Universal's Super Nintendo World is the play-focused theme park land for our times
LOS ANGELES — A credit list into the hundreds — likely thousands — helped bring Universal Studios' Super Nintendo World to life. And the details show it.
After walking through an oversize green warp pipe — and hearing the three-pronged digital zaps familiar to generations of "Super Mario Bros." players — we're in a brightly colored fantasy world that immediately feels interactive. Laid out like an obstacle course, with creatures, characters, moving platforms and mushrooms beckoning us to explore, everywhere we look we're greeted with an inviting but loud contrast.
Plants chomp, a thumping, angry-faced block hovers and slams over a cave, and familiar-but-odd critters wander above us while our eyes adjust to an appealing clash of wintry and desert environments. We're surrounded by brash digital colors, and yet Super Nintendo World feels made of this Earth, as watercolor hills grace the entrance and sketch-like animations comprise some of the visuals.
As weird as all this may seem to those unfamiliar with the Mushroom Kingdom, the namesake land of the "Super Mario Bros." games, it's all presented in luminous, cheery tones that signal a sense of comfort. It's larger-than-life mushrooms rather than trees that dot the center
