Oh man! We are almost game twins! Super Mario Land 2 was the first game I ever owned.
The boss of the first world in Super Mario Land is indeed a fire-breathing Sphinx that lives in a pyramid. This is all well and good, BUT what I didn't remember about this game is how crazy racist the fourth level is. The theme of that level is "China," and you have to fight these little stereotypes of Chinese people that don't stay dead when you jump on them. When I was little, I thought you were just supposed to be fighting zombies on some sort of "Oriental" stage, but now that I'm more familiar with WWII-era Japanese discourse regarding Manchuria I am like OH NO NINTENDO PLEASE DO NOT.
Journey is such a soothing experience. I tend to play it very late at night, so I usually end up going through the whole thing alone, but on the rare occasions I do encounter another person I try to be a good guide. I first played Journey a week or two after it was released for the PS3, and I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know that the other journeyers were actual other players, and the ones who entered my game were absolute dicks. It took me almost ten hours to play through Journey the first time simply because I didn't have a clue what was going on. Like, another player would trigger something I was looking for, and I would just wander around being all like, "What just happened??"
I think there's a sweet spot in that sort of collaborative play in terms of player familiarity. If it's too soon after the game is released, people don't know how to be nice to each other; while on the other hand, if too much time has passed since the release, no one else is playing. I've noticed the same thing with Tri Force Heroes (interest in which seems to have fizzled out very quickly).
Thankfully, the Tingle Bottle feature in Wind Waker HD is still going strong, with a lot of helpful and creative putting cool and interesting things out into the Miiverse.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2016-01-16 08:11 pm (UTC)The boss of the first world in Super Mario Land is indeed a fire-breathing Sphinx that lives in a pyramid. This is all well and good, BUT what I didn't remember about this game is how crazy racist the fourth level is. The theme of that level is "China," and you have to fight these little stereotypes of Chinese people that don't stay dead when you jump on them. When I was little, I thought you were just supposed to be fighting zombies on some sort of "Oriental" stage, but now that I'm more familiar with WWII-era Japanese discourse regarding Manchuria I am like OH NO NINTENDO PLEASE DO NOT.
Journey is such a soothing experience. I tend to play it very late at night, so I usually end up going through the whole thing alone, but on the rare occasions I do encounter another person I try to be a good guide. I first played Journey a week or two after it was released for the PS3, and I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know that the other journeyers were actual other players, and the ones who entered my game were absolute dicks. It took me almost ten hours to play through Journey the first time simply because I didn't have a clue what was going on. Like, another player would trigger something I was looking for, and I would just wander around being all like, "What just happened??"
I think there's a sweet spot in that sort of collaborative play in terms of player familiarity. If it's too soon after the game is released, people don't know how to be nice to each other; while on the other hand, if too much time has passed since the release, no one else is playing. I've noticed the same thing with Tri Force Heroes (interest in which seems to have fizzled out very quickly).
Thankfully, the Tingle Bottle feature in Wind Waker HD is still going strong, with a lot of helpful and creative putting cool and interesting things out into the Miiverse.