What I Thought of the Nintendo Museum in Kyoto

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Helen Foster is a Sydney-based author, journalist and content creator. She has traveled to Japan six times and is planning trip seven. Her articles on Japan have appeared in publications including Reader's Digest (Asia Pacific), RAC Horizons, Jetstar Magazine, the Japan National Tourism Organisation website and more. She is a digital publisher member of the Australian Society of Travel Writers.

Getting Into the Museum

The museum tickets aren’t easy to get mostly given out via a lottery (see our longer guide to getting them here), and they are trying very, very hard to avoid touts. Because of this, security was tight, and for a brief moment, I thought I was back at the airport. There’s almost as much security, and I had to show my passport to enter the gates!

And the security starts before this. You can’t download the ticket until after 2 pm the day before your visit (so make sure you take your password for your Nintendo account with you); it also has your name on it.

When you arrive at the museum, they will first check your time of entry (don’t bother going earlier; you’ll just be sent to a holding area until your slot arrives). Then they’ll check that your name is on the ticket. For foreign guests, the only acceptable ID to prove this is your passport.

Admittedly, you should be carrying this anyway, as it’s Japanese law

When you pass through the identity checks and scan your QR code at the first gate, you’ll get a bit of paper, do not screw this up and shove it in the bottom of your handbag (ahem), as once you go through the bag check, you’ll need to swap this for your entry card.

This is the ticket that gets you into the museum itself, but it also holds your Nintendo coins – the currency you use to play the games inside.

The good news is that the fun begins as soon as the serious stuff is over. The area outside the exhibits is full of fun photo ops, like standing in the green pipes from Mario Kart (they now charge for this picture at USJ, so if you’re going to both get the snap here for free), and as you go inside, you can get a fun picture with lots of little Toads.

Make sure you tap their heads, then thank me later.

From here, you enter a cute room filled with images of characters you’ll recognise, and finally, after enjoying the cute character overload, you get to enter the museum.

The First Floor Display Area

At this point, you go up an escalator that makes you feel like you’re in a video game and emerge into the display of products I mentioned earlier. Sadly, no pictures are allowed here, so I can’t show you it, but it’s an entire floor of gizmos and gadgets.

Some of the things I found most interesting were the different versions of games being shown on the screen. It was interesting to see how the pixilated version of Zelda that I remember has turned into something that now looks like a movie. I was also very excited by the aforementioned robot and the Nintendo piano. The Pikachu handsets were also adorable.

As I left, I noticed something I found funny. A teenage girl was sitting here playing a game on her phone, paying no attention to the technology around her while her parents excitedly entered the exhibits. I guess in 20 years, she’ll be the one reminiscing while her kids do the same.

The Games Area

From the exhibition floor, you descend to the main games area. This is where most people spend their time – and those Nintendo coins I mentioned.

Ten of these are attached to your entry card, and the games vary in how many you must spend to use them.

The games are split into five main areas – moving clockwise around the image below from the top.

The Manual Games

These are in the area with the bat, ball, catchers and couple holding hands above.

There are four different types of games here – baseball batting, a throwing game, a ball-catching game which was one of Nintendo’s original products and a love compatibility game. The diagram below shows how many coins each game needs.

Most of these are one-player games, except the ‘love game’, which, not surprisingly, is also available for two players.

The queues here ebb and flow – if they are long when you arrive, check ten minutes later, and you’ll probably be able to walk into a game immediately.

Zapper and Scope SP

This is the most expensive game at four coins per play, and also had one of the longest queues. It’s a shooting game set in the Mario World universe using a giant screen. Twelve players play at a time, but you can enter solo and be paired with other visitors.

Console Games

There is a room full of these with NES, Super NES and Nintendo 64 consoles. Each coin gives you up to seven minutes of play. You can play one player or two player – if you choose two player, both players tap their card and spend a coin. When I was there, there were no queues for this room.

There’s also a fun shadow-matching game on the wall here that I was particularly hopeless at.

Giant Controller Games

These use a giant screen and a two-person giant controller to play games like Mario Kart. Each person needs to spend one or two coins to play. The day I was there, this was another area with long queues.

Note—if you’re traveling solo, there’s no point queuing for this area unless you find another player to play with, as the games are all two-player. The synchronisation of two players using the giant controller is one of the points of the area.

The Floor Area

The area in the middle of the room is a card-matching game where you try to match two halves of a poem displayed on the floor. This game dates back to Nintendo’s original days as a playing card company. The day I was there, it was mostly being played by families.

My Experience in the Games Area

This is where I got a bit bored. I have a limited attention span for video games, so while I played for a bit, the fact that I didn’t know what I was doing got dull fast. And for the console games, you can’t swap to another one until your seven minutes are up. That was frustrating when you have the attention span of a goldfish.

I played the batting game, which was fun, but the queues for other games were about 30 minutes long, and I didn’t have the interest or patience for that.

As I said, if you’re a gamer, this won’t be a problem. You’ll have a blast and spend all your coins.

One reason they limit the numbers with a ticket lottery is that everyone can enjoy their time in this area. Once inside, you can stay here as long as you like (other than having a finite number of coins), so crowds build up as the day progresses.

My entry slot was 1-1.30 p.m; at that point, the queues for the most popular games were up to 30 minutes long.

If you get the chance, book a slot in the morning as fewer people will be in here – and head to the Giant Controller and Zapper/Scope areas first, as they had the longest queues.

Note that morning slots are the most popular ones in the lottery, though, so if you want to maximise your chance of winning a ticket, pick a midday or afternoon spot and just get to the more popular games first.

How Long Should You Allow Here?

Even with a minimal interest in gaming, I was there for 90 minutes.

If you’re a game enthusiast, you’ll probably spend 2-3 hours in the games area alone, depending on how you spend your coins and the queues on the day you visit. If you just stuck to the console games, where there are no queues, you’d get 70 minutes of play with your coins.

With time spent walking around the upper floor exhibits on top of that, I’d allow half a day here if you’re a big Nintendo fan.

Note that you can’t buy more coins; you can only use the 10 you’re given on your ticket. Again, I guess this is so they can control the numbers; otherwise, people might be in here all day, so spend them wisely.

There are balance-checking screens located around the area, so you know how much you have left to spend.

Is There Food and Drink?

You can only buy water from a vending machine, and the museum does not sell food or snacks inside the display area.

However, there is a cafe outside the museum building, the Hatena Cafe, which sells burgers. They claim you can make up to 270,000 different types of burgers by customising your filings and buns.

I was hoping the food here would be cute and themed like that at USJ, but it wasn’t, which seems a bit of a wasted opportunity, but making your own burger sounds fun.

However, because of the complexity of ordering in here, queues can get long during lunch hours. When I went, the queue was virtually out of the door at 1.30 p.m. but had gone by the time I left at around 3 p.m—this tallied with the warning on the website that says the queues are long between 12 and 3 p.m.

If you want to try the burgers, eat outside those hours.

Don’t Miss the Pokelid

My last stop before I left was a quick picture with the museum’s exclusive Pokelid. Again, staff stood nearby to take your picture with it at your feet.

I guess many people come here solo, and they’ve anticipated that. It was nice to get some pictures rather than try to take bad selfies.

So, What’s my Verdict?

As I said, it’s a Nintendo fan’s dream. Don’t hesitate to try and get tickets for during your trip. But even I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

If you’re not a Nintendo fan, I wouldn’t rush here, especially considering how much of a faff it is to get tickets, but if the rest of the family or your friends want to go and you’re not sure if you’re going to enjoy it, or you’re kind of on the fence and have some spare time in Kyoto, it is interesting.

Where is the Museum?

It’s not in Kyoto itself. It’s actually about 20 minutes away and close to the town of Uji. The nearest stations are Ogura Station on the Kintetsu Railway or the JR Ogura Station on the JR Nara Line.

If you’re trying to work out how to fit it into your Kyoto itinerary, it works well combined with a trip to Uji, or with a visit to Fushimi Inari Taisha and the shrines around that area. You could also do it on the way to or from Nara.

I went after a visit to the sake brewing area of Kyoto. Any suggestion that I had more fun because I’d had sake ramen and a small bottle of sparkling sake before my visit can’t be ruled out!

Is the Museum Accessible?

Yes, there are lifts between the floors and four accessible restrooms. However, some of the games are not accessible to those in wheelchairs, so if you have your heart set on playing something, check that it’s not one of these games.

If you are arriving by car, ensure they know you need an accessible parking space, as there is no other official parking at the museum.

How Do You Get Tickets?

Note – you can’t just turn up at the museum and pay to get in. You have to book a ticket around two months in advance.

Tickets are first allocated by lottery, but any that aren’t picked up are then sold online.

I didn’t get picked originally in the lottery, but bought mine afterwards. There’s a full post on the ticket process here as it’s complicated.

I repeat again. No tickets are sold at the door, and, as I said, security is very tight, so don’t buy second-hand tickets from anyone. The name won’t match, and they won’t let you in.

Can You Buy Merchandise?

Oh yes—there’s a big shop at the end full of T-shirts, cups, plushies, and giant Nintendo-themed cushions, which are very popular, judging by the number of people carrying them on the train back!

There is a limit to how many you can buy of some items. Also note that even though the museum is open until 6 p.m., the last entry to the shop is at 5.30 p.m., so don’t leave visiting until the last minute.

That’s everything I think you need to know. I hope it helped you decide whether visiting the Nintendo Museum is worth it on your trip. And, if you do go, don’t forget to tap Toad’s head!