When Nintendo announced it was building a museum dedicated to its 135-year history, it was easy to picture a cartoonish facility with lots of bright colors and cheery music that would be a thrill for young children and a nostalgia trip for their parents.
In fact, the Nintendo Museum, which opens to the public Oct. 2 in a sleepy neighborhood of Uji, Kyoto Prefecture (about 30 minutes by train from Kyoto Station and 1 hour from Osaka Station), delivers in spades on the latter but is surprisingly lacking in the former.
The first sign that the Nintendo Museum is not a playground comes just after you pass through the exterior gates. The classic Nintendo symbols are there: A display with warp pipes, blocks and a power-up mushroom, plus an 8-bit depiction of Super Mario sliding down a flag pole provide an initial burst of what will be many hits of nostalgia.
