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Friday, August 29, 2014

KoopaTV's August 29 Japanese Nintendo Direct Live Reactions!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We try to translate Iwata into English.

Welcome to another wonderful addition to KoopaTV's treasure trove of reaction logs. I'm your host in there as Nintendork 13 13, Kamek is Ultralink1000, and RawkHawk2010... is himself. We're in our [Koopa Keep] AIM Blast here to react to the Japan-only Nintendo Direct!

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Professor of Donkey Kong Jr. Math *Update 8/29/14*

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - KoopaTV's end-of-month game endorsements.

Nintendo gamers (in North America), we got an amazing last two weekdays of August.

Today, Thursday the 28th, the beloved Donkey Kong Jr. Math comes out on the Wii U Virtual Console in North America for $5. Tomorrow, Friday the 29th, Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is finally released in North America on the 3DS for $30. In both digital and physical distribution!

KoopaTV heavily, HEAVILY recommends you purchase both games if you can. Please, do not choose between the two. They go together (as you'll see below)!

Last time you checked, I have no experience with the Professor Layton series. Well, that's still true. Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney will be my first exposure to the series!

I have very, very strong experience with Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Donkey Kong Jr. Math, however. I'm going to guess that about 20% of KoopaTV articles incorporate Ace Attorney in some way, an amount only matched by Super Smash Bros.! That's like, one direct or indirect reference every week.

And I was the first and most enthusiastic Let's Player of Donkey Kong Jr. Math on YouTube! That game changed my life, causing the Division fad to be born. Which spawned its own Planet Koopa board, along with directly leading to the creation of Jessie Go Jr. Remedial Algebra.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Mario Kart 8: Driving Ludicrous Content

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - That's what DLC stands for, right?

Once upon a time, I praised Nintendo for their innovative approach to DLC and free-to-play.

Those times are over as Nintendo in Europe (you can bet that's coming to America and elsewhere too) unveils two "Add-On Content" packages, with Nintendo of America following. This is the day before the Mercedes-Benz DLC finally comes out over there and elsewhere. So what's in them?

Each "Add-On Content pack" has three new characters, four new vehicles, and eight new (to Mario Kart 8, anyway) courses! If you buy both of them, you get eight different Yoshi and eight different Shy Guy colours! They're 7 British Pounds each, which is about $11.50. In America, they're $8 each, or $12 put together. So good deal for Americans and bad deal for the British, or... something.

But what is everyone really excited about? Screenshots like:

FURRY PEACH!
 ...But more importantly,


Link can drive?!

The added characters are: "Tanooki Mario", "Cat Peach", and "Link" in one package, and "Villager", "Isabelle", and "Dry Bowser" in the other. In other words, Mario Kart 8 is turning into "Super Smash Kart"...

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

KoopaTV's Guest-Writing Giveaway Results!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Step up and claim your prize.

After deliberating over the weekend (and Monday), KoopaTV has decided who the winner is for the first ever KoopaTV Guest-Posting Contest! Also known as that giveaway thing that I've been clogging social media channels with for the past month.

We're more or less pleased with how it turned out. Although, and let this be a lesson, we did not do what you should never forget to do before starting a big project: Set goal targets! In other words, me saying we're pleased might be because we don't have anything to compare it to. Woops.

That said, what we generally expected to happen happened. So without further stalling, the winner of the contest is the lass with the pen name of... Feriku!

Contact me to claim your prize.

We'll post your guest commentary at some point in the future. You know, on slow news days.

We may or may not also post the other entrants' entries. Given that this is KoopaTV and not some shithole place like NeoGAF, just because you submitted something doesn't mean we'll publish it. If you're concerned that you entered something and that we might not publish it, feel free to revise it for quality standards.

As with any guest post, we reserve the right to edit your post for formatting, accuracy, and other minor things. That said, unlike a shithole place like NSider2, we do not censor your statements. Ever.

We hope that you will consider writing a guest commentary or make guest art for KoopaTV in the future, even without it being tied to winning a prize! We like hearing what you have to say!


The KoopaTV staff (Ludwig, Rawk, and Kamek) thought it was fun to read your guest posts, so please write more of them!


Feriku's winning entry is here!

(Links-Only) Meet Your Smash 4 3DS Musicians!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Plus a sample of their works.

Last Friday, the official website for Super Smash Bros. For Wii U and 3DS updated with the full list of composers for the 3DS version. All in all, there are a whopping 40 musicians listed, the vast majority are from Nintendo or Bandai Namco. If you're a videogame music buff, you might happily recognize some of the names and their works. You might also realize that some of your favourite musicians (like Koji Kondo or David Wise) are not on the list. If you recall, over seven years ago Sakurai published a similar list for Super Smash Bros. Brawl's composers. That list had 38 people on it.

Fret not! This is only for the 3DS version, which has a significantly less amount of songs in it because there are only two songs per stage in that version. The Wii U version will have much more, and therefore, more composers that are not part of the 3DS project. Also, these musicians definitely are more than capable and will make arrangements of songs that belong to franchises they have never worked on before.

That's what we got here.

But for those working on the 3DS version, this article wants to make you feel more acquainted with these guys. Musicians also in the Brawl list will be underlined and one of their Brawl contributions will also be included. Music may or may not be spoilers. 

If you would like a version of this article with embedded videos, click here.

Last music update: September 11 2014.

Update:  Shohei Tsuchiya's Kapp'n's Song & Hirokazu Tanaka's PAC-MAN (Club Mix)

Monday, August 25, 2014

Meet Your Smash 4 3DS Musicians! *Embedded Videos*

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Plus a sample of their works.

Last Friday, the official website for Super Smash Bros. For Wii U and 3DS updated with the full list of composers for the 3DS version. All in all, there are a whopping 40 musicians listed, the vast majority are from Nintendo or Bandai Namco. If you're a videogame music buff, you might happily recognize some of the names and their works. You might also realize that some of your favourite musicians (like Koji Kondo or David Wise) are not on the list. If you recall, over seven years ago Sakurai published a similar list for Super Smash Bros. Brawl's composers. That list had 38 people on it.

Fret not! This is only for the 3DS version, which has a significantly less amount of songs in it because there are only two songs per stage in that version. The Wii U version will have much more, and therefore, more composers that are not part of the 3DS project. Also, these musicians definitely are more than capable and will make arrangements of songs that belong to franchises they have never worked on before.

What we have here.

But for those working on the 3DS version, this article wants to make you feel more acquainted with these guys. Musicians also in the Brawl list will be underlined and one of their Brawl contributions will also be included. Music may or may not be spoilers. ...Oh, and all of these are embedded. So this may load very slowly for you. Apologies in advance. 

If you would like a hyperlinks-only version, click here.

Last music update: September 11 2014.

Update:  Shohei Tsuchiya's Kapp'n's Song & Hirokazu Tanaka's PAC-MAN (Club Mix)

Friday, August 22, 2014

One Year Later: Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The gaming world took by punch.

Did you know that this week was the one-year anniversary of Punch-Out!! Week? One of the best weeks in KoopaTV history from a content perspective. Every article that week was about the Punch-Out!! series or incorporated it in some way. 

It all ended with KoopaTV's pride and joy, Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!!! Play it for free exclusively at KoopaTV!


So as a really bad tribute to Punch-Out!! Week, I've forcefully inserted references to Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!! in the other four articles from this week. Did you notice?


In case you forgot, this DID win PC Game of THAT Year 2013.

We've covered a tremendous amount of Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!! here. We've produced not only the game, but an advertisement video, strategy guides, and even a behind-the-scenes perspective on the origins of the game, which also included an analysis of some of the controversial themes in it. Later up in this article, we'll present yet more coverage of the game, so keep reading. (I'm not reproducing links to those things because they are all in the main Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!! page.)

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Suffering Dual Destinies On Mobile

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Everything is wrong in a mobile world.

We know I'm old-fashioned when it comes to technology. You hip people and your smartphones I don't own. But you know who also does not have a smartphone, and lives in the future about 13 years from now?

Phoenix Wright's cell phone in Dual Destinies
Phoenix Wright. This is his phone in 2027.

I think I'm in good company. Unfortunately, not many other people agree with me on my harsh anti-mobile stances. In fact, many people are happy that Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Dual Destinies is now available on Apple mobile devices. And I think it's... a terrible thing.

Wait, it's not rated M in the Apple Store? All that effort for nothing?!

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

No Call of Duty; No Assassin's Creed

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - No justice; no peace.

Continuing our week of negative events happening, we have two very-close-together stories: Ubisoft is dropping Assassin's Creed titles on the Wii U (along with other M-rated titles), and Activision is dropping Call of Duty titles from the Wii U. This is right after talking about Electronic Arts and their continued mockery of Nintendo consoles. Do third parties just hate (console-side) Nintendo now? Is the Wii U only going to be first-party exclusives? (Note that those alone still make up a much better library than the Wii U's competitors' consoles.) Even third-party partners that appeared to have backed Nintendo, like Platinum Games, have left.

With the exception of SUDA 51 and Grasshopper Manufacture, none of these really bug me. 

(What a sweet pun.)

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Short(s) On Fanservice

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The feminist screech that never came.

It is time for another KoopaTV article on Sakurai's Pic of the Day! Take it away!
Sakurai Miiverse post of the day Zero Suit Samus shorts costume female designer
Masahiro Sakurai's post of the day, revealing Zero Suit Samus in shorts, thanks to a female designer.

Well? It's "Negative One Suit Samus"!

You're not amused. Well, I didn't come up with it. It's based off of Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Zero Mission's endings:

Blue, Fusion.
Orange, Zero Mission.
There are some valid complaints about Samus here. Like, what the hell happened to her stomach?


However, on Miiverse after the Pic of the Day was shown, there was a strong reaction of, "Here come the feminists that are going to whine." And... I've been looking around the usual social media channels, and I haven't found such whining. Completely different story than, you know, yesterday's article. Twitter seems normal. Miiverse seems normal. Nintendo's Facebook is normal. What about Tumblr, the lair of demons? I don't know how to actually look around that place, but I don't see any mass-gathering of angry people.

Monday, August 18, 2014

Transitioning Transgressive Artistry To Censorship

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Guess who we're siding with.

It is a continuing fight, between the forces of artistic expression (hell, any expression period) and the forces of bullying and political correctness. We do not choose the battlefield. We do not choose the occasion, the time, the place. But we must be there to meet the call to battle, and defend our freedoms wherever they are threatened.

Our latest fight takes place on publisher XSEED's Twitter feed. XSEED is famous on KoopaTV for... pretty much nothing, since apparently we haven't name-dropped them once in the site's history.

XSEED is a company that is basically dedicated to bringing what would otherwise be Japan-only videogames into North America. There are several reasons why these games might be stuck in Japan. No company has the resources/time for them, they are seen as unprofitable, or they're just... weird and inappropriate for mainstream American audiences. They are known for their high-quality translations and dedication to the material. For Nintendo, they brought "Project Rainfall" babies (or bastard twins, if you're comparing to Xenoblade) Pandora's Tower and The Last Story on the Wii to North America.

If you didn't get the point yet, here is XSEED according to XSEED:
"XSEED Games was formed in November 2004 by a small group of industry veterans with a common vision; to cross pollinate the avid gaming culture of Japan and North America. Delivering unique, innovative titles across multiple platforms and genres, XSEED Games is dedicated to publishing products that appeal to and enrich the North American market."
Anyway, back to fighting. One of the games XSEED is localizing is Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed. It's on Sony platforms only. It appears to be one of those games similar to High School DxD, which KoopaTV put pains into telling you is inappropriate for children and the workplace. It's probably no coincidence that you could read it as "Akiba Strip" in the website url. So no screenshots of the game here. It's clearly for Mature audiences only.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Analysis: ESRB Ratings Across Consoles (Part 2)

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We got this mound of data. What to do with it?

Note: This is Part 2 of the ESRB study from this article, "Study: ESRB Ratings Across Consoles (Part 1)". Please read it first to get the data, because I'm not reposting those nice charts in here.

Well, one thing is clear: The notion that Nintendo is more "kiddy" than their console competitors Sony and Microsoft is true and supported by the data. Something I left out in my study post is the hypothesis. I... actually thought that Sony would be a lot closer to Nintendo, or at least the PlayStation 2 would. This is because the PlayStation 2 was home to a lot of kid-friendly shovelware, and continued to be supported by publishers many years after its competitors, finally being dropped this year by Electronic Arts.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

EA: Wii U is a "Popular Platform"

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - According to who? ...Besides KoopaTV.

I guess if your only source of information was KoopaTV, then you'd be lead to believe that the Wii U is an amazing console with great games, but poor Nintendo is just bullied by bad guys like Electronic Arts. Of course, this depiction is pretty accurate. Like a typical bully, when Electronic Arts is confronted over their bullying behaviour, they respond with denial or ignorance that Nintendo's feelings were hurt or their knees were scraped.

Which is how we get things like this:

This article is about the Popular Platforms column, but we can discuss how "Kids" are a popular genre of disgusting culture-destroying rubbish in another article.
So what is so wrong about this? Electronic Arts considers "Wii U" to be a popular platform. 

Which is a complete statement of dishonesty of EA's part.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Reminder: Don't Hate On Meta Knight!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - For a certain developer team's mistakes.

Well. Meta Knight is confirmed to return in Super Smash Bros. 4. No one should be surprised. Ever since appearing in Kirby's Adventure, Meta Knight has been a mainstay of the Kirby series and one of Masahiro Sakurai's darlings.

Sakurai post of the day Miiverse Meta Knight returns Halberd
Masahiro Sakurai brings Meta Knight back into Super Smash Bros. 4!

I've always liked him too.

Meta Knight Miiverse drawing
This was basically my first attempt at actually drawing something on Miiverse... and thankfully, one of my last.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Temper Your Expectations

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Or you'll be disappointed.

It is EXTREMELY common for fans in our videogame industry to over-hype themselves. You would think they would learn by now. Whether it's all of the hype for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess that only seemed to intensify as it continually got delayed, or the biggest hype-for-a-game-ever Super Smash Bros. Brawl, gamers create impossible expectations for entertainment to meet and only end up feeling like crap afterwards.

Of course, this isn't only gamers' faults. Corporate marketing plays a role too! Like Ubisoft's PR for WATCH_DOGS. Look at these expectations!

For a non-gaming example, we take it to KoopaTV non-correspondent Geraldo Rivera:


Which of course, ended up something like this (and is the reason why Geraldo is not a correspondent with KoopaTV):

Monday, August 11, 2014

Study: ESRB Ratings Across Consoles (Part 1)

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Putting data behind so-called "kiddy" labels.

Writing about a study got me thinking: KoopaTV should conduct a study. So I did. This article is just the data. Next article (Part 2) will be my analysis. (Update August 15: Scroll to the bottom of the article for the link to Part 2.) This is a breakdown of ESRB ratings for every console since the PlayStation 2 era. Methodology posted below the charts. Everything is done in Excel. If you want the file I'd be happy to send it.

Feel free to share these statistics to your friends! Just leave them this article's url when you do so as credit.

Friday, August 8, 2014

Secure Your Mind First, George Zimmerman

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Before you go be a security guard.

I really thought that KoopaTV wouldn't have anything to write about George Zimmerman after the one-year anniversary of his famous acquittal.

Well, I'm happy to be wrong! Back to ZimmermanTV!

At the end of July 2014, it was reported by Florida police that George Zimmerman was found in the middle of the night guarding a motorcycle shop that also sells guns. To be exact, it was the Deland, Florida location of the local motorcycle shop chain, Pompano Pat's. It also happens to be where George Zimmerman got a free gun. Just some trivia.

Here's the thing: Despite the history together, Zimmerman was never asked to be there. In fact, Pat Johnson, the founder of Pompano Pat's, declared that he learned about Zimmerman being there from the news. You know, the same place where President Barack Hussein Obama learns what's going on in the country.

Zimmerman is just trying to work, according to himself. But is there more to the story? KoopaTV investigates.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Pretty New Models!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Goes well with pretty old plushies.

Hey, did you see today's Pic of the Day on Miiverse from Masahiro Sakurai?

So? It's DR. WILY! With a new model! Sort of like another third party character with a new trophy model as well...

So besides having Sakurai write my articles for me, the point here is that we have massive potential for new character models in Super Smash Bros. 4's trophy collection. And if the 3DS version alone has more trophies than Brawl (but that's just a rumour) which had a whopping 544, then that's sizable. (By comparison, Super Smash Bros. Melee had 293 trophies.) It also means that Super Smash Bros. For Wii U will have even MORE than that, right?!

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Don't Access EA Access

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's EA Access... into your wallet. (And your soul.)

Apparently, Electronic Arts is having a new subscription service exclusive to the Xbox One. Since they're totally not snubbing Nintendo, they also offered it to Sony's PlayStation 4. They said no. But Microsoft said yes.

So the service is called "EA Access". Here's what gamers think about it:

GameFAQs poll 5587 showing gamers overwhelmingly do not like EA Access.
To be fair, I voted the last option without knowing what EA Access was. But I know now!
For $5 a month or $30 a year (note the implicit assumption here is that you wouldn't want to take advantage of this for more than half the year) you get access to three key features:

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

KoopaTV Live Reacts To Hyrule Warriors Direct!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Sakurai influences? Hope that last part of the Direct influenced him.

Welcome to the first KoopaTV live reaction log since E3 a month and a half ago! Miss us? I'm Nintendork 13 13 in this log and RawkHawk2010 is back from San Francisco. We talk in our AIM Blast [Koopa Keep], and yesterday night there was a Hyrule Warriors Nintendo Direct. You can watch it here and read our thoughts as the video goes along!

Monday, August 4, 2014

Study Shows No Difference Whether You Play Videogames One Hour a Day Or Three

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Tell your parents to allow you more play time!

KoopaTV is a firm believer in the parent-child interaction when it comes to videogames. So here is something to educate your parents on (or if you're a parent, consider when making policy for your kids), if you trust these kinds of studies, this one published in The Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics by Dr. Andrew K. Przybylski:
"Low levels (<1 hour daily) as well as high levels (>3 hours daily) of game engagement was linked to key indicators of psychosocial adjustment. Low engagement was associated with higher life satisfaction and prosocial behavior and lower externalizing and internalizing problems, whereas the opposite was found for high levels of play. No effects were observed for moderate play levels when compared with non-players."
If you look at the whole study (not just the abstract), and I recommend you do by reading it here, it has some good statistical information. The sample was nearly 5,000 10-15 year olds across the United Kingdom, roughly half and half boys and girls. Such statistical information includes this table, for those who do not care about the psychoanalytical statistic tables that make up the rest of the study's data:

The average amount of time kids spend per day playing console and PC games.
Unfortunately, at least in the UK, console gaming seems less popular than PC gaming. Especially among girls.

Friday, August 1, 2014

KoopaTV & July Celebration!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Guys, we need to talk.

It's weirdly August already. What happened to July? It doesn't feel like August at all! So summer is going to end now? Soon? Boo.

Okay, so we need to talk about how I name these recap articles. I'm running out of titles. So I need a new naming scheme. That will be one of my projects for August.

Another one of my projects, is, of course, hosting the KoopaTV Guest-Posting Contest. That's a major thing, and everyone is encouraged to enter. There are still three weeks of that to go, so start working! Or keep working, as hopefully you've started already. You're more than welcome to submit before the August 22 deadline.

Speaking of that contest, it's partially responsible for a surge of activity to the site. A surge so strong that July 2014 was actually KoopaTV's best month ever in terms of reader views. This surpassed the previous record set just last month. Yes, we beat the month that was dedicated to E3!

Need inspiration for writing your guest posts? Well, here are my top 5 recommended KoopaTV articles from the month of July 2014, in chronological order. Read 'em if you haven't, or read 'em again if you have. Or just ignore it and read the rest of this article:


  1. The Folly of Miiverse War
  2. Beware Mario The Goomba Groper
  3. Zimmerman: A Free Man For A Year
  4. Chrom Has Been FIRED From KoopaTV!
  5. Are We Too Harsh On Miyamoto?
Regardless, there isn't much of this article left. What I will say though, is that we had a lot of good articles in July. And everything on the site is worth reading!

We're going to be rolling out more ways to have our content be accessible to you and other people, so stay tuned.

By the way, enter that guest-posting contest, will ya? As of July 2014, we're down one staff member than normal. We have gaps to fill! (Granted, it's a very, very, very small gap.)


Ludwig would like your help to advertise KoopaTV to people! In fact, doing that is one way to enter the contest and be eligible to win. So share KoopaTV to your friends!


For last month's retrospection, take a look here.
For next month's, you want to look here.
For the 2013 version of this article, look here!
July 2015 has a ton of news, so you better check that out here.