It Would Be SCARY To Have Hillary Clinton Be President

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Did anyone dress up as Hillary for Halloween, or is that redundant with dressing up as a witch?

Today was one of the worst days of the year, Halloween. Yippee. Everyone is celebrating the scary & spooky. But I think that we should avoid that kind of thing, not champion it. Keep it under the bed... and out of the White House.

What makes Hillary Clinton such a scary proposition? Besides being wrong on just about every policy front, she's particularly wrong about foreign policy. And, in terms of changing the hearts and minds of Hillary supporters (though, many are just doing it because “FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT OMG!”), I think the best point to use is that foreign policy. 

Particularly the certainty that she will be the catalyst for World War III.

Make Super Mario Run As Popular As Pokémon GO As Children Die

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Will nothing stop Nintendo's money-hungry venture into the corrupt world of smartphone gaming?

Today on GameSpot, these two headlines were pretty much put next to one another on their news feed:

Truck Driver Playing Pokemon Go Kills Young Boy in Japan 
Nintendo's Trying to Make Super Mario Run as Popular as Pokemon Go 

As bothered as I am by GameSpot authors Chris Pereira and Mat Paget not putting the accent in Pokémon, I figured this article pretty much writes itself, and I could use something that writes itself as I have to publish something late Friday night.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima (finally, after a year, I can remember how to spell his name without looking) said that Shigeru Miyamoto's team is working hard to make Super Mario Run as popular as Pokémon GO is. To my delight, Pokémon GO is rapidly declining in popularity, but it's still the most downloaded game of the time period, and the fastest revenue-generating mobile game in history. I suppose that's a desirable goal for Super Mario Run if you're Nintendo.

Popularity comes at a cost, however... including the cost of human life.

Discover the Final Evolutions of the Starter Pokémon in Pokémon Sun and Moon!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Not only do we get the starters, but Tapu Koko's friends.

You know, Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon come out in just three weeks, so pretty soon we won't have these weekly news updates for you.

On the bright side, you can play the actual game. We have known the first forms of the starters for a while, and recently we learned the middle forms of the starters. At last, we can finally learn the final forms of the starters. Now that you've got all the information you want, and you can make an informed decision.

...Well, as long as you watch this trailer put out today by The Pokémon Company International.

I can say with confidence that I am still on Team Rowlet.

Capture the Confederate Flag Strategy Guide Part 1: The Basics

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Game mechanics and a little strategy.

It has been almost a year since KoopaTV's 2015 PC game, Capture the Confederate Flag, came out, which you can play here for free. It is a game with a lot of depth to it and a lot of player freedom, which is unlike the previous two games for KoopaTV we've produced.

As a result of its relative complexity, I think it's deserving of a strategy guide detailing all of that. We're going to start with THE BASICS here, including what the objective is, along with controls and mechanics. This series will continue after this part, and this part gets more spoiler-y as time goes on.

Here is Part 2 of the Capture the Confederate Flag Strategy Guide, featuring a tour through the states, and the Secret Power move that goes with them.

If you haven't played the game yet, you probably really should get around to doing that. Not sure what you're waiting for.
 

Stupid Gaming Journalists Confirm Nintendo Switch's Lack of Physical Backwards Compatibility

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Is it a question of negative coverage, or desperately trying to have any coverage?

We are less than a week after having watched and analysed the first-look trailer for Nintendo's new system, the Nintendo Switch, which is coming out March 2017. That's only five months away, folks. While some people believe that's a looooooong time away, I look back at five months ago and see that's when we annexed Alberta and had our three-year anniversary. I mean, for me, it feels like that JUST happened.

It turns out that Nintendo apparently does not plan to publicly announce any more relevant details pertaining to the Nintendo Switch until 2017. Oh no! What ever will a Nintendo-focused website do to pass the time until then, especially with the game lineup for Nintendo's current systems for the rest of the year basically depleted? (With the exception of Pokémon.)

Why, they'll run stupid headlines like this one from IGN: Nintendo Switch Not Backwards Compatible With Physical 3DS or Wii U Games.

Vortexica's "The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses - Master Quest" Experience

By VORTEXICA - TL;DR: It's good. Go see it if you get the chance.

In a previous article, I talked about how important music is to the Legend of Zelda series, and mentioned that it even has its own concert tour known as Symphony of the Goddesses. Well, talking about all that in such detail put me in exactly the right mood for a big ol' Zelda gaming binge. So much so in fact that I also went right out (13 days later...) and snapped up a ticket for my closest performance.
 

Enter 'HeyListen' at checkout to get 10% off UK @ZeldaSymphony tickets! #Zelda https://t.co/dZaCLxOBrF pic.twitter.com/hUM1P6diVP

— Nintendo UK (@NintendoUK) August 17, 2016

If I'd waited a bit longer, I could've saved some cash too! Stupid fairy...

Anyway, a few days ago was the date in question. Let me tell you all about it...

The Power of Science is Staggering! Incredible! Amazing!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Technological advancements (as documented by Pokémon) and our favourite games.

When it comes to the videogame that I think really got me into gaming, I am inclined to say it was Pokémon Blue. Readers would recall almost 500 articles ago that I started gaming on the Nintendo Entertainment System with a Super Mario Bros. bundle. However, me starting to be a gamer and me being hooked into this for life (at least, so far) are two different times. So, Pokémon Blue, despite me giving it and its diehard fans (the Genwunners) a really tough time nowadays, was still an amazing experience at the time. I believe it was my first roleplaying game, and I also believe that the whole RPG genre, as complicated as RPGs are to define, is much more immersive for me and more demonstrative of what gaming is all about compared to platformers.

As a result, I got into a lot more games because of Pokémon Blue, and spent considerable time invested in the franchise then. I got the trading cards, watched the anime, bought the Pokémon Master Trainer board game, and discussed it openly with the locals. My Nintendo NSider Forums screen-name, ANTIROCKETCLOUDY, is a result from LARPing Pokémon. (I'm not gonna go into that further unless requested, 'cause I have an article to write.)

Nowadays, while my fascination with Pokémon is still strong as ever (that's why we've been writing about it, oh, I dunno, every week or two on KoopaTV for months now?), I've put Pokémon Blue behind. I even voted Super Mario Bros. 3 over it in a hypothetical GameFAQs Best. Game. Ever. 2015 bracket, though now I'm not really sure why I did. Pokémon Blue is just so technologically backwards in every area possible, and future games in the franchise have improved so much that Pokémon Blue is pretty much unplayable today. It's that much of a difference, and I'm not blinded by nostalgia that I can't see that.

It appears that Game Freak recognises the steady progress of technology with the Pokémon franchise, which is why they always have the fat guy at the beginning of almost every main series RPG talking about the latest in Pokémon series technology. I've compiled a list of his quotes below in chronological/generational order, because I think documenting this progress is important. Updated as of 2022:

The Grand Reveal of the Nintendo Switch (Formerly NX)

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I... really am at a loss for words on this.

This may be the most pressing and relevant embedded-YouTube-video-then-react article in the past quarter for KoopaTV! For many months, people have incessantly been demanding news from Nintendo about the Nintendo NX, demeaning any other announcement from the company as irrelevant. 

Personally, I'm still satisfied by my 3DS and Wii U, so I never understood why people got so worked up over the lack of official NX news.

Well, WAIT NO LONGER. Nintendo has finally announced the identity of the Nintendo NX, now called the Nintendo Switch! Here is the official press release, and here is their OFFICIAL DEBUT TRAILER:

(I recommend reading the press release first, or you'll be like me and have no idea what the hell is going on.)

Now that I've watched the trailer, read the press release, and then watched the trailer again while making notes, here are my official first impressions about the Nintendo Switch! 

KoopaTV Judges the LAST Trump vs. Hillary Presidential Debate

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - And by last, I mean “third.”

We thought Donald Trump did awesome in the previous presidential debate between him and Hillary Clinton, but his poll numbers are perilous anyway. That's a direct result of the mainstream media focusing on absolute garbage and falsehoods about Donald Trump, instead of focusing on the actual issues that matter. (And on those issues, Hillary loses every time.) If they were at least unbiased and still garbage, they'd give equal time to Hillary and the Democrat Party's criminal/ethical issues, but they're not. They're totally biased and rigging everything.

...And we've been too focused on talking about videogames to give you a play-by-play of the news you'd miss if you only got your news from the mainstream media. That's why we tell you to look at certain other websites!

Anyway. Final debate. October 19, from 9 PM to 10:30 PM, between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. For the first time ever in a general election presidential debate, someone from Fox News (Chris Wallace) will be moderating. This suggests a possibility that the debate might actually be one-vs-one (Hillary vs. Trump) instead of two-vs-one like the first debate, or three-vs-one for the previous, second debate. And she NEEDS that extra help from the media to win anything, as Donald Trump so eloquently expressed it:

(Hillary joins Marco Rubio on the Trump list of people who couldn't get elected dogcatcher.)

Tonight is the last opportunity for the billionaire to squeeze pocket money (up to $25) from this site's webmaster! Does he need it? No. But it's part of KoopaTV's scoring system for the debates. (See the previous debate articles for an explanation.)

And now, for the debate reactions: 

Playing the Pokémon Sun and Moon Special Demo Version!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Little did I know the part before the page break would be the best part of the experience.

Remember when I was groaning about the Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon SPECIAL DEMO that was announced two weeks ago, that nonsensically will feature Ash-Greninja? Well, that future-tense is now present-tense, and that Special Demo Version is now released! According to Nintendo's official website (where you can download the Special Demo Version, along with the Nintendo eShop on your Nintendo 3DS), it gets its own set of italics as a full-fledged, separate product.

Well, I'm downloading it now. It's 3058 blocks (apparently about 382 MB, if you care), and free, of course. The icon is this cool-looking Poké Ball that has its top part split between red and blue. It took me only 5 minutes to download!

Super-cool Pokémon Sun & Moon Special Demo Version icon on my
super-cool, FREE Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Spirit of Justice
3DS Home menu theme for downloading the Apollo Justice: Asinine Attorney DLC.

You not only can transfer Ash-Greninja to your full copy of Pokémon Sun or Pokémon Moon, but also other stuff, when you buy it when it comes out in a month. What kind of stuff? Well, I'll find out when I play the demo! Which I'll start doing right now, and the rest of this article will be my reactions to it.

No Nostalgia For Fifth Generation 3D Polygons

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - And there shouldn't be.

For decades, Nintendo gamers have always declared their belief in “gameplay over graphics.” That said, before the Wii, Nintendo console systems were always ahead of, or met the graphical standards of, gaming consoles of the day. But if you go back another decade before the Wii, you were in the fifth generation of consoles: The 32-bit/64-bit era of the mid-1990s and on. This was when consoles were just starting to enter 3D graphics, slowly leaving behind the 2D stylised sprites of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. This was when consoles were boasting so-called realism in graphics. 

As anyone who was around back then knows, the first 3D games were far from realistic-looking, not to mention they had terrible cameras. They were a blocky, polygonal mess, filled with penguin hands. There's a reason when a guest poster wrote a review on Metal Gear Solid (the original one on PlayStation 1), he didn't mention anything about the graphics. Because they look like this:

I admit that not having facial features helps your stealth out.

That's why so many characters back then had gloves incorporated into their character designs. It makes character modelers’ jobs a lot easier when working with hardware that can't render individual fingers.

So, take this thought experiment: Indie developers love to have their games in 8-bit or 16-bit styles. Could an indie game possibly sell well if they purposefully go for 32-bit or 64-bit graphics? Did you think about it? Want to know my answer?

Meet Silvally, Tsareena, and Others in Pokémon Sun & Moon!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Going back to a 10-year old debate, and looking ahead to a new beauty.

It's been a whole week since the last article on Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon, when the evolutions of the Alola Starter Pokémon were revealed. You know the game comes out in a month, right? It's the last unreleased game of the year that KoopaTV has dedicated a lot of focus on, so yeah, you should expect that we pay attention to it.

Meanwhile, I expect that YOU will pay attention to this trailer released today by The Pokémon Company International.
 

All of the new names to learn: Silvally, Hakamo-o, Kommo-o, Steenee, Tsareena, Ribombee, Alolan Grimer, Alolan Muk, Olivia, and Ilima.

So, what have we learned about Silvally? 

You Need Things For Color Splash Boss Battles

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's unfortunate.

While almost everything else in our post-E3 analysis and defence of Paper Mario: Color Splash's right to exist and be liked came true, this has not: 

“See the screenshot above? There is a Fan card at the very left, a bit off-screen. At the right, there is another Fan card — a replica. We know nothing about replica Thing cards besides the above screenshot, but it proves that you can have more than one Thing card in your inventory at once. Whether replicas are exact copies or are weaker remains to be seen, but this already seems to solve a problem, does it not?

All the Intelligent Systems team needs to do is make the overworld puzzles not totally weird that you have to look up the solution to figure out the team's logic. Also, make boss battles either possible without needing to use Things, or make them not a total pushover if you do use them. That's a balancing issue, though. Not a fundamental game design issue.
At least, in the Treehouse Live segment they actually said, ‘this game does a great job of equipping you with the tools you need, and you need to instead of blindly charging into battle, think about what you have in your arsenal.’ The double usage of the “need” may turn people off, but pros should consider it a challenge. After all, if Paper Mario: Sticker Star didn't ‘need’ characters or story, does Paper Mario: Color Splash ‘need’ Thing cards to win boss battles?”

Okay, PARTS of that are very true. The game DOES do a good job making sure you know you have the right thing. There is a dedicated, unique Toad in Prism Plaza just for that purpose, and a Toad right next to him to make sure you can acquire that Thing by buying it with your overflowing amount of coins. This also makes the whole guessing-the-game's-logic point null, since, at least so far, it's pretty obvious what you need to do.

So, the wrong part? Well, the article's title should tell you, and I'll go into detail. Keep in mind my experience is solely up to obtaining the Big Red Paint Star. So... things could change, and hopefully they do. 

Announcing and Launching KoopaTV Adventures!

By VORTEXICA - Watch the first episode here!

We've had lots of quality video material coming out lately to complement our articles, but now Rawk's not the only one making new audio-visual content for KoopaTV. Brought to you by Tea Storm Studios (that's me), on a budget of about 50p, the debut episode of an all-new photo comic video series: KoopaTV Adventures!

Fiction Can Influence so Please Stop Overshadowing Girafarig (Also Pictures From My Vacation)!

By SHINYGIRAFARIG - You can see how much I am obsessed about giraffes here.

Last month on September 14, 2016, I traveled from New York City to San Francisco, California, for a babymoon with my husband. So why have I chosen California as a place for a vacation? Well, let's just say that I was influenced by Splatoon and their adorable interpretation of squids. I wanted to see live ones up close, but the problem is that there are barely any aquariums that have them. An aquarium I contacted said they have a very short lifespan so it is considered not worth it to have them. I also read somewhere that they are very high maintenance — so a combination of short lifespan and high maintenance means aquariums do not want to devote their funding for them. I did land on one of the few aquariums in the U.S. that has them, the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

If you clicked that, we can see that three of the cephalopods on that list are squids. But, if you click on the “Common Market Squid” or Hawaiian Bobtail Squid button, it says on their pages they are not on display. Only the bigfin reef squid says it is on the exhibit called “Tentacles.” If you click on that link then you get to this:

KoopaTV Judges the Second Trump vs. Hillary Presidential Debate

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Donald Trump and Crooked Hillary fight once more.

Last night, October 9, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump sparred off once more in the second presidential debate between the two. This is a so-called Town Hall, with actual undecided voters in St. Louis asking questions, channeled by the moderators who know everything in advance. If you're still undecided, there's something wrong with you — and that's why all of the undecided voters looked like total misfits.

I just finished beating Case 5 (the last non-DLC case) of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Spirit of Justice right before this debate has started. Despite Donald Trump's incredible struggles and adversity this weekend, KoopaTV still steadfastly is behind Donald Trump. Just like Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice, and Athena Cykes believe in their clients to the very end in the pursuit of the truth, KoopaTV believes in the Donald J. Trump vision. He, and only he, is the candidate of truth and levity.

We have no other choice, folks.

Of course, BEFORE this weekend, Ludwig actually went and donated the money he's pledged to Donald Trump's campaign after the first presidential debate and the vice-presidential debate.

We're not going to double the donation, though.

And by the end of this article, you'll see how much MORE money Ludwig is pledging to the Trump campaign.

Paper Mario: Color Splash's Release!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Buy Paper Mario: Color Splash, and join the bucket of deplorables!

We have been writing at least one article about Paper Mario: Color Splash every week for, like, months now. The game is finally out today, October 7. I picked up a physical copy today (after wisely pre-paying for it online October 6), and Rawk downloaded a copy off of the Nintendo eShop. We're both having Miiverse adventures with it.

“The future of the series is bright!
...Oh, wait... Well, I'm in this game, ready to cause chaos!”

We have similar immediate impressions. We're really upset that there is only one save file per NNID, and the process of selecting and using Battle Cards is pretty clunky. However, the dialogue and writing is consistently amazing, with gems in every conversation. The in-game instruction manual (which can't be shared to Miiverse) even has great writing... and it has MUSIC, too. It's the kind of instruction manual, in terms of design and irreverent content, that hearkens back to the physical quality instruction manuals of old. Huge fan of that.

“Someone check on Shinzo Abe.”

Assuming we can accurately extrapolate this trend of excellent writing, great graphics, great music, and mediocre gameplay for the rest of the game (...that's a dangerous extrapolation to make, but just for the sake of discussion), that's certainly more than enough to have this be the best Wii U game of 2016. There's not much competition there, but it's true. As long as Paper Mario: Color Splash isn't trying to be a movie, that combination is still appealing to us KoopaTV staffers.

When the back of the boxart claims that “Basic reading ability is needed to fully enjoy this game.” they really mean
that basic reading ability is required to enjoy the game. But hey, it's enjoyable.

 

You could argue that Rawk's and Ludwig's perspectives on what makes a game good are deplorable in the comments section, but either way, you should still buy Paper Mario: Color Splash. If you can get it for less than $60, that's even better.


To know what that Shinzō Abe reference in Rawk's Miiverse post is referencing, click here.
Click here for a full review of Paper Mario: Color Splash!

Mid-Evolutions of the Starters in Pokémon Sun and Moon!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - PLUS, massively multiplayer online-esque quests.

I understand I'm late here, but Tuesday and Wednesday had really important articles I had to get out first before I could talk about this significant bit of Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon information. If you haven't already seen it (and I had not seen it before tonight) then you're in a pretty small club, since the video has over three and a half million views on YouTube. ...Actually, that's in-line with the other video releases The Pokémon Company International has done, so whatever. I'm redundant. Just covering my bases. Embed, go:

You haven't forgotten Rowlet, Litten, and Popplio, right? Good, because now they have evolved one time each. While not every KoopaTV staff member who originally took sides on their favourite Alola starter is available to comment (in fact, none of them besides me are available as of writing this paragraph), I'll speak for myself.

I still want Rowlet. Badly. Believe me. And Dartrix strengthens my starter Pokémon decision. He's a significant improvement over the disaster that was Quilladin.

Dartrix, the evolution of Rowlet, easily looks like he could be in Animal Crossing. That's good!

Dartrix has a personality I can identify with, as well:

Paper Mario: Color Splash — Episode 7: Final Episode!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Swear Upon the Orange Sun Rescue V Will Never Die!

I hope, on a net-basis, you all enjoyed KoopaTV's coverage of Nintendo's Paper Mario: Color Splash Rescue V web series. It was nice to see, across a period of a couple of months, people slowly reaching the same conclusions that we did about Paper Mario: Color Splash after E3. And we caught a lot of heat for that across the Internet. As usual, however, KoopaTV is on the right side of history.

But that's the kind of language I should save for KoopaTV's review of Paper Mario: Color Splash. We must discuss the final episode of the Rescue V series, called Final Episode. It features the Chief Toad!

KoopaTV Judges the Pence vs. Kaine Vice-Presidential Debate

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Or, as Herman Cain would put it, Pence vs. K-A-I-N-E.

Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton looked pretty undesirable in the previous & first presidential debate. So, maybe the guy who will probably run the show for Trump (Mike Pence) and/or the guy who no one knows who he is (Tim Kaine) will be better than their respective top of the ticket?

Tim Kaine is a Senator from Virginia, and was also the governor of Virginia. He continues the trend of this presidential election cycle producing former governors of Virginia that no one knows about, the first being KoopaTV-favourite Jim Gilmore. Vortex was pretty amused when I asked him what it feels like to be the only person in Great Britain to even know who Jim Gilmore is, so I think with this vice presidential nomination, Tim Kaine is at least above that. He seems like a generic white guy. (Tim and Jim, hm...)

Meanwhile, Mike Pence is a movement conservative, and that includes some of the bad stuff that legislating social conservatism brings. He's otherwise solid, but that is a big hurdle. Unlike Trump, Mike Pence's personality is best described as “boring”, and could also be described as a generic white guy.

As established in the first debate back in September, some donor money from Ludwig is on the line for the debate performances tonight! The grading system will show up at the end of this article, and someone's going to get some money eventually. (Ludwig withheld the $11 he owes the Trump campaign until a better time. Perhaps now will be that time?) Without further ado, the judgment:

KoopaTV's September 2016 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It turns out September was more than mere filler articles!

Well, we're in October now... Getting close to the new year... and a really important event next month... Yup... Erm, right. Gotta review September.

I'm sure you all want to see the standings for Round 10 of the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program, so here they are as of publishing:

1. Kody B. — 56 points
2. ShinyGirafarig — 54 points
3. Samantha Lienhard — 49 points
4. Nandin Lopez — 10 points
5. Charssie God — 9 points
6. Harman Smith — 6 points

You know, if you want to be in that top half of point-earners — and remember for this month that the person who ends October in first place wins a $10 Nintendo eShop code — study the how-to-win-points section of the article explaining everything you need to know about the program. Keep in mind that you get rewarded for partaking in all of the features this site has to offer! Yup, it's on purpose that everything is tied together this way.

Oh, and that points section? I just totally redid it into an embedded Google Sheets sheet. It's now set up as a table, and should be much easier to comprehend, not that anyone reported difficulties before. I plan to buff some of the activities' point-providing opportunities, such as editing KoopaTV's TV Tropes pages and referring people over, starting in Round... 11. I don't want to just change up the rules mid-round, after all.

Meanwhile, here are our top five recommended articles of September 2016, in chronological order:

1. KoopaTV Endorses Donald J. Trump for President of the United States of America
2. Kamek and Iggy Koopa in Paper Mario: Color Splash 
3. Paper Mario: Color Splash Trailer - The Morton Unfolds
4. Chrom Got Ousted From NSider2 
5. Palmer Luckey and the Left's Intolerance

You can look at September and just think it's all KoopaTV doing a certain company's marketing for them, but hey, it was a tough choice to make to pick what goes here. Even now I'm unsure. It goes to show every article is worth reading.

...Anyway, we're going to have a very exciting set of content for you this October. Ooh, and then November... It'll all be so amazing.


Do your friends a favour and share that amazing-ness that is KoopaTV to all of them. That makes everyone happier.


For last month's review newsletter, August 2016, click here.
For next month's October 2016 newsletter, click here. Those proposed buffs happened.
For last year's September 2015 review newsletter, click here.
For next year's September 2017 review newsletter, click here.