Close your eyes! You’re sitting on your couch, playing Yoshi’s Island 3 on your Gameboy Advance while sipping on a grapefruit soda called Squirt. Weren’t those the good-old days! I can picture it as if it was yesterday. Now that I think about it…it was yesterday!
Last weekend, I went Epic Universe. It’s a new theme park that’s opening in Florida in a month. When you walk through a portal, you are taken to one of five worlds: Harry Potter, How to Train Your Dragon, Dark Universe (Monsters), Super Nintendo, and Celestial Park (futuristic). Each world had unique sights, sounds, smells, and rides! It truly felt as if you were in that world!
The world that brought me back to my childhood was Super Nintendo! The portal you enter through is a green tube with the same sound from the Mario games! When you exit the portal, you are welcomed to Super Maro World: grassy green shapes, the question mark boxes, and Browsers Castle. My jaw dropped at the sight in front of me. My friend and I immediately bought “power bands” so we could keep score of who earned the most coins as we adventured through the world. (I won between the two of us…just so it’s record.)
Within Super Mario World is Yoshi’s Adventure. You walk through a portal and are met with bright blue crayoned walls, gigantic trees and flowers, and plenty of eggs. My favorite game growing up was always Yoshi’s Island 3 on the Gameboy Advance. That’s when it hit me: I was literally walking through my favorite childhood game. To get to the ride, you walk through a treehouse where you hop on Yoshi. It was such a cute and easy-going ride. The ride brought back all the long car rides of playing the game to and from my brother’s baseball games. I was so happy to be back in Super Mario World!
If it couldn’t get even better, it did! Out of sight behind Super Mario World was Donkey Kong! You’re met with lots of bananas and mine carts racing all around you! I was nearly in tears because it brought back great memories at my grandparents’ house where my brother and I played Donkey Kong Country for hours on their Super Nintendo as children. The mine cart ride was VERY bumpy just like game! Your cart even “jumps” over water and different rail-tracks. It was so fun! To top it off, I enjoyed a DK Crush Float that came in the coolest souvenir barrel cup! How badly I wish I could be back at my grandparents’ house playing Donkey Kong Country with them.
There’s so many reasons why Epic Universe is…epic! For me, Super Mario World and Donkey Kong brought back the nostalgia of my childhood that no theme park has been able to tap into; sorry Disney. To feel that childhood joy again was a dream come true. I felt it so much that when I got home, I went on Amazon Prime and ordered the last copy of Yoshi’s Island 3 for the Gameboy Advance. In anticipation for the game to arrive, the next day at Publix, I bought a soda called Squirt. It’s soda to my cousin and I drank a lot of as we played basketball at a monastery for years as children.
Then it all came together yesterday. Yoshi’s Island 3 arrived. I dig out my Gameboy Advance, popped in two AA batteries, grabbed a Squirt soda, and played Yoshi’s Island for an hour. It was just how I remembered it! I LOVED EVERY MINUTE! I texted my brother promising that I’d bring the game home during summer.
After a day full of math glow Jenga and tic-tac-toe, playing Yoshi’s Island while drinking a soda was just what my adulthood needed. A throwback to my childhood! Oh the memories!
