to put Universal above Disney for a moment. Um Slinky Dog Dash has very minimal theming. It’s a family coaster that just it’s just mostly unthemed and kind of junky looking. This is the opposite. I think this is a family coaster that has a whole lot going for it. It has pretty decent sight lines. There’s a there’s a thing here or there that’s Yeah. But compared to Hiccups Wing Gliders and compared to Slinky Dog Dash, this has magnificent sight lines. They’re they’re very good and you feel you it keeps the immersion very well. Um other than that first turn of the track and seeing the dirt patch beyond the one set of palm trees behind Dixie Kong, but otherwise um I like it a lot. I like that land a lot. The only other thing I don’t like in this land is the sheet metal jungle. When you head back towards uh Mushroom Kingdom, there’s a lot of this sheet metal jungle. And I’m like, you’re kill again. You’re killing the illusion. There’s real palm trees right there. Hide this. Hide the wall or build another temple wall. What are you doing? Don’t show me sheet metal jungle. Like, it’s not even a flat of a backdrop of a jungle. It’s corrugated metal. It has ripples. It doesn’t look like a jungle even in the game. Even if I was in the game world and there was a 2D backdrop. If it had ripples in it, I’d be like, “Well, that doesn’t look like a jungle.” That’s wrong. And it’s wrong in this case, too. Um, we’ll say, “I love the bubbly barrel.” We have a separate review. That and Yoshi Snack Island have separate video reviews. I’m not going to get into the food here if you want to see what we thought. We’re currently working on our Toad Stool Cafe. That’ll be myself and Nana and Ally covered all that food. That’ll be coming up on the channel very very soon. Um if you want to see what we thought of that full menu as well. Um other little thing I want to talk about another again great design changes from Japan on the way to Donkey Kong Country. You have um a Coke freestyle spot that’s also a shade like a shaded hideout with counters. That’s perfect. This park is lacking a lot of shade. There should have been more of this in every portal. It is literally just a big empty space that has four Coke Freestyle machines and counter space. And then beyond that, even some standing space where people can hide from the elements. Perfect. Perfect. Also, kudos to them for getting I didn’t think they were going to get the freestyle. I didn’t think they were going to get Nintendo to agree to put the freestyle machines in the portal and they did. So, they have them in Toad Stool, but then there’s also just some like in the middle of the land in that weird al cove. Uh, I love that. And also, big shout out to the I call them the blooper bathrooms, the undersea bathrooms. Uh, they have these in Japan also. I love them. They’re great. Uh, Epic Universe has the best bathrooms of any park in Orlando. I’m going to go on record of saying that. The best theme park bathroom park. Best theme park for bathrooms in Orlando is Epic Universe. No doubt. Might be the best food park. I’m still milling on that one. Still thinking about it. It’s in the conversation for sure. I got to think a little bit more about my overall food experience before I weigh in on that. But um overall on Super Nintendo World, it’s obviously going to draw for people. There’s going to be that magic that comes from stepping into the world, from playing the games. And I think people will find it in the Mario Kart Q, in the Donkey Kong ride experience. I think people are going to really, really like it. Do I think it’s going to be the end all beall of the theme park world? No. I don’t think it changed the landscape forever. I don’t think it was this big revelation. I think it was another great accomplishment, another tremendous accomplishment, but I don’t think it had the impact. It’s kind of the way I feel about Galaxy’s Edge where I don’t feel like it had quite the impact that it should have had given that it was Nintendo. I would put Star Wars and Nintendo on the same level of like everyone in the world knows those things. Everyone in the world loves those things for the most part and the the anticipation would be these will be the two greatest things ever done in the history of this art form. And I don’t think either is I don’t think either is I think there were some misses and some there are moments they have. Rise of the Resistance one of the greatest theme park rides ever made. Super Nintendo World, one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful theme park world or land ever built. They have those moments and they have those accolades, but as a complete total product, they maybe fall just short of being the end- all beall that they could have been. Um, and so I’m a little disappointed. I will say I’ve softened a bit on it from Japan, and maybe that’s just because less people in it. It was more enjoyable. Um, but um, there are definitely parts I really like about it. I like spending time in there and I will spend lots more time in there moving forward. It’s a lovely land and a good part of Epic Universe. It’s not my favorite part, but it’s a very good part of it and I think something that will entertain guests for many, many years to come and make many, many Nintendo fans like myself very happy. So, there you have it. Uh, if you like this honest review, hit the like button and hit subscribe for more. Again, if you missed part one and two, there’s Celestial Park is part one. Part two is the wizarding world of Harry Potter, Ministry of Magic. And now we have part three, this one, uh, Super Nintendo World. Next time, part four, uh, we’re going to talk about how to train your dragon aisle of Burke. Part five, we’re going to talk about the dark universe. I want to save that for last for a very specific reason. And I think also within that dark universe one, we’re going to talk about the Helios Grand Hotel and my overall thoughts on Epic Universe in total. So stay tuned for all that. I know it’s taking a while to do these. It takes some these are long. It takes not only a lot of time for us to find time in our work week to record them, but also for an editor to come in and take this and turn it into a video because we produce so many videos a week on this channel, the WW&T channel, the TV channel we have as well. Um, we produce a lot of content, I dare say more than anyone in this community. And so that takes a lot of time. Um, and so these, uh, you know, I’d love to just sit down and do them all in one week and put them out in one week, but we have a lot of other commitments every week, um, that we want to continue to deliver on. But hopefully you’re still enjoying these. Let us know what you like about them, what you don’t.

In the next episode of our Epic Universe Honest Review series, Tom talks about the third and newest iteration of Super Nintendo World- how it compares to the past versions and how it stands out. Is this the best Super Nintendo World, or even the best theme park land? Watch to find out!

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CHAPTERS
00:00 – Intro
00:32 – A Bit of Background
03:06 – The Portal
05:40 – View from the Outside
07:35 – Entering the Land
10:54 – How Epic Universe Mitigated Problems
15:45 – Capacity Concerns
16:45 – Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge
21:16 – Toadstool Cafe
21:44 – Key Challenges
23:14 – Maintenance Issues
28:22 – Meet and Greets
28:38 – Yoshi’s Adventure
32:02 – Shops
32:59 – Donkey Kong Country
33:59 – Mine Cart Madness
41:54 – Only Other Critique on Donkey Kong Country
42:39 – The Bubbly Barrel
43:00 – Coke Freestyle Machines
44:23 – Closing Thoughts
46:13 – Sign Off

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