KoopaTV's 2017 GOTY Awards!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Game of THAT Year 2017... and other categories.

Welcome one and all, to the fitting conclusion to one of the best years in gaming. It was also one of the best years in KoopaTV. We get to talk about what's best for both gaming and KoopaTV (sometimes, those CONVERGE!) in this article!

Quite frankly, I'll be happy just to get this over with, since it's been nothing but arguing all weekend. Very intense stuff behind-the-scenes, believe me.

Follow along with all the items that were nominated by checking out KoopaTV's 2017 GOTY Nominations. We have a policy not to disclose which staffer voted for which game.

Videogame-related Awards for 2017

Best PC Game

The winner of Best PC Game of 2017 is none other than... Soviet Missile Run!

What else would it be? This portrayal of an amazing historical event in the Soviet Union came in at the end of 2017, but damn if it wasn't the best PC game of the year. Amazing stylistic graphics, addictive and variant gameplay that takes advantage of its central game mechanic, awesome voice-acting...

...The fact that you can play it for free right on KoopaTV makes it all the better.

Best 3DS Game

So...We voted for Team Kirby Clash Deluxe for the Best 3DS Game of 2017. Yeah. A free-to-play boss rush won. I mean, the 3DS doesn't have that much going for it anymore, right? The other competitors were all remakes.

I went REALLY in-depth with Team Kirby Clash Deluxe and got really enthusiastic about it mid-year. I want to note that Team Kirby Clash Deluxe's deceptive marketing does it a disservice, since it's unexpectedly solid. (This is in contrast to another game I'll mention later in this write-up.)

That score is with no potions used, folks.
(I wish my score was a perfect palindrome, but I've definitely hit a limit on how many more points I can squeeze out.)

If an actual, new Kirby game got released in 2017 and was nominated, it probably wouldn't have actually won. That's a bit...sad. Still, Team Kirby Clash Deluxe proves that less can be more: it's a free-to-play game done ethically, and it distills the fun of Kirby combat to its essence. Oh, and with great music. It's not new (hence it doesn't get to be in Best OST)... in fact, not much about this game is really new. ...But at least it never tried to claim it was new, either. (Looking at you, Pokémon.)

Best Wii U Game

This wasn't close. As one of the only games that even came out on the Wii U in 2017, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild clinched it. Still, a bit sad that MOTHER 3 could only offer token resistance.

Next year, this category won't be here.

Best Nintendo Switch Game

After sailing through the best Wii U game category, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild also wins Best Nintendo Switch Game of 2017.

This category was MUCH more contentious, with every staff member voting for a different game, resulting in a tie with the games having 1 vote each. (...Yes, even ARMS, because one staff member, I won't name him or her, is a troll.) With Game of THAT Year in the balance, we picked the game that wouldn't result in us having the same debate for that ultimate category, which means picking a game that already won a category — The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild won because it's a spectacular game with a top-notch physics system that gives the player a ton of options and rewards you for creativity. The game means something different for everyone who has played it, and few games can truly say that. It's a once-a-lifecycle game. While we disagree about whether or not open-world should be THE FUTURE of The Legend of Zelda, it would be downright dumb to pretend the game isn't incredible.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild GLOWS with attention-to-detail and polish!

Best New Character

This was a fiercely debated category, which each staffer having their own favourite character. After some claw-twisting, we have settled on awarding Hariet from Super Mario Odyssey the Best New Character of 2017 award!

She's pretty much perfect, from her design, to her work ethic, to her oh-so-heavenly laughter. I am a big fan of her hatred of Mario and Cappy.

I can watch/listen to the above video over 100 times. I think Hariet has an incredibly attractive personality. Her only flaw is that it took us a long time to figure out how to spell her name. It's officially Hariet, though we guessed Harriet, Hariett, Hairiet, and some others. Here's my source for how it's Hariet:

Hariet's official biography on a travel guide, which describes her winning personality. We share a love of arson.

I don't even like weddings, but I'd be willing to have one with Hariet...

...Erm... Let's move on to the next category.

Best OST

We haven't publicly discussed it at all, but privately we've had a certain someone been telling us that Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has one of the best soundtracks ever made. So we voted for it.

This could've been won by someone else, but some of the other contestants have Toxic “No Music Philosophies” that cripple their chance of winning.

Besides, there is something inherently appealing about the 3/4 time signature.

Game of THAT Year

In case you had trouble keeping count, the candidates we get to choose from for Game of THAT Year 2017 are all of the games that have won an award so far, which are Soviet Missile Run, Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, and Xenoblade Chronicles 2. That's a very strong line-up, and is a rebuke to the conclusion made in the GameFAQs Best Year in Gaming contest that gaming's glory days were 20 years ago.

Ultimately, the game that leads that is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, so the staff decided to give that the Game of THAT Year 2017 award. It'll still be remembered as a big behemoth of a game for many years to come.

KoopaTV-related awards for 2017

Best Communications Platform

Discord won overwhelmingly. I think everyone voted for it to send a message to me to stop being a regressive jerk and embrace change.

The benefits of us switching from AIM to Discord really show. We probably wouldn't have even had full staff participation in the 2017 GOTY awards if we weren't using Discord!

By the way, in terms of how it benefits KoopaTV, social media SUCKED in 2017. Part of that is because we're awful at social media and don't do outreach with it like we should, and perhaps part of it is that KoopaTV's anti-clickbait and in-depth nature makes us not “shareable.”

If you think that's unfortunate, well, we've had an open spot for social media manager ever since our old one disappeared and joined ISIS.

Best KoopaTV Guest Article Contributor

We have awarded Best KoopaTV Guest Article Contributor to Little Fruini! (Otherwise known as Nandin Lopez, in case anyone was confused about that.) He wrote two articles published in 2017:
Console Launch? On a School Day? It’s More Likely Than You Think!, as well as It’s time to boycott KoopaTV, and join the Odyssey!. While I don't personally approve of that second headline (I can only speak for myself, but I don't think any of the staff should approve of a boycott on our own site), it is clear that Little Fruini does his research on KoopaTV prior to writing an article for KoopaTV. He adheres to our established narratives and themes, and adds to them while delivering value for the readers and even us, which is what we ask for when we want guest posts!

While this didn't affect our decision, we can also tell you that there will be at least one more guest article from him to be published in early 2018, and we hope there'll be more!

Most Humourous KoopaTV Article

Your best laugh for 2017 can be found in none other than Look to Mario and Cappy to Solve The MICHAEL JACKSON MYSTERY!. The article is a masterpiece, from its rare (for KoopaTV) use of .gifs (perfectly coordinated ones), to its spectacularly coordinated imagery, to its very concept that is not only spot-on, but weeks ahead of where you could get anywhere else. Whether you're a Michael Jackson fan, a Mario fan (the hell is wrong with you?), or you love a good conspiracy theory (is it a conspiracy theory if it's accurate?), this article delivered. This article is KoopaTV at its best, and a fine piece of content to advance the ideals of the Enlightenment Movement.

Best KoopaTV Reaction Log

Congratulations to KoopaTV's Nintendo Spotlight E3 2017 Live Reactions! + Super Mario Odyssey Treehouse Live! It may look like any ordinary Nintendo E3 2017 log for half of it, but when the Super Mario Odyssey part kicks in... WOW. This is our first ever impression of “Jump Up, Super Star!” and this Rawk, Ludwig, and Vortex-joined reaction log had us constantly in amazement.

Nintendo did a much better job showcasing Super Mario Odyssey (masterful) than the end-result (great). The marketing was stronger than the game ended up being, which I should probably talk about in its own dedicated article. Anyway, as for this reaction log, it is reminiscent of last year's Best KoopaTV Reaction Log winner, for Paper Mario: Color Splash. That's a really good thing. This was the log that put an end to the Alex Hunter reoccurring references that made up E3 2017 up to that point, and Super Mario Odyssey was front and centre for the rest of E3... and really, for the rest of the site's editorial direction up to recently.

Regrettably, this log failed at ascertaining Hariet's name's spelling.

Best KoopaTV Artistic Corner Contribution

As much as we love our other Artistic Corner entries, Vortexica's (and Tea Storm Studios) special episode for KoopaTV Adventures, showcased here, was objectively the best entry for 2017: New Donk, New Donk: A KoopaTV Adventures Special. If you haven't watched it yet, do so, dammit. Then read the aftermath here.

We're looking forward to KoopaTV Adventures Episode 2! (Episode 1 won Best KoopaTV Artistic Corner Contribution of 2016, so as long as at least one episode appears a year, do they have a lock on this category?)

Best KoopaTV Article Series

In what I think is a plot twist, the staff strongly supported KoopaTV's 2017 solar eclipse coverage as the best KoopaTV article series of 2017. It's really unlike any other article series we've done in that all of the entries happened consecutively, were all written by different authors, and they all covered one topic very differently. Allow me to elaborate:

1. Eclipse 2017—In The Path of Totality! — the first article in the series, which took a very hard news approach to the eclipse with tons of pictures taking you through the moment. This laid the groundwork so everyone knew exactly what the event was in literal terms. This was written by guest author Vanessa Tsukino.
2. Go 🌒 Yourself, Fake News! — the second article in the series, also notable for being the first and only article in KoopaTV history to have an emoji in the title (didn't even know that was possible). This article took a more political slant towards the solar eclipse, discussing how the FAKE NEWS media was making up crap about how long President Donald John Trump was looking at the sun. This was written by RawkHawk2010.
3. Why Is Angry Sun So Angry? Total Solar Eclipse! — the third article in the series. This one ties the solar eclipse into videogames (KoopaTV's nominal purpose in life), and specifically how the eclipse affected the development of the Sun as a character, the one shining over the author's head. It follows the Sun's development from Baby Sun, to Happy Sun, to Sad Sun... to the Angry Sun. Finally, we hypothesise the Sun will then turn into a Black Dwarf, causing doom for us all. Thanks, solar eclipse. This was written by Ludwig Von Koopa.

Usually, when KoopaTV has a series of articles (like all the other nominated ones), they're stretched out over time and cover multiple but related events, usually covered in the same way. The 2017 solar eclipse series really shows KoopaTV's versatility in how we can approach any given event, and this microcosm really impressed our own staff members, looking back on the year.

Best KoopaTV Article

This was the last category to be decided, and not just because it's the last one on the page. With a site overflowing with bloody amazing content like KoopaTV's, we know that picking the BEST article of the year is an extremely consequential decision, made all the harder that we have personal stakes in these articles since we made them.

After many hours of debate, we have awarded Best KoopaTV Article of 2017 to CNN is MIFFED at a Donald Trump GIF! for its outstanding coverage of that incident where CNN blackmailed a fan of President Donald John Trump for creating an anti-CNN .gif. KoopaTV lead the charge (and still does, with our semi-regular anti-CNN content made well after the incident) in what is called the CNN Meme War. Not only did we make a .gif of our own, but also other images with high production values portraying President Donald John Trump as the defender of truth and levity (KoopaTV's values) against the FAKE NEWS outlet CNN.

But we were also very fair & balanced in our coverage, not allowing FAKE NEWS from the other side get away with polluting the public discourse.

The article also does a good job with giving KoopaTV's own philosophies of the world while tying it in to the current event. Remember what I wrote in this article for the solar eclipse being KoopaTV's best series of 2017, with each of the three articles representing a different KoopaTV function? That was echoed in the CNN article, which I will excerpt here:

“It's not the duty of a news organisation to create the news. News organisations are supposed to report the news accurately and honestly. Then, opinion organisations like KoopaTV can use that sturdy base for telling people what to think, and entertainment organisations like KoopaTV can use that sturdy base for getting people to be amused by what's happening.”

News, opinion, entertainment. That's the exact flow the best series of 2017 had, and the best article of 2017 outlined it right there for you a month before it happened. Again, the whole article is very well-written, and you can see how we don't stray from our gaming roots with our picture choices.

Fortunately, the article winning this award in no way implies I need to make an audio version of it or anything, since I don't want to get involved in the argument on how to pronounce GIF.

Winners Reference List

Best PC Game — Soviet Missile Run

Best 3DS Game — Team Kirby Clash Deluxe

Best Wii U Game — The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Best Nintendo Switch Game — The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Best New Character — Hariet from Super Mario Odyssey

Best OST — Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Game of THAT Year — The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Best Communications Platform — Discord

Best KoopaTV Guest Article Contributor — Little Fruini

Most Humourous KoopaTV Article — Look to Mario and Cappy to Solve The MICHAEL JACKSON MYSTERY!

Best KoopaTV Reaction Log — KoopaTV's Nintendo Spotlight E3 2017 Live Reactions! + Super Mario Odyssey Treehouse Live

Best KoopaTV Artistic Corner Contribution — New Donk, New Donk: A KoopaTV Adventures Special

Best KoopaTV Article Series — The 2017 solar eclipse

Best KoopaTV Article — CNN is MIFFED at a Donald Trump GIF!


KoopaTV looks forward to having some new categories for next year. No, Best Xbox or PlayStation game categories aren't in the works, but with the announcement that the site will recognise YOUR best and worst comments for 2018, those can now be transferred to be nominatable and votable items! PLUS, KoopaTV is strongly considering treating each KoopaTV category to be its own... voting category, instead of the current set-up. That way, it'll reflect the gaming half of these. With your help, KoopaTV will be able to survive to the end of 2018, so keep giving this site your support! ...Oh, and for this article, please give your thoughts on the awards.


Why not click here to check out 2016's Game of THAT Year awards in full? Some interesting picks back then.
KoopaTV makes good on the promise for category renovation for 2018's nominations.
Here are KoopaTV's 2018 Game of THAT Year awards!