I understand your "pain" about you wanting to play one way while your daughters choose another. I enjoy playing these types of games with my youngest daughter together - Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Super Mario Wonder, and so on. But while I keep saying "look, we could explore this way a bit, I'm sure there's a secret there", she just charges ahead to get to the end, dragging me along too or, even worse, making us lose a life because the screen cuts me off. I too grew up understanding that platformers were about going off the beaten track to explore.
I am curious about this game, it sounds entertaining and when I eventually get a Switch 2 this might be one of the first games I get for it. Hope to hear more about it from you.
That Kirby and the Forgotten Land co-op is so frustrating! Being forced to closely follow an ever more powerful Kirby or be teleported back to his side while wielding the same pathetic spear the whole game 😬 In the early days my job was mainly to stay alive during boss battles while my kid took careless risks but by the time the game was finally completed I was a useless appendage.
This is one of my problems with Nintendo's approach to co-op and designing towards younger players in general. They end up being punished for being new to video games, and get stuck playing obviously inferior and less interesting characters. No one wants to be Nabbit!
The Lego games are a joy to play in co-op mode because each player has the freedom to go where they like. I can be hunting down a collectible while my kid trashes the place in a vehicle on the other side of the map. Or we can take on a mission together for greater success. And death has basically no consequences. Lego City Undercover saved our early co-op experiences after too many Super Mario Brothers sessions ended in tears.
If you just race to Pauline, you can do it pretty quickly, maybe an hour? And then you can easily head backwards and do the parts of the game you skipped past
My 9 year old recently beat Ganondorf on MY Tears of the Kingdom game because I hadn't got round to it. I didn't mind because boss battles annoy me, though I wasn't too pleased that he skipped a vital cut scene 😬 He also just coached me through the final battles of Pokémon Sword. Thanks to his encyclopaedic knowledge of type match-ups, no thanks to his patronising commentary on some of my poorly planned moves.
I think I'm fairly resigned to the fact that if I want to play a game my way it has to be a 15+ that I only play after he's gone to bed. But there are compensations - sometimes my more methodical approach blends perfectly with his all guns blazing mentality to create the perfect team. Unravelled 2 was an unexpected hit as a co-op game for us. I thought it would be too puzzle based to interest him but we actually completed it together. Stray I thought was too creepy for him, but in fact he saved me from going round in circles when I got lost, then I solved the final puzzle when he got frustrated and we enjoyed the surprisingly emotional ending together.
I am about to write a post about my co-op experience in Donkey Kong with my oldest and it was appropriately fun and absolutely not how I want to play the game lol
My 8 year old really enjoyed the co-op mode throwing rocks as Pauline using mouse controls while I controlled Donkey Kong. It is, however, totally chaotic as they can just keep throwing things, including explosive rocks right next to you, or taking the platform from under you! It was some rare time just the two of us, going to be interesting how the labour divides when my 5 year old is around too (she’s only seen the intro so far)
"Most of said time was spent with me biting my lip, as I watched my daughter run through the opening bits of a video game I had been very much looking forward to playing. By “run” I mean sprint, as in skipping past every single flashing object, every collectible, every extra thing this game is chock full of.
THIS ISN’T HOW YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO PLAY!!!!!111111 went my brain
It would be both embarrassing and required truth to say my heart skipped a few beats as she whisked past the parts of the game that usually bring me joy. “Do you want to see if…?” “Nop3.” I cannot believe I’m saying this out loud, but watching her rush through felt like spoilers."
I remember when we got my son a Switch years ago, and I realized that this is the first console in which I wasn't Player 1. It's awkward.
Yeah, it's a huge change! In a way I'm kind lucky, I guess, because my kids are only casually interested in video games. I don't really have to share it with them.
Listening to the Pauline “discussion” rang true of so many “discussions” heard in my house. Power to you brother
<3
I understand your "pain" about you wanting to play one way while your daughters choose another. I enjoy playing these types of games with my youngest daughter together - Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Super Mario Wonder, and so on. But while I keep saying "look, we could explore this way a bit, I'm sure there's a secret there", she just charges ahead to get to the end, dragging me along too or, even worse, making us lose a life because the screen cuts me off. I too grew up understanding that platformers were about going off the beaten track to explore.
I am curious about this game, it sounds entertaining and when I eventually get a Switch 2 this might be one of the first games I get for it. Hope to hear more about it from you.
That Kirby and the Forgotten Land co-op is so frustrating! Being forced to closely follow an ever more powerful Kirby or be teleported back to his side while wielding the same pathetic spear the whole game 😬 In the early days my job was mainly to stay alive during boss battles while my kid took careless risks but by the time the game was finally completed I was a useless appendage.
This is one of my problems with Nintendo's approach to co-op and designing towards younger players in general. They end up being punished for being new to video games, and get stuck playing obviously inferior and less interesting characters. No one wants to be Nabbit!
The Lego games are a joy to play in co-op mode because each player has the freedom to go where they like. I can be hunting down a collectible while my kid trashes the place in a vehicle on the other side of the map. Or we can take on a mission together for greater success. And death has basically no consequences. Lego City Undercover saved our early co-op experiences after too many Super Mario Brothers sessions ended in tears.
So how long did it take to unlock Pauline? You noted it was more than an hour… but two, three hours?
If you just race to Pauline, you can do it pretty quickly, maybe an hour? And then you can easily head backwards and do the parts of the game you skipped past
Thanks!
More of this to come I suspect...
My 9 year old recently beat Ganondorf on MY Tears of the Kingdom game because I hadn't got round to it. I didn't mind because boss battles annoy me, though I wasn't too pleased that he skipped a vital cut scene 😬 He also just coached me through the final battles of Pokémon Sword. Thanks to his encyclopaedic knowledge of type match-ups, no thanks to his patronising commentary on some of my poorly planned moves.
I think I'm fairly resigned to the fact that if I want to play a game my way it has to be a 15+ that I only play after he's gone to bed. But there are compensations - sometimes my more methodical approach blends perfectly with his all guns blazing mentality to create the perfect team. Unravelled 2 was an unexpected hit as a co-op game for us. I thought it would be too puzzle based to interest him but we actually completed it together. Stray I thought was too creepy for him, but in fact he saved me from going round in circles when I got lost, then I solved the final puzzle when he got frustrated and we enjoyed the surprisingly emotional ending together.
I am about to write a post about my co-op experience in Donkey Kong with my oldest and it was appropriately fun and absolutely not how I want to play the game lol
My 8 year old really enjoyed the co-op mode throwing rocks as Pauline using mouse controls while I controlled Donkey Kong. It is, however, totally chaotic as they can just keep throwing things, including explosive rocks right next to you, or taking the platform from under you! It was some rare time just the two of us, going to be interesting how the labour divides when my 5 year old is around too (she’s only seen the intro so far)
Chaos is the right way to describe it. My oldest delighted in being a monster.
"Most of said time was spent with me biting my lip, as I watched my daughter run through the opening bits of a video game I had been very much looking forward to playing. By “run” I mean sprint, as in skipping past every single flashing object, every collectible, every extra thing this game is chock full of.
THIS ISN’T HOW YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO PLAY!!!!!111111 went my brain
It would be both embarrassing and required truth to say my heart skipped a few beats as she whisked past the parts of the game that usually bring me joy. “Do you want to see if…?” “Nop3.” I cannot believe I’m saying this out loud, but watching her rush through felt like spoilers."
I remember when we got my son a Switch years ago, and I realized that this is the first console in which I wasn't Player 1. It's awkward.
Yeah, it's a huge change! In a way I'm kind lucky, I guess, because my kids are only casually interested in video games. I don't really have to share it with them.