| Pineapple said: Wow, this is rather interesting. I came into this thread reading the quote in the OP, and thinking it was a great thing. I first wondered why you wrote all those sad faces, and wondered if you had gone overly hardcore on us. Then, after reading your furgter cleverly written posts, I completely agree with you, Noname. Great persuading! Come to think of it... you did this with LKS too.. That's beside the point though. I really think you're correct - it will fail to get people to join for the reasons you mentioned.
On the positive side though, this could get someone who's lousy at 2D platformers to play these games. People like me. I've bought and played SMB, SMB3, SMW as well as played NSMB. I haven't finished a single one, or even gotten halfway through. The games just ended up being too hard for me. Now, that's perfectly fine by me. I played the game for a while, and had tons of fun dieing multiple the stuff the average VGChartzian does in his sleep. But I didn't finish it, because I came to obstacles and wondered "how the hell am I going to do that?". Now, if I had the option to watch the computer do it, I could understand how to do the obstacle, and do that. This isn't making me unprepared for the next event, because I've learned a lot from this one.
I think that this feature is good for the "bridge gamer" (for 2D games, I'm in that category I guess), somewhat bad for "casuals" and unnecessary for "hardcores" (I really dislike using those words, but they're the best fit ones to explain what I mean).
PS: What would you say about a teleport like in subspace emissary? I played that with my family, and they all loved it because of that. They could easily play most parts, but they had a bad habit of messing up in some way. The teleport then saved them, and made it a whole lot more fun for all of us. |
Thanks! 
I agree completely with your categorization for who this is good and bad for: basically it's great for people who're committed enough to learn what to do next, but potentially bad for people who are on the fence about gaming.
I'm glad you brought up the teleportation feature, as I'd forgotten about it. I think that type of thing is great: the "weaker" player still has to try his or her best, but in certain situations the stronger player can "save" them. It's kind of like the Save feature in Rock Band, or what Khuutra wrote about when he said he tried to shoulder as much of the boss fights as he can; the more experienced player can do a lot to help the new person stay in the game, but all the players still have to pull their own weight to a degree, even if that just boils down to "stay alive long enough to be saved!" As someone who's been on the helped-out end of that in several games (FPS and SHMUPS, mostly) I can tell you that it's not only still fun (as you're staying engaged), but it also helps hone your own skills over time.
