KoopaTV's August 2016 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A month of variety and amazing content.

I have heard that you younger set of humans are starting school again right about now. Don't let that take over all of your time and your life. We won't at KoopaTV, although none of us will be in any school setting next month. So we should be fine. Just looking out for all of you fans.

We had a great month in August, full of provocative, focused, original gaming content. We'll be broadening a bit of what we cover in the months ahead, given the political landscape of the United States. You'll still get awesome gaming content (such as tomorrow's reaction log on the Nintendo Direct at 10 AM Eastern!), but we also need to let you know how events going on in the world will affect your life. And what the proper courses of action will be to wade through that. Just looking out for all of you fans.

Anyway, let's talk about that content.

Top Five Recommended Articles Of August 2016

All of KoopaTV's articles are worth reading, but here are our staff's top five picks for the MOST recommended from the month, in chronological order:

1. Pokémon Sun and Moon: Alola Forms, New Pokémon, Trials, Z-Moves, Riding!
2. Team Koopa Officially Backing Out Of the Rio 2016 Olympics
3. The Electoral Map of the Splatoon Summer Splatdown!
4. The Real Explanation of Shinzō Abe and Mario
5. Paper Mario: Color Splash — Episode 3: Infiltration! 

Paper Mario: Color Splash — Episode 3: Infiltration!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Secret Base on the Blue Sea!

We would like to interrupt the introduction to this article to point out how handsome I look.

Now that we've finished (personally, I've just started) appreciating that, Nintendo and Intelligent Systems would like to present the third episode in the Rescue V series. This one features Rescue Blue, as you can see from the thumbnail.

...More importantly, it features YOURS TRULY, so pay attention, because this will probably be my last time starring in a video on Nintendo's channel in a very long time:

Now, very quickly, let me summarise the non-me parts: Rescue Blue and his squadron passed themselves off as a pack of stealthy ninjas. They infiltrated the Secret Base in the Blue Sea, alongside Mario, though it's not entirely clear how helpful they are to him. However, they did find the secret weapon in the secret base, and its weak point, which they communicated to Mario.

Meanwhile, Rescue Purple was enjoying Ocean Fest and the Five Fun Guys by taking a nice break after the work his squad supposedly did last episode. Rescue Blue got angry that Rescue Purple was having a nice time at the beach, and became so angry that his hat turned purple (blue + angry red = purple).

GUESS WHO HAD THAT SECRET WEAPON IN THE ENEMY BASE? No, not Andross... but another insane guy! ...ME! MWAHAHAHA! ...Oh, you guessed that correctly? Thought it was too predictable? You think Paper Mario: Color Splash has a bland story without even knowing what it's like? Well, I will prove you wrong!

No Man's Sky is Few People's Game

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - “Has there ever been a game fall from grace faster and more dramatically than No Man's Sky?”

Do you remember that awful waste of time known as VGX 2013? Terrible event, but it's where No Man's Sky from independent gaming studio Hello Games was formally introduced to the world. Here were my impressions of it from that event:
 

“So this game is just scenery porn?
    (dat ain't Star Fox)
    "No Man's Sky"
    Ain't Fox McCloud's sky either.
    So is this indie guy just pissing money?
    He already sold his house.”

Continuing that theme, after we saw it at Sony's E3 2014, I described it as “pretty” in the post-E3 wrap-up.

Here is what the developer describes it as:

“At launch though, it’s an infinite procedural sci-fi-space-survival-sandbox unlike anything you have ever played before. [...] It’s a weird game, it’s a niche game and it’s a very very chill game.” [Emphasis theirs.]

Chill? This game is one of the most hyped up indie games ever. A GQ headline read, “Why No Man's Sky Is the Most Hyped Game of the Last 3 Years”. Part of that might be sensationalist, but it's not that far off.

See Poll 5751 from GameFAQs in early January 2015. No Man's Sky beat out KoopaTV favourites Splatoon and Tom Clancy's The Division.

Paper Mario: Color Splash — Episode 2: Move Out!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Sheer Cliffs on a Red Road!

Welcome to KoopaTV's continuing coverage of the Rescue V (we pronounce it “Vee”, and also “Ex-Nauts” if you're wondering), the real protagonists of the hyped game, Paper Mario: Color Splash! We first covered them here on their first episode where it was the whole group, and now is their second episode.

This one is focusing on Rescue Red. Uh... just go ahead and watch and we'll talk. Yes, I'm embedding Nintendo's Skye on Miiverse embedding the YouTube video. Her parenthetical observations are key to dissecting the video:

Do Yourself Wright: Play the Spirit of Justice Demo!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We learn some more things about Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Spirit of Justice by PLAYING it!

Two weeks ago, we let you know about amazing Ace Attorney sales, and the existence of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Spirit of Justice demo that would be releasing on August 25th. Well, that's today. I've played the demo. What are my impressions?

...Positive, of course. It's Ace Attorney after all. It has to be good. ...Well, that's not actually true (Turnabout Big Top, anyone?), but the folks at CAPCOM curated this cut-up version of the first trial of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Spirit of Justice for our playing pleasure. It's free on the Nintendo eShop, is 890 blocks big (not much), and has 30 uses! Not that you'll need all 30, since the game comes out in two weeks from now anyway. 

The demo takes place in the Kingdom of Khura ’in, a magical place of excessive apostrophes and lovably bad puns. In the Khura’inese legal system, defence attorneys don't really exist because they will execute defence attorneys alongside their guilty clients, bringing a whole new meaning to loser pays litigation. Here's the instruction manual for the game on the role of defence:

The Khura’inese society treats lawyers like America should be treating politicians such as Crooked Hillary.

You have to defend your guide, Ahlbi Ur'gaid (my gosh, I STILL have to keep checking to see how these names are spelled), in court. She apparently is a thief and a murderer. And a boy, but I'll always dispute that. Ahlbi is also allegedly only nine years old.

ANYWAY. Ahlbi hates you because you're a lawyer, and lawyers are shunned by society, as the above screenshot explains. This is in spite of you being there to defend her.

Gen 7 or Bust

By MIZUKI - Will Gen 7’s newly released designs forecast gold, or ruin the future of Pokémon?

A new generation of Pokémon can bring many things: Nintendo's stock rising, a new generation of young Pokémon fans, the reliving of childhood for some, and the never fucking ending hell of debating whether new Pokémon designs are the harbinger of the franchise’s doom or it’s just people with shit taste expressing their shit taste.

Friday, Nintendo officially revealed four upcoming Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon Pokémon and we will be looking at the quality of each design to weed out the daft and dolt of the Pokémon fanbase.

Crabrawler

First is the Boxing Pokémon Crabrawler, a pure Fighting type boxing crab. There is a long-standing tradition of Pokémon that people look at and think the Pokémon has two types, yet in reality they only have one. This has been going on since kids hurt themselves in confusion when they thought Psyduck was Psychic. While it's respectable for some Pokémon such as the mimicking tree, Sudowoodo, it falls short with a seafood item that has a blue/purple color palette and (so far) no reason to not be Water-type. Deduction of points here.

The Real Explanation of Shinzō Abe and Mario

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A Closing Ceremony ReCAP.

Allow me to first say this: No matter what was going to happen in Sunday's Rio 2016 Olympics Closing Ceremony, we were going to publish it. I mean, we published the Opening Ceremony, and the only thing THAT was notable for was being really long. All of these mainstream gaming news and Nintendo news websites — which I won't hyperlink but you know who they are, and they know who they are too — are only talking NOW about the Olympics because they're opportunists. They weren't committed to it before. Meanwhile, KoopaTV has been covering the Rio 2016 Olympics since 2015 in great depth and from every angle, especially since multiple staff members were going to be participants.

Some people wondered why this site would do that. Why would we do something so out-of-step, so out-of-line with our media competitors? Heh. First of all, you never want to be identical to your competitors anyway. And second, you can now see the benefits of KoopaTV's authenticity in its coverage of topics. This extends to some of the other so-called “questionable” topic choices we've covered. They all ultimately have tied back to gaming, and we've had the subject body knowledge and expertise that no one else has had. 

With all of that said, and as we all know by now, there were extremely interesting things happening in our Closing Ceremony log starting at 9:26 PM. Because National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is taking down every video it can of the interesting Tokyo part, we have to embed this tweet which has it:

Can't wait for Tokyo Olympics
in 2020!#TokyoOlympic2020#Tokyo2020 pic.twitter.com/F1cRtvk125

— 『S』 (@inosena7uver) August 22, 2016

 
Aside from Pac-Man showing up for no good reason (in his usual inevitable fashion), it appears as if Japan's Prime Minister and upstanding right-wing conservative (Liberal Democrat, in Japanese terms) Shinzō Abe... transformed into Koopa Kingdom's Public Enemy #1 and evil terrorist Mario! And then showed up in Rio de Janeiro.

Yes, he did transform. However... we will make the case that it was not voluntary. In fact, it's an extremely concerning event that we should all brace ourselves for!

KoopaTV's Live Reactions to Rio 2016's Closing Ceremony

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - WH-WH-WHAT IS HE doing there?!

I cannot believe it. What can I not believe? Read our log. (Or wait for tomorrow's article, which'll be dedicated to it.) This isn't clickbait. Seriously.

KoopaTV's staff (or, three of us — myself as Nintendork 13 13, RawkHawk2010 as RawkHawk2010, and Kamek as Ultralink1) live-react to the CLOSING CEREMONY of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

The part controlled by Brazil's culture? Well, mediocre. But then they hand off the Olympic stuff to Japan midway. And...that is where things get DRAMATICALLY more interesting. And important.

...And even Nintendo-related. And not just from us making tangents, but the SOURCE MATERIAL does it. So, here's the log:

Crabrawler's Punch-Out!!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - No, this isn't KoopaTV's 2016 videogame, but that'd be cool DLC, wouldn't it?

You know, I remember at the end of the Team Skull article eight days ago, I wrote, 

“That's about all the info worth commenting on. What do YOU think? We'd love to hear YOUR comments in the designated comments section. Talk to you guys next Pokémon news release! ...Just kidding, I'll actually talk to you tomorrow on www.KoopaTV.org. (Unless those are the same day, with how frequent these releases are getting.)”

So, like, that was totally a joke and not something serious, but it turns out my levity had some truth to it. Yesterday I wrote about Turtonator being discovered in Alola and he's great. And now today? I'm writing about four new Pokémon also discovered that you can use for the first time this November in Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon. Take it away, The Pokémon Company International:

Turtonator Joining the Shelled Pokémon Family

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Our pro-turtle stance continues.

It may feel filler-y to dedicate a whole article to the announcement of only one new Pokémon, but this particular Pokémon makes it worth it. Who was revealed today for Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon, and why is it special?

Meet Turtonator. It's explosive. Its trailer says so:

Turtonator is the Blast Turtle Pokémon, with the Shell Armor ability. Turtonator are Fire/Dragon types, the type combination that people say King Bowser Koopa would have if he was a Pokémon. He sports the same posture of hiding his belly as Blastoise, and for good reason: Turtonator's stomach is its weak point!

Turtonator has a special move, Shell Trap. It's basically a hotter version of Counter that probably has a base power (with a Fire type) instead of just doing double-damage. Turtonator uses this move a lot in its native environment, the volcano, as it pretends to be a rock while other Pokémon presumably try to eat rocks. I don't know.

Regardless, Turtonator now brings us to six discovered fully-evolved turtle Pokémon. You can now have a full team of them. Here's a group photo of this spectacular, hypothetical line-up:

Left-to-right: Turtonator, Torterra, Carracosta, Shuckle, Torkoal, and Blastoise.
The only generation not to contribute was Generation 6, which has some explaining to do.

We strongly support this all-turtle lineup, and hope that there are more to come in the future. Generation 7 has filled its quota, though.

...And if Turtonator isn't already fully-evolved, then we'll issue a correction to this article and a new picture.


KoopaTV feels like it has a special connection to turtle Pokémon. Maybe you can guess why. Are you excited about Turtonator? Will you use one? You're definitely getting Pokémon Sun or Pokémon Moon right? Do you think it's weird there have not yet been any details on the differences between the two besides the cover Mythical Pokémon?


KoopaTV just celebrated World Turtle Day back in May. It was a sombre celebration.
The turtle Pokémon lineup is proportional and to-scale, similar to Ludwig's art of Alolan Exeggutor to Exeggutor.
Check out the Pokémon news released a week ago about Team Skull!
The very next day, FOUR new Pokémon were revealed! No turtles.
Torkoal are going extinct, and we gotta save them!
Generation 6's explanation? Avalugg is the generational turtle.

Interview With Karen Straughan on Defend Anita Sarkeesian

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A discussion on Anita Sarkeesian, Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian, and Defend Anita Sarkeesian.

Remember Defend Anita Sarkeesian, KoopaTV's videogame released at the end of 2014? When KoopaTV was scanning its web presence, we came across this video by prominent YouTube anti-feminist Karen Straughan:

Here is a description written by herself about herself from her inactive blog:

“Karen Straughan is a 45 year old divorced mother of three who's been writing on gender issues and pissing off feminists since 2010.”

If you go to 22:47 of the embedded video, KoopaTV's page for Defend Anita Sarkeesian randomly appears, and it's linked-to in the description. So, what are we doing there? KoopaTV decided to interview Ms. Straughan with this e-mail, sent July 12, 2016:

Hi Karen Straughan,

I'm the head guy of KoopaTV.org, a website you kinda featured in your YouTube video, "The "Twitter harassment case" | Part 1: The Internet vs Bendilin Spurr". KoopaTV and our flash game, Defend Anita Sarkeesian (which you nicknamed "Shoot Bendilin Spurr" in the description) got to show up in the segment after your narration as part of a contextless (?) montage at the end, but we got a url in the description anyway. Thanks for that.

I suppose our question is this: Why were we/our game in the video if we weren't discussed at all? What was the point you were trying to make/support with the inclusion of Defend Anita Sarkeesian?

(We'd like to publish your answer/our conversation on our website as an interview, if you don't mind!)

Thanks,

Ludwig

To our surprise, she replied the same night, almost immediately:

Rescue V: The Fearless Color Defenders!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Clearly, with these Toads involved, the Paper Mario series is not in danger.

The Fearless Color Defenders doesn't specifically refer to KoopaTV's staff, the same group of folks that were stunned by Nintendo's E3 2016 presentation of Paper Mario: Color Splash and then stood out among the entire Internet when they wrote an article defending the game from its hordes of detractors.

This will be the another complimentary article for Paper Mario: Color Splash. Not because some higher force is MAKING us, but because the game deserves it. Just take a look at this trailer Nintendo just put out, involving some special heroic Toads:

The Rescue V refers to five Toads. (Oh no! FIVE TOADS! TRIGGERED!) These Toads believe that they are the REAL protagonists instead of that miserable Mario. That makes sense to me, since Mario is evil and all.

In fact, Mario is so dastardly that he not only is taking most of the credit, but he's taking ALL of the credit! 

The Electoral Map of the Splatoon Summer Splatdown!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - If you don't have Splatoon yet, then... what's with you?

Perhaps because Splatfests are officially over, the Splatoon team likely had a team meeting and discussed their options. Splatoon is losing the attention of many Nintendo Wii U owners. Sure, it outlasted many other games in terms of spotlight (who talks about Pokkén Tournament anymore?), but has its time come?

No! Only a little over a third of Wii U owners have bought Splatoon, according to the Wii U selling 13 million consoles and Splatoon selling almost 4.5 million copies. So what will Nintendo do?

It's time for Rounds 8, 9, 10, and 11 of the Splatoon Global Testfire! (For mention of Rounds 1–3 and my feedback on the testfires, look here. Round 4 mentioned here, while Rounds 5–7 teased here.) And according to Nintendo's press release, it's the same format, basic weapon choices, and limited basic maps as over a year ago. The game has changed a lot since then thanks to a steady stream of patches and updates, but it's back-to-basics to try to entice folks to join. They even made a trailer for it, deemed the “Splatoon Summer Splatdown!” There's something really interesting about it, too:

You Can Buy M Rated Games Digitally Underage on Nintendo, Plus Ace Attorney Sales and Demo!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Nintendo DOES listen, and now is your best time to buy into Ace Attorney.

You need to be aware of two concepts to understand how important this information is: 

1. Nintendo renovated their online (Internet, not from the eShop application) digital store relatively recently. 
2. KoopaTV waged a major initiative to get Nintendo to allow sub-17 year old 3DS eShop users to purchase M-rated games if their parents allowed it, to parallel brick & mortar purchases. Because of how Nintendo Network IDs and the eShop worked, this was impossible even with parental permission. This ultimately ended in a Nintendo representative more-or-less suggesting for younger users to call them and say they entered their birth year wrong when filling out their NNID, prompting the Nintendo customer service person to change the birth year to an older time.

That second point was always a temporary, awkward roundabout way, pending Nintendo making real change.

Well, as of point #1 happening, that real change happened. (KoopaTV made a real difference in the world, folks.) This was confirmed by Miiverse user and huge Ace Attorney fan Maddie, who is an under-17 years old fangirl who has been wanting to play Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Dual Destinies for several years now. Take a look:

Meet Team Skull in Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I already met them in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky.

We just talked about new Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon news ten days ago. ...So? It's not enough! More news dumps means more articles on those news dumps, and I'm happy to oblige because the November-bound Pokémon Sun/Moon are among the top three games KoopaTV is anticipating that'll be released in 2016. (The other two are Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Spirit of Justice in September, and Paper Mario: Color Splash in October.)

For a summary of the news dump, Nintendo of all companies put together a press release. And, naturally, we'll embed the video version of the release right here:

That thumbnail has a lot of action going on, so let's break it down. And by let's, I mean me.

Super Smash Bros. For Wii U Tournament in the Rio British House!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's an unofficial Olympic event in an official venue.

I'm pretty proud of Super Smash Bros. For Wii U. It's getting on one of the highest stages out there. The International eGames Group has worked out an agreement with the British House in Rio de Janeiro to have the Rio de Janeiro eGames Showcase 2016.

Here's an explanation of what that even is, from that hyperlink:

“The showcase will feature some of the leading eSports personalities in the world taking part in a showcase of SMITE and a full international Super Smash Bros. tournament.”

That's a MOBA (so who cares) and SUPER SMASH BROS.! It'll be taking place August 15 and August 16. According to the British House — the official housing arrangement for Team Great Britain — here's the itinerary for those days (I assume the times are Brazil time):

Judging the Father by the Actions of the Son?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Also, Mario shows up at a Hillary Clinton rally?

There has been discussion going on lately in contemporary life about the idea that you can judge a man by the actions of his son. It's the generational opposite of the saying, “the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.” Essentially, this discussion's logic is that if the kid (or, according to the saying, if the father) does something wrong, you take it out against his family. That's the kind of logic used by eugenicists and pro-abortion people.

Personally, I can tell you that you probably can't judge King Bowser Koopa by all of the many things I've written here. For example, I prefer pizzas over hamburgers, and planes over cars. The fact that there are differences between myself and my father, despite KoopaTV existing by my father's orders, means that you need to treat everyone as an individual. Individualism is a philosophy that threatens a lot of people, but it's the right one.

Speaking of whom individualism frightens, Mario Mario was recently spotted in a Hillary Clinton rally. He was easily spotted not only because very few people ever go to these things (why would you take time out of your day to listen to a shrill witch?) but because he was right next to her.

What was he doing there? I guess he didn't come straight back to the Mushroom Kingdom when we all left Rio. And, since it's a Hillary rally, it's okay for illegal immigrants (you think Mario has a visa or a passport? Nah. ...Neither do we Koopas, but we went to Texas post-Rio and we blended in with their illegals.) to be there.

He's also a major supporter of Hillary Clinton. Look, he's right there:

Iran Banned Pokémon GO

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I'm surprised that Pokémon GO was in Iran in the first place.

The Jerusalem Post (and the BBC, if you like Brits over Jews) is reporting that the Islamic Republic of Iran — recently notable for having a paralysed female archer be its flag-bearer in the Rio 2016 Opening Ceremony while neighbouring Iraq didn't have a single woman — has banned Pokémon GO. This comes from the “High Council of Virtual Spaces”, which is admittedly a pretty cool office name. They cite “security issues”, which is a very nice catch-all.

...Since I have the rest of this article to write and short-time readers know that I'm not going to spend the rest of it talking about Pokémon GO, the obvious thing for me to do is talk about Iran.

With regards to Iran's reasoning: Whose security? Could Pokémon GO players stumble upon Iran's nuclear facilities and discover that they really are developing nuclear weaponry, in spite of (or because of) the disastrous Iran nuclear deal, one of the worst deals in history? It's surely not the security of the citizens of Iran. It's not like the Iranian government gives a crud about that. 

There has been this long-standing and silly claim that Pokémon are anti-Islam. You can read about it from this decade-and-a-half-old article from ABC International which I'll be selectively pulling quotes from throughout the rest of this article. There's also information from this LA Times article written at the same time in early 2001.

KoopaTV's Live Reactions to Rio 2016's Opening Ceremony

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The Opening Ceremony SUCKED, but we have trouble deciding when to stop.

Well, this is the first live reaction log we've had where every KoopaTV staff member makes an appearance.

We're all free to watch the Rio 2016 Olympic Games because we are not participating in them. I'm Nintendork 13 13. Vortexica is breezinabout. Rawk is Rawk, Kamek is Ultralink1, and Wendy is toadpwns. This log is twice as long as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's E3 2016 log, which was our previously longest reaction log. Just a warning.

The first part of it is complaining about how terrible the American NBC is, while the British BBC is substantially better for Olympics coverage.

ALL IMAGES (22) ARE IN HERE. This is now complete.

To understand the reasons why a videogame site is covering the Rio 2016 Olympics, and this site in particular, look here and click and read all of the links.
 

Team Koopa Officially Backing Out Of the Rio 2016 Olympics

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's not because we're not good enough, but it is because there are presently epidemics on multiple levels.

Tomorow is the Opening Ceremony for the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics! This is an event we've been waiting for — almost a year now.

However, you will not see any Koopas present in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro tomorrow, or any other time this month.

I am officially announcing on behalf of Team Koopa — Koopa Kingdom's delegation for the Rio 2016 Olympics — that Team Koopa will not be participating in this year's Olympics. King Bowser Koopa, Bowser Jr., Larry Koopa, and Wendy O. Koopa will be leaving Rio after their June training.

King Dad is pondering why he ever thought this was a good idea to begin with.

Rio has not treated us well. I wrote a completely true and accurate story about it, published in six parts, titled How Team Koopa Escaped Rio. You can read it here, and if you haven't read it yet, you should. It's eye-opening on what Rio de Janeiro is like, and how the Koopas were treated. (And it's good prose.) 

Rio has also not treated its own jurisdiction or its own people well. Rio de Janeiro is essentially a failed state, and Koopa Kingdom sees no point in meddling with that. There would actually be negative value added to Koopa Kingdom were we to conquer Rio de Janeiro — or any part of Brazil, for that matter. 

We also expect the other teams from our walk of life — such as Team Mario and Team Sonic — to back out of the Olympics as well.

Allow me to go into greater detail about the problems going on there since my last article on it where I announced I would not be attending. 

Fighting Game Self-Improvement

By SACREDG - Why Fighting Video Games Are Fantastic For Self-Improvement.

Fighting games are always a great yet tough genre to fully enjoy. Every once in a while, it’s great to boot up Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, or Super Smash Bros. and enjoy the chaos of everyone trying to figure out how to play. Yet, delving deep into the mechanics of fighting games is such an intimidating process for a new player that they would rather play something else. There’s so many rewards to fighting games that I insist that you take another look at them.

Fighting games are a great example of the “Practice makes perfect” metaphor. When it comes to self-improvement, you need to put in the work. The more time you put in, the better you get at the game. I know that’s true of almost any game, but with fighting games, your skills will absolutely show. Just think of the time you completely annihilated one of your friends in Smash Bros. or maybe one of your friends destroyed you. In my own experience, back when Melee was first released, my cousin would wreck me every match with his Sheik. As a frustrated Fox/Link player, I desperately wanted to get my revenge.

KoopaTV's July 2016 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The month of conventions.

I'm debating whether or not I should apologise to the readers at home (and abroad!) because of KoopaTV's staff being totally distracted by the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention for the second half of July, and having little to show for it in content.

The last two weeks weren't a total loss, as you'll see in... THE TOP FIVE RECOMMENDED ARTICLES OF JULY 2016! Yippee!

Top Five Recommended Articles of July 2016

In chronological order, mind you:

1. Toxic "No Music" Philosophies
2. Hillary Clinton: The Dark Age of the Law
3. Famous Dead People Privilege
4. The Final Splatfest: Callie vs. Marie
5. Why Koops Is a Loser

Normally I'd say everything on the site is worth reading, but in July there was one article in particular that broke the trend. KoopaTV's staff didn't write it. That's all I'm going to say, 'cause that's enough for you to know what I'm talking about.

...Moving on now.

Pokémon Sun and Moon: Alola Forms, New Pokémon, Trials, Z-Moves, Riding!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Things are very different in Alola than the other Pokémon regions. That's a good thing.

This isn't just a little news release — no, today The Pokémon Company International released the news of Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon in a five and a quarter minute trailer with multiple sections of their website updated. There's so much, that this article is going to need headings to deal with it.

First, though, we need to obligatorily embed today's trailer:

Let's go in the order our article's title goes.

Alola Forms

Today, we've seen five Alolan forms of previously discovered Pokémon: Sandshrew, Sandslash, Vulpix, Ninetales, and Exeggutor. The official website explains it this way: