Super Mario Monopoly

While adventuring in New York City a few weeks ago I noticed a display of Nintendo merchandise at a Barnes and Noble near Rockefeller Center. The display had a variety of items for sale, but the coolest thing I saw was a Nintendo-themed Monopoly! I thought I would take a few photos of this awesome take on the classic board game, and even point out a mistake on the box. Well… that one can be argued!

First let’s take a look at the board game itself. I apologize that the image quality isn’t the best, but it was kind of awkward taking pictures of the merchandise with a ton of people around! Notice the presentation of Nintendo characters in the center and the decked out playing field around the edges! Isn’t that cool?!


Then there’s the game cards that have all been taken and themed to Nintendo. Mario takes the placeholder image on the money and chance and community chest cards are replaced by Super Mario question blocks and regular blocks. Cool huh?


But the best part of all is the selection of game pieces. I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up I always wanted a particular game piece, no matter what the game was! You know how that goes, right? In the original Monopoly I always wanted the dog or the car, but I don’t really know why. But now we have Nintendo game pieces to choose from, or “collectible tokens” as they are called on the box. You can choose from a mushroom, a star, Samus’ helmet, Pikmin’s rocket, Gyroid, and… you guessed it, Zelda’s sword! Wait, are you thinking what I’m thinking? Zelda’s sword? Don’t you mean Link’s sword? The master sword? HMM?

It seems this is either a goof or an example of simple-minded labeling. It is my opinion that everyone knows about Link, but maybe to appeal to a wider audience they named it Zelda’s sword because her name is in the recognizable title of each game in the Legend of Zelda series. Still, it could have been worse. Samus’ helmet could have been named “Space Helmet” for all we know, so at least it didn’t get that bad. The choices for “collectible pieces” in this Nintendo-themed Monopoly set are unique yet not at the same time, but I am surely glad they didn’t go with the standard Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Peach, Toad, etc. cast that tends to dominate such merchandise.

Overall this looks to be a quality version of Nintendo-themed merchandise, and an overall respectable take on the age-old Monopoly board game. If you’re looking for a classic board game that’s decked out in an all out Nintendo theme, then this is probably what you’re looking for. Barnes and Noble is not the only store that you can purchase this from, as I have seen the same exact item at Nintendo World! You can also find it online at different sites and it usually goes for $20-$35 from what I can tell. If you get this version of Monopoly let me know how much fun it is!

-Jared Cyhowski