After first confirming at the start of the year the plans to incorporate devices called “Power-Up Bands” into the Super Nintendo World attractions, Nintendo has shared some new details on how these bands will work and how they’ll enhance visitors’ experiences in unique ways. By using the bands at Universal Studios Japan within the Super Nintendo World attraction, people will be able to access select content and can keep up with a personal score while Nintendo Switch owners will be able to use the bands similarly to how they’d use an amiibo.
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The new landing page that’s been set up for the Power-Up Bands shares a few new details about the Nintendo Switch functionality of the devices. It showed a number of different bands modeled after characters like Mario, Luigi, Peach, and others that players wear around their wrists at the park and can use with their Nintendo Switch devices at any time.
When used with a Switch, the different brands equate to the corresponding amiibo character, so a Mario Power-Up Band is essentially a Mario amiibo. As such, you can use the bands in games that support amiibo usage just as you would if you had the actual figure. You simply tap the face of the band to the R stick on the Joy-Con or Nintendo Switch Lite and you’ll see it used just as it would be if it were a normal amiibo. Nintendo clarified that this functionality is only supported on the Nintendo Switch, however, and would not work on the Nintendo 3DS or the Wii U.
It’ll be a while before people are able to use the bands at the park in Universal Studios Japan and longer still before they can be used at parks elsewhere, but when that opportunity is available, there will be unique ways to make use of the bands there. They can be linked with the park’s official app to keep track of scores that consist of things like collected coins and stamps, but check-in locations scattered throughout the park mean that you don’t have to have the app if you don’t want it. Nintendo said the bands allow for visitors to interact with “key challenges” and “fun gimmicks” within the park, but they aren’t an essential part of the experience that’s required to visit Super Nintendo World.
Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Japan is scheduled to open its doors to visitors on February 4, 2020.
H/T Destructoid
