Confession time sans any shame: When I was a wee boy, I would run around in my backyard, sword-stick in hand, playing in imaginary worlds that were mostly inspired by the 8-bit NES maps in Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda. These worlds, grand for a little awesome kid, offered the perfect bird’s-eye view of spatial possibilities, offsetting where you could and could not go–that is, until a major weapon, accessory, magic, or tip was found that would be duly employed to blast through any and all obstacles. Needless to say, life was good. But now that I am old and boring and my penchant for whimsically running around in my backyard returns to me only when I am drunk or deranged, such fancies have passed from my everyday existence–until now. Clearly on a similar wavelength, the gamers behind Google Maps dropped an 8-bit April Fools masterpiece on the world. Take a bird’s-eye view after the jump.

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