3,2,1… Let’s Go! Uji. Kyoto is home to the long anticipated Nintendo Museum. Tickets are highly sought after and are only available by lottery system. Luckily I managed to get one and wanted to share my experience of my visit so that you can decide if it’s something you’d want to do on your next trip. (Spoiler: it most likely will be!)
The museum is kind of split into 5 parts – the main museum, the game area, the restaurant, the Hanafuda area, and the gift shop.
When you arrive, you put your belongings into lockers that look like Game Boy games, make your way through security and take advantage of some of the fun photo opportunities in the main courtyard. The main pipe photo op is similar to the one at Universal Studios, except the member of staff just uses your phone to take pictures and there’s FAR less of a queue.
Also, if, like me, you enjoy ‘collecting’ the Pokemon manhole covers throughout Japan, then there is one located inside this courtyard, which you can ONLY see if you have tickets to the museum. Speaking of tickets. you’ll be issued with a pass for your visit, which you can take home with you and it’ll either have Mario on it, or if you’ve set it up beforehand you can assign your Mii character to appear on it instead.
You can then decide where to start your experience. If you’re interested in doing either of the workshops, I would highly recommend booking those before you do anything else. You can do this at either the workshop area above the restaurant, or at the main desk between the shop and the exhibition area. Hanafuda is a card game and it’s where Nintendo started before it became the video game giant it is today. Back in 1889 they were founded to create these special cards and you can now try your hand at making some yourself.
It’s a really fun activity and one I’d highly recommend doing. Just make sure to read ALL of the instructions before starting as I took too long painting and nearly ran out of time for the actual card backing section. It takes 60 minutes and costs ¥2000. The other workshop you can do is learning how to play Hanafuda using projection technology, which runs for 30 minutes and costs just ¥500. You can reserve any of the slots throughout the day of the crafting workshop, no matter your entry time, but you can only reserve the other workshop within the first 3 hours of your timed entry, so plan well!
After you’ve made your reservation, you can decide whether to eat, shop or start your experience. The timed entry is only for your initial entrance to the museum and not for any of the areas. They do recommend getting into the game area before it gets too busy and the queues too long, but that will depend on your entry time. I would also say to avoid peak lunch time at the restaurant as the queue can be long and you’ll have a wait for food.
Entering the main building you have a photo opportunity with a line of different coloured Mushroom People (Toads) that also make singing noises when their heads are touched! From there you can head past a huge collection of Nintendo character photos up into the main space. Once you’ve scanned into the main exhibition, photos/videos are prohibited until you reach the game area.
The exhibition gives us a look through time in Nintendo’s history. So you can start off by seeing the older games and products Nintendo created before they ever made their first games console. These were so interesting to see and there were even sections that showcased the development of different types of games over time, starting with board and card games up until the modern day video games.
Each console has a big display of its own, including popular games, different console designs, accessories, figures, marketing and even a cross section of an actual console so that you can see the inner workings. There’s also a graphic for each console showing what the sales were like across the world. Some consoles were fairly evenly sold, whereas the Wii, for example was much more popular in the US and Europe than in Japan.
The other section on this level is a wall of small screens showcasing the progression of games and their characters over time and through different consoles. Each line of screens focuses on a different game franchise, like Zelda and Super Mario, with each screen in the line showing gameplay from a different console from their first to their most recent. Whilst this won’t be there now, in the middle of the exhibition we got a sneak peek of the Switch 2 before launch and we were actually allowed to take photos here.
Moving downstairs, you can find the interactive play exhibits. Each visitor starts with 10 coins and each game ‘costs’ a certain number of coins to play. You can play classic console games (on a time limit) from the N64, NES and SNES for only one coin or the shooting gallery game for 4 coins. Most games cost 2 coins per player, but a couple require 2 players to play, like the Big Controller where you play games with giant versions of console controllers.
While I was a solo visitor and couldn’t enjoy these, I loved using the Zapper in the shooting gallery, hitting balls in the batting cages and reliving my childhood playing Donkey Kong Country. There was also a fantastic display of their playing card designs and products that surrounded the central area housing a floor screen for another game. You can re-enter both the main exhibit and game area, so you can spread out your time exploring them and avoid queues if you need to.
The shop is just outside the exit and is filled with mainly console themed merchandise, from giant controller shaped pillows to soy sauce plates and mystery boxes. Each console also had a collection of items that were exactly the same but with the the name of the console replaced each time, like t-shirts, mugs, notebooks and pens. There was also a selection of Hanafuda design homeware, like towels, that combined traditional Hanafuda with Nintendo characters.
There were a few specific Nintendo Museum items too alongside some Donkey Kong merch (the latter I think was also available in Universal). Some of the items like the pillows and mystery boxes are limited to certain number per person, so that’s something to be aware of.
The restaurant/cafe is called Hatena Burger – hatena being the name of the question blocks in Japanese. It just serves burgers but you can customise them in a huge number of different ways. I chose a red bun filled with sukiyaki beef instead of a regular patty. Instead of chips they have some elongated spherical potato things that are super fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside. Overall, I enjoyed what I ate, but I wouldn’t say it was a must-do. Definitely pop inside regardless, as there are some nice design features like an Animal Crossing gyroid by the counter and a Zelda stained-glass window.
I went on a weekday afternoon, spent around 4 hours there and got to do everything I wanted at a leisurely pace. I didn’t really have to queue for anything, just a very brief wait to enter the main exhibit and for one of the games. I thought it was a really fun and interesting experience and as a Nintendo fan, I would highly recommend it. If you want to see more of the areas that I couldn’t photograph, watch the guided tour video with Shigeru Miyamoto.
Just to add, I would definitely recommend making a day of it in Uji and exploring some more of the main city, as there’s a lot to see and do there too. It’s well known for its green tea production and an extremely important temple – Byodo-in – that features on the 10 yen coin. There are some fantastic places to eat, shops full of green tea products and the river running through is beautiful too.
Ticket Prices & Booking
Tickets cost ¥3300 per person for adults and can be booked online only through the Nintendo Museum Ticketing Website. A lottery draw is the first opportunity and then open sale. To enter the lottery draw, you need to apply 3 months in advance (e.g. any time during July for an October visit). The following month (August in this example), lottery winners can book their ticket for October and any remaining tickets will be made available to everyone until they run out. These will be extremely limited and sell out fast so the lottery is definitely your best chance – choose weekdays and unpopular times for an even better chance.
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