Billy
Google
I’ll be that person who gives a more mediocre review of the Nintendo Museum, especially after seeing so many five-star ratings. While it is fun, it honestly feels more like a cash grab than a thoughtfully designed museum experience. With Nintendo’s history and creativity, this place could easily be 10× better if they truly put their minds to it.
Is it good? Yes.
Is it five-star? In my opinion, it still has a long way to go.
What to expect:
🎟️ Tickets & Location
Because the museum is new, you can’t just buy tickets outright—you have to enter a lottery first. If you win, you’re then allowed to purchase tickets for a specific date and time slot. We ended up with a 2:00 PM slot, which isn’t ideal, though it worked out fine in hindsight.
My main complaint here is the location. It’s in a somewhat remote area of Kyoto, and for us, that meant about a two-hour train ride from Osaka. This makes planning tricky. If I could choose freely, I would’ve combined this visit with another Kyoto day trip instead of building a day around it.
They also OVERDID it on the security part. You have to checked your bags and present your ID/passport to enter and go through some metal detector machine. Come on this is not exactly the Louvre.
🏛️ Inside the Museum
Once inside, there are essentially three main areas to spend time in (not counting the restaurant, which we skipped because the food looked pretty underwhelming).
1) Interactive Area (Main Attraction)
This is where you spend coins to play games. Each person gets only 10 coins, and each game costs 2–4 coins, which means you can realistically play just 2–3 games total per visit—honestly, that feels like nothing.
The games themselves were mostly underwhelming. The standout is the light gun game (definitely line up for this early before it gets crowded), but it costs FOUR coins, which is almost half your allowance. The second-best experience was probably the “big controller” game, but even that is essentially just playing familiar Nintendo titles (Super Mario, Dr. Mario, etc.) on an oversized controller with another person. Fun for a moment, but not very memorable.
Overall, there’s surprisingly not much to actually PLAY, which feels like a missed opportunity.
2) Museum / History Area
This area is mostly static displays showcasing Nintendo’s consoles, games, and history. We spent maybe five minutes here. No photos are allowed, and unless you’re a die-hard Nintendo fan, details like when Donkey Kong launched or seeing old NES box art probably won’t hold your attention for long.
There is a section with original drawings from game designers, which was genuinely interesting—but again, with no photos allowed, our visit was pretty cursory. What puzzled me most was a line and sign directing people to buy an “official book” for 1,650 yen, without showing what’s actually inside the book.
3) Workshop Area
There’s also a workshop area, but we skipped it because we didn’t want to spend limited time on something that didn’t feel essential.
Final Thoughts
In short, the Nintendo Museum is okay, but it feels very controlled, limited, and underwhelming given Nintendo’s legendary legacy. It’s enjoyable once, but it didn’t feel immersive, generous, or inspiring enough to justify all the hype. If you’re a hardcore Nintendo fan, you may enjoy it more—but for everyone else, temper your expectations.
PS: Oh the STORE was actually pretty good with some cool plush and keychains, but the whole thing feels like a cash grab as you have to win a lottery to buy a ticket so that you can buy Nintendo limited edition merchandise.
