The Nintendo Museum has been updated since I last visited in 2024.
Ollie Barder
Back in September 2024, I got to visit the Nintendo Museum before it opened to the public. Now, over a year on, there are even more exhibits on show.
It was great to go back to the Nintendo Museum again, especially as it’s now open to the public. While it was busy, it wasn’t crowded, and the ticket system is likely the reason for this.
All the exhibits I saw were still in place, but the main new attraction was a gallery of production art used for various classic Nintendo games.
These included the graph paper used to plan out levels and design the pixel, which makes total sense considering the technology and tools of the time.
Seeing the original plans for things like Super Metroid and all the artwork that was used to make the games was amazing. There were also many new elements tied to the 40th anniversary of the Super Mario Bros. games (show below).
The 40th anniversary of the Super Mario Bros. games was a big new fixture at the museum.
Ollie Barder
While there is now a Nintendo Museum guidebook (shown below), sadly, only a small part of it covers this new gallery.
In all honesty, I would love Nintendo to do a proper art book of all the elements from this new gallery. I feel that it’s too culturally important not to be made more widely available.
Following on from that, there was more stuff on sale in the museum shop, such as giant cushions of various Nintendo console game pads. So if you do go, I recommend leaving a good amount of space in your luggage for the trip home.
There was also a new light show setup outside that came alive once evening arrived, and seeing all the kids and their parents playing in the garden outside was rather lovely.
To be honest, it was just great to see the Nintendo Museum doing so well and also expanding its already very thorough exhibits to show off more about how Nintendo’s games get made.
You can reserve tickets for the Nintendo Museum over on its official site.
There’s a new official guidebook you can now pick up at the museum.
Ollie Barder
Follow me on X, Facebook and YouTube. I also manage Mecha Damashii and am currently writing regular columns in Japanese about mecha games and mecha anime for both Game*Spark and Automaton.
