Sunday, March 28, 2021: Virtual Super Nintendo World

After reading about Nintendo's updated dream address again reading some Nintendo Mario articles, I opened up the game today to check it out. Of course, I first got quite distracted when Isabelle told me about Bunny Day. She mentioned how as soon as we are used to one season, the next one's already coming.

Sylvana sent me a cartoonist set for her attempt to make her home feel like a library. I've been in her home, and I'd say it has a cherry blossom year-round vibe going, rather than a library! Merengue's house is a bit closer since she has a bookcase to read in the evenings or whenever.

As I was chopping down my money trees, I picked up something I wasn't used to seeing. I checked my inventory, and... oh boy, the eggs are back...! I suppose it won't be as bad this year, as Bunny Day/Easter is on April 4th. Last year we had a two-week span of eggs, and I remember it was quite annoying for my sister trying to fish. This is definitely one of the good things about updating the game; they can easily fix or adjust things that aren't working from year-to-year.

There seem to be some new Bunny Day-themed items available in the shop. This was a really cute bunny-themed item I bought for Kaitlyn - rabbits are her favorite animal.

As I was making my way to the Able Sisters, I spoke to Cesar, and out of the blue he told me he was thinking of moving out! No way, I just got him here! Luckily, he was content to stay.

I knocked some leaf eggs off this tree. One of the nice things about having this flat plateau as my blank canvas for building is it's easy to see all the dig spots for earth eggs and fossils. And hopefully one day, Gyroids...! By that point, if Nintendo ever adds them, I'll probably have finished my building projects. We'll see - I haven't been playing very much recently.

I also ran into Zipper on the plateau. Ugh, him again?! From what he was saying, it seems the event hasn't changed since last year. Maybe there are some new Bunny Day DIYs that are available to get, I'm not sure. For a couple of my friends, I know this is the first time they're experiencing the event, so it'll certainly be exciting for them! I probably won't do too much this year... but we'll see!

There was a whoopee cushion available for April Fools' Day. Sherb also told me he didn't trust the clouds - it looked like it could rain!

I actually did head to Merengue's house because of a gift I was supposed to get to her at some point when I last played, but the game didn't give me the option. So I opened it and gave it to her as my gift - she thought it was from me, but oh well. I guess I got the job done - better late than never!

I finally got to the reason I booted up the game in the first place today - to check out Nintendo's dream address! It's been available for some time now since the Mario items were added; I was just so busy with my obstacle course I never had a chance to check it out myself. I put on my Mario hat but still stayed with my other clothes - I didn't want to edit my wand outfit or anything. I've been watching a lot of Mario games lately, just like I was getting obsessed with his games this past summer... Listening to the Super Mario Sunshine soundtrack (from Super Mario 3D All-Stars) now! That was my first Mario game, right alongside Super Monkey Ball 2 and Animal Crossing - all released for the GameCube in 2002!

I love the town flag - it reminds me of the ACNH-themed Switch! They used it as well to mark the entrance of the Mario-themed area I had to hike around to find.

I loved the different sections it had! References to Mario and Luigi here, and a secret 1-Up hidden on a detour in the stage. It reminded me a bit of Nintendo's New Leaf Dream Town, with Luigi's Mansion being one of the game's referenced with the vacuum cleaner.

Wario's section was super neat, with a hidden treasure chest and lots of money by it. And then I came across MARIO written out of ground tiles! Wow! I had to view it from the map - close to where the cursor is. Leaping across it reminded me a bit of the SEGA stage in the original Super Monkey Ball.

If you head up the stairs from there, you reach Bowser's Castle! The red tiles seem to be lava you have to leap above. Maybe they kept it a simple color like in the original Super Mario Bros., but it would've been cool to see some custom lava patterns or something. Oh well - it was still fun to leap across the platforms, jumping through just like in all the Mario games! It was a bit of a puzzle, too. When I reached the end, I found Peach, and perhaps the Japanese items reference Super Mario Odyssey's very Japanese Bowser's Kingdom. Definitely one of my favorite parts of the game!

Speaking of Japanese, I thought it was interesting Nook's shop had its logo in Japanese, rather than translated to English. I wonder if it was like this for the Aika Village Japanese town I visited on my birthday last summer, or if I didn't notice. It's like I went to Super Nintendo World in Osaka, just instead it's in Animal Crossing virtually!

I did run into a couple more familiar faces... Puddles and Leopold! I believe I had both of them in my Animal Crossing GameCube town of Liontown at once at one point. I was recently looking back through some old gameplay footage I did in 2014 of the game, and definitely remembered Leopold! (I found it funny how he referenced trains - like the main mode of transportation in the original.) You'll be seeing a bit of it in an upcoming video celebrating this series' Japanese debut on the Nintendo 64 soon... Hint hint! ;)

One other thing I couldn't forget to do was check out the house! I love the combination of Mario items and mushrooms. The Thwomp's left eye looks like it's glowing - that's because when you make it fall down, it reveals a Star behind it!

I probably showed the room in the back at one point when I first visited Ninten, but here it is again - some talk show on TV. I love the blues of the Nook Inc. wallpaper! I never bothered buying any of the Nook Inc. items...

I couldn't forget to check out the warp pipe in the house, and it lead to two secret areas on the island! Again, it reminds me of all the secrets Nintendo hides in all of its levels across Mario or Zelda, or you name it!

It occurs to me this is probably the first time I showed off the Mario items in terms of this blog... I was always using them privately for my course, and then I just had the livestream show everything off. Well, here's Nintendo's take on everything! Not sure if they'll keep it up or keep adding to it - I think we're all looking forward to a big set of Zelda items! I suppose it is nice we can get them in these update packs, because it means they can really go wild and create a whole set out of a different Nintendo series! In the past, it's all just been lumped together as "Nintendo." Of course, we'll have to wait and see what happens!

Oh yeah, seeing as we're on the topic of Mario, I thought I'd share this cute picture I took of Mario and the Nintendog you can find! My Nintendogs + Cats blog from 2011 is still up I believe - what a fun DS line series! Some references to Animal Crossing, I found - and Mario Kart/Mario! :) In some ways New Horizons' camera feature takes inspiration from Mario Odyssey's Snapshot Mode I think! Both on the Switch.