The Year of Luigi Has Ended

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Finally. Let's have a Year of Bowser instead.

Nintendo is finally done clowning around celebrating that green-hatted plumber. My personal belief that nothing would really happen in the final 1/3 of the year was... wrong, depending on how you look at it. I guess if you count a ROM hack of Mario Bros. and a spin-off of Dr. Mario called Dr. Luigi to be eventful, then the past year has been nothing but action-packed Luigi adventures!

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Luigi's final appearance during his year in a videogame is the American release of Yoshi's New Island from the absolutely incompetent developers at Arzest. That's a bad way to end any year. Hopefully it will be a bad way to end Arzest's fiscal year and they can go out of business. It is also a bad way to begin a year: According to a previous KoopaTV article, we will now undergo a Year of Yoshi. I am perfectly willing to recant that prediction, because Yoshi represents an even more sorry state than the cowardly, constantly-frightened Luigi. Nintendo should associate itself with winners instead, like King Dad.

Regardless of my misgivings concerning Arzest, the fact remains is that it's unknown what the return on marketing investment is on the Year of Luigi. It's a positive number, no doubt. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, New Super Luigi U, and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team were all sales success stories selling million(s) each. Almost 40% of the people who bought New Super Mario Bros. U got New Super Luigi U as well. I'm one of the 60% who didn't, but that's great piggy-backing profit for extra content that likely did not take much development resources to make. Was it the BEST marketing campaign possible, though? What if they put those marketing dollars into promoting the Wii U? It was a positive return, but I doubt it was the highest possible positive return that Nintendo could've done for a marketing campaign idea.

What will happen with the green-hatted monster from now on? Will he return to his usual status as second fiddle? I don't really care either way. He will never get a primary AAA effort from Nintendo. New Super Luigi U literally represented how he is in his brother's shadow because it's just piggybacking off his brother's big game. He shared the RPG effort. Really, the year was for Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, but did we consider 2001 to be the Year of Luigi also? No, we remember 2001 for the GameCube and Super Smash Bros. Melee. It's fitting then that the last product in the Year of Luigi features an infant Luigi being abducted and having to be rescued by his bigger brother. It represents a return to the status quo.

Speaking of returns, the Miiverse community for the Year of Luigi will be closing. That's great news, because that community has an even worse level of discussion than the Super Smash Bros. community, and THEY spent a series of nights discussing interactive soft-porn. (Not to mention their adoration of Shrek.) "I love Luigi!" "I do too!" Great talk guys. "Look at my drawing of Luigi! Wahoo!" It sucks, man. Put it out of its misery. That Polterpup won't hunt.

Ludwig's NNID is PrinceOfKoopas. You ought to follow him on Miiverse, where he won't even say goodbye to the Year of Luigi community. Ludwig also owns a Luigi Styrofoam hat which he has had a series of escapades with. That hat will be the lasting memory of the Year of Luigi.