I got Link’s Awakening this weekend and let my son crack it open. He was having a grand old time until we got to the forest and we couldn’t find the key. At that point, he lost interest. I played after he went to bed and I’m kind of shocked at the Mario crossovers. Like, when you go underground in this game you’re literally jumping over piranha plants and goombas.
I’m sure he’ll get back to it, but it’s weird to see what’s effectively a 25 year old game design applied to the current generation of kids. At his age I was grinding NES games that were incredibly obtuse, like Dragon Warrior. Granted, that came with a Nintendo Power guide to help. My kids play Roblox and Minecraft almost exclusively, on iPads no less, and when I try to sit down with them to play a more traditional (traditional in my opinion) game, they tap out as soon as they get stuck on progression. Forget about a Metroid game, they can barely handle Mario without getting annoyed. Maybe when they get older it will change, but all the kids today that I know want different kinds of games than we grew up with. Single player, story driven gaming is for the olds.