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GRTV News - Super Nintendo World Japan to expand with Donkey Kong Country in December

The themed world will arrive in the Osaka theme park first, before then arriving in Orlando too in 2025.

Audio transcription

"Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of GRTV News. Today we're going to be talking a little bit about the Nintendo Direct that happened last night. Don't worry, you didn't miss anything. It wasn't like a video game centric one. I mean, granted, every time it's a Nintendo Direct it has something to do with video games, but what I mean is that you didn't miss an announcement for like, let's say, this Nintendo Switch successor or a new sort of, you know, bunch of games that are going to be coming to Nintendo platforms eventually. No, the Direct itself was tailored and based around the Super Nintendo World Japan theme park and specifically the Donkey Kong Country area that is soon set to open. So, with that being the case, let's dive on in because it's got some quite interesting developments in regards to what will be offered here. So yeah, Donkey Kong Land opens in Super Nintendo World Japan on December 11th. Universal Studios Japan and Nintendo confirmed the opening date for Donkey Kong Country Land. So, Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Japan has finally been unveiled in its entirety. This new themed area, based on Donkey Kong Country and most prominently on the Donkey Kong Country Returns game, will open on December 11th 2024. This themed land features just one ride, but it's a big one. Minecart Madness is a new type of never-before-seen roller coaster in which the ride vehicles seem to float literally, just like in the games. But the area will have several interactive games including bongos to play, the letters Kong to find and scan with the NFC wristband that you can get, there will be a souvenir shop, a food kiosk with hot dogs, Cranky Kong and Rambi will make animatronic appearances and DK himself will be in a full costume. This new themed land, next to the Super Mario Land, was expected to open last summer but was delayed due to some technical issues, probably due to the complexity of the new ride which has been seen testing for months now."

"Those hoping to play a new Donkey Kong game will have to keep waiting. The final DK game came out over 10 years ago on Wii U, however Nintendo will re-release Donkey Kong Country Returns HD in January 2025, so those visiting the park will be able to buy the game that it is directly based upon, at full price despite being a 14-bit title. Next year, Universal Orlando Resorts new park, Epic Universe, will also open with Super Mario and Donkey Kong lands from the start in May 2025, but Japanese visitors to Universal Studios Japan in Osaka will be the first to experience this new Donkey Kong world brought to life. Here's a nice little image of the the costume DK next to Shigeru Miyamoto. So yeah, we've had our first look at this Donkey Kong Country land. Obviously there's only three, or there will be three, Super Nintendo worlds in the world. There's the one in Osaka, there's the one in Los Angeles, and there's soon to be the one in Florida as well, as part of Universal's Epic Universe park. I can't remember what it's called. I've been to the one in Los Angeles and I can tell you they're quite small. They're not very big, sort of themed areas, you know. They're quite sort of tight and concise little realms that you can explore, so I would expect that the Donkey Kong Country area is probably gonna be something similar, especially considering it only has one ride to offer. You know, when I compare it to sort of theme parks that I know in the UK, they're usually massive things, and you go to an area and there's three or four rides in each area that you can jump on, but these Super Nintendo World ones seem to be much more concise, focus specifically more on the experience of wandering around the Nintendo sort of themed world."

"And again, that's seemingly what we'll get in droves when Donkey Kong Country opens in the Super Nintendo World in Osaka in December, and then in Orlando sometime in 2025 with the Epic Universe thing they've got going there. But again, that's basically the key thing to take from it. Hopefully soon we'll get a ride-along for the Minecart Madness ride and see exactly what it looks like, because we did get something similar for the Mario Kart themed ride that opened, or that is available in the Super Mario or Super Nintendo Worlds around the world. But until then, stay tuned and wait. Again, December 11th is the date, so we're a month away from DK Country opening, meaning there'll be plenty of social media videos you'll find of visitors going there and getting to experience this for themselves, so stay tuned for that. But otherwise, yeah, this is all the time that I have in today's episode of GRTU News, but I will be back now tomorrow for the next one of the week, so stay tuned for that. And otherwise, yeah, thank you for watching, and I'll see you in the next one. Take care everyone."

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