TacoCat’s Travels #275 (Tokyo): A Retro Gamer's Dream 🎮

16 days ago · 8 min read · Shibuya

Hey Hive!

If you missed the last few posts, I'm sharing about our anniversary trip to Tokyo back in Feb 2023! It'd been at least 3 years since we visited Tokyo and the last time was pre-covid so we decided to go back and find some new places to explore while revisiting our favourite hot-spots.

Last week, we continued exploring Shibuya, more specifically the PARCO building in Shibuya which is a gamer's paradise! Because not only does it have the CAPCOM Store but also Pokemon Center and even an official Nintendo store!

We took a look around the Pokemon Center, which is very futuristic-looking and had so many different Pokemon plushies! I'm not really into Pokemon anymore but I did grow up playing those games.

But what I was really excited about was definitely the Nintendo store!

This was the first time Nintendo opened a physical store in Japan, so I was really excited for it. For years I've been saying they should have a store here since Nintendo is a Japanese company and they've only had stores in the US which doesn't make sense.

Anyway, we started looking at all the merchandise they had, and I was trying my best not to grab everything off the shelves.

They have different sections for each of Nintendo's big IPs and last time we looked at Splatoon, Kirby and Animal Crossing!

5 Feb 2023. Sunday.

So of course now it's time for Zelda!

They had a very detailed statue of Link, specifically the Link from Ocarina of Time I think.

They were display cases at his feet of different merchandise related the franchise, like coasters, card holders and pins

Behind him were some very detailed handkerchiefs/tea towels and various stationery.

There were also several shelves full of Zelda products like shirts, umbrellas and mugs.

Most of the merchandise looked really good and true to the game. It was so surreal seeing it in real life.

There was this file that I thought looked really cool! If I still had use for files I might've bought it.

There was also a section for PIKMIN which was surprising since it's often joked that it's Nintendo's forgotten franchise. But now they actually have 4 games so maybe it's just hearsay.

They had some nice tableware and stationery as well, and even had pouches and containers modeled after the pellets in the game which I thought was funny.

There were also some PIKMIN plushies that definitely didn't look creepy at all.

Some of them looked cute I suppose.

I wanted to save the best for last, since I knew Mario definitely was going to have the biggest section!

I've been a huge fan of Mario games since I started gaming when I was about 5-7 years old. I haven't played all of them because there's just so many Mario games but it's definitely the series I'm familiar with the most.

Around the Mario statue were some plushies and really nicely designed tableware with the Mario characters.

Behind him there were some stuff featuring Yoshi like Yoshi's cookies (which is actually a game), plushies and pouches.

There were quite a lot of Yoshi egg plushies you could buy with basically every colour of Yoshi.

There were lots of character plushies as well, with Mario in his many powerup suits.

Mario definitely had the biggest section, there were a lot of shelves just full of Mario stationery, bags, cases and towels.

I like that they even had some specific products like these paper crafts you can make from the Paper Mario games.

This was the shelf with the Mario tableware, with some question mark block coasters which I was very tempted to get.

There was just so much to see! I can imagine someone designing their whole house with just Nintendo goods.

They even had some products referencing the retro Nintendo games which I thought was really cool!

This was a blind box of sweets with the containers designed to look like the covers of different Mario games, from retro to modern.

They had the same thing but in magnet form as well, kind of like a shadow box preserving the cover of the Mario game which I thought was so awesome. Since it was a magnet I had to get one.

This whole section was cool but they definitely chose the most famous retro games, like Mario 3 since everyone knows it I guess.

There were some very huge mushroom plushies that I wondered who would buy these.

I saw these little popsicle moulds that I was very tempted to get as well.

I was surprised at how small the Metroid section was though! I guess this is the true forgotten franchise, which is very odd since they have quite a few games as well. It's the only series of Nintendo that has actual guns.

Of course, there was also an actual game section with all the latest Switch games that you can buy, as well as the consoles themselves.

They were also selling the DLCs and smaller games that weren't on display and I think if you wanted to get it you'd take this card to the counter to purchase.

There were some party goods and toys as well for people to have actual Mario parties!

After I chose some things and took all the pictures and videos I wanted, we headed to the cashier where there was yet another shelf full of goods to tempt me into buying more!

When we arrived at the cashier, we were told we could show the QR code of our Nintendo account to get points that you can spend in the eshop! It wasn't much since we didn't buy too many things but it was still free points you can use to purchase games and stuff.

I showed my QR code and managed to get some Gold Points, so next time I can use it to offset my online purchases.

I resisted the urge to buy a lot of things so I think I did pretty well. Just visiting the store was such a experience, it made the whole trip for me!

I reluctantly bade goodbye to the store, but also saved our wallet so all in all it was a good day.

We took a brief look around the other stores from different franchises. I think this was a Digimon shop.

This is an anime shop but I'm not familiar with which anime they focus on.

This one looked like a Chinese anime shop.

I guess they have the Japanese versions of whatever it is as well.

We also took a brief look at the esports cafe they had here.

There was a Valorant tournament going on and I wanted to catch a picture of the title screen with Sean wearing the Valorant shirt that I designed.

There was another character shop with some goofy character merchandise as well.

Like this tanuki gachapon which looked quite tempting. I only recognised him because there is this tanuki statue in Animal Crossing as well.

There were some cute mofusand plushies as well.

And strangely, some Minecraft goods too.

There was also an outdoor rooftop area in the building so we decided to check it out. There was a crafts market happening at the time.

It looked like one of those markets where local artists could come and set up booths to show their products.

It seemed like an artsy flea market but there was also a nice area for relaxing to enjoy the view.

We headed up the stairs to go and see but the barriers were quite high and the building wasn't much higher than the ones surrounding so there actually wasn't much to look at.

It was still nice though.

There was quite a few people below just sitting around and relaxing or shopping at the flea market.

There was a nice walkway that made it seem like a rooftop park.

All in all, we spent quite some time at the PARCO building and it was time well spent. I got to fulfill my dream of visiting a Nintendo store finally, so it was worth it!