Obstacles aren't necessarily what makes us better, though: times spent controlling a system can achieve the same thing.

I mean, even without this, I would make sure to support her as much as possible in a boss fight and if need be I'd just whoop the thing's ass for her anyway.

In this case it's more about sitting together and talking than it is actually playing.

Hmm...weird...*shrugs* you can do the same watching youtube videos when you get stuck in a level so if anyone is making such a big buzz they should chill out. Besides is optional. Don't like it? don't you use it. Personally I don't see me using it but if they add that on a zelda game...

I think we have a fundamental philosophical difference when it comes to the value of obstacles, especially if we're applying it beyond gaming.

On a more serious note, I can see what you're driving at, but look at where even your hypothetical situation ends up: the two of you aren't playing games anymore, you're basically just chatting on the couch. Which is fine and dandy (no sarcasm intended), but it means that a feature that's supposed to get people into gaming has failed to do so. The entire point is that she gets more comfortable with holding a remote and playing games, but it ends in her just sitting and talking instead.

Worse yet, I think it'd not only be ineffective, it'd be harmful. Her experience with gaming will bascially come down to "it's too hard for me, and all I did was sit and watch." And so when you invite her to play again next time, she might give it a go for the sake of speaking with her son more, but it won't be to play games. And when you're not around, she's very unlikely to pick up a controller herself, because the darn things were just no fun, and what does my son see in these things anyhow? I know that's how I'd react in her shoes.

It all boils down to what I think is a pretty unassailable position: having other people do your fun stuff isn't much fun at all.

But noname

For some people, the fun stuff is what's between the hard stuff

For many, this is a way to get to do all the fun stuff (running and jumping in levels) without the un-fun stuff (really hard jumps or boss fights) getting in the way.

How exactly do you change the difficulty of a platformer like Mario without completely changing the levels?  You can't just give the enemies more or less health and call it a day like some other genres.  Even the amount of enemies usually isn't the problem for Mario games.

Yeah, and motion control is a fad, ftw.

I have to step out for a few hours, so I will summarize this with one of my own experiences.

When I was very small, I could only play so far in SMB2. Why? Because the Birdo fight terrified me. I could not play it. The music, the active threat, the big pink enemy sprite spitting projectiles - I couldn't face it. It was irrational but I could not play that level, I could not get past Birdo unless my father beat it for me.

I would play the earliest parts over and over and over, only stopping when I got to Birdo.

This system would have gotten me past Birdo and let me experience much, much more of the game. And who knows? It might have allowed me to overcome my own fear, watching the enemy be beaten over and over.

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.

If they put this in the game it must be hard. The lost levels hard

I don't like the idea, but it is optional, so no big deal.