It's strange to think that there are still new frontiers of achievement available for a person with a career as illustrious as Shigeru Miyamoto. At this point, he and his Nintendo cohorts have shaped entertainment and pop culture around their barrel-rolling apes and pipe-hopping plumbers in a way that has stood the test of time. Its games have been cultural touchstones for multiple generations of people.

But, somehow, Nintendo and Miyamoto's successes continue to reach new heights. Walking through Super Nintendo World, an area of the Universal Studios' Hollywood park that has been modeled to look like the Mushroom Kingdom, is surreal. It feels like the world we've hopped, skipped, jumped, and butt-stomped through but captured in a bottle for people to explore. And when you're standing in a real place that looks like a virtual world you've formed such an intense attachment to, it's difficult not to be caught up in the wonder of it all.

Doubly so when you spot all the little details of the Mushroom Kingdom, lovingly brought to life and carefully placed so that, no matter where your sightline is, there's something that will delight. Being in Nintendo World activated instincts that I've honed through years of playing Mario games as almost involuntary responses. I watched a Koopa Trooper shuffling along a grassy platform and immediately began judging what the best distance to launch onto its head would be. As I scanned the giant green pipes and yellow coin blocks, my eyes were pulled away from the life-sized Mario and Luigi snapping selfies and towards a distant 1UP mushroom, and I thought to myself, how do I get up to that?