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Thursday, May 31, 2018

The Koopa Bros. Have Been Compromised By Nintendo Labo

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - There aren't bad bananas in every bunch, but for this bunch? Yeah. Bad.

Remember the Koopa Bros.? They starred in Paper Mario. ...I also wrote about the Koopa Bros. just last week, so yeah, you better remember them. I compared them favourably to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who now have the distinction of being the subject of an article five weeks in a row. Can we get rid of these guys?

...Can we also get rid of the Koopa Bros.? KoopaTV has been investigating the incident where “TROJAN BOWSER”, posing as King Bowser Koopa, declared the end of KoopaTV in favour of a new site, LaboTV. We concluded that the Nintendo Labo itself was behind this corrosive activity — anything made of cardboard is susceptible to the Labo's control.

The best way to avoid having your constructed cardboard turn rogue is to avoid constructing cardboard to begin with. But why did TROJAN BOWSER exist at all? Well, through our investigations, we've found out that the Koopa Bros. created the cardboard TROJAN BOWSER — in a completely unauthorised action.

Paper Mario Trojan Bowser boss costume destroyed Koopa Bros.
The Koopa Bros. even lied to the enemy about King Bowser's opinion on TROJAN BOWSER.
(He never saw it, so he never loved it. Also, I don't trust double exclamation points.)

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Pokémon 2018 Conference: Pokémon Quest, Pokémon: Let's Go, and the 2019 Future...

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Thoughts on everything Pokémon, going back decades.

Last night, The Pokémon Company had a really important press conference about videogames that we are to expect from the Pokémon franchise this year and next. Here is the full conference, on video, with an English voiceover:


(Here is the official written summary if you don't want to watch the whole thing, though some things I write about only come from the full video.)

The central narrative here is what Pokémon Company Tsunekazu Ishihara says at the beginning: Pokémon GO has apparently been downloaded over 800 million times. Try to wrap your mind around that enormous number. It absolutely dwarfs the number of people who have interacted with any other Pokémon medium, be it the games, manga, cards, anime, whatever. That's crazy, but also very unfortunate. I'll get into why throughout this article, which is handily divided into sections!

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Star Wars Fatigue vs. Super Mario Fatigue

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Fatigue is real.

Back in the early Wii U days, Nintendo scholars were floating around the idea of “Mario fatigue.” That's the idea that Nintendo was releasing too many Super Mario platformers in a short amount of time. Spin-offs were one thing (and the GameCube notably had many of those in a short period of time), but platformers were supposed to be standard-setting events that influenced spin-offs to come. Big platformer release, then spin-offs to maintain the momentum, then another big platformer. That changed in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Especially with all the so-called “New” series of platformers (four in all — not even counting New Super Luigi U) along with two Super Mario Galaxy games, Super Mario 3D Land, and Super Mario 3D World. Eight games in as many years. (2006 to 2013.)

People tracked the fatigue by noting that franchise sales were decreasing over time, as people steadily got fed Mario platformer after Mario platformer. The originality of the game design and artistic assets was taking a hit. The fatigue didn't go away until Nintendo took a break and then released something completely different, with Super Mario Odyssey on the Nintendo Switch. Now it's the best-selling game on the Switch.


Super Mario series timeline of release years fatigue
Look how CONDENSED that purple box is.
(Timeline creation credit: Wikipedia.)

That brings me to the other half of the article title: Star Wars
.

Monday, May 28, 2018

Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth Chooses Death — By Europe

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Memorial for Miles Edgeworth.

You may remember two important court cases at the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017: The DL-6 incident re-trial, and the SL-9 incident re-trial. Both of these trials involved famous prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. What we didn't report on is that shortly after these trials, Miles Edgeworth had disappeared for a year. He only left behind what appeared to be a suicide note: “Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth Chooses Death.”

Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death Ace Attorney anime suicide note Japanese
“Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death.”
(He also chose Japanese, for some reason. Edgeworth's multilingual abilities are put to the test later in this story, though.)

For the past year, we all thought he died. It turns out that he fled to France, under the guise of “Benjamin Hunter.” (No relation to world-renowned association soccer star Alex Hunter.) As Benjamin Hunter, Miles Edgeworth tried to make it as a French prosecuting attorney (though I'm pretty sure that “Benjamin Hunter” isn't a very French-sounding name), but soon found himself on the defendant's chair once again in mid-2017:

Friday, May 25, 2018

Cappy Invading the United Kingdom and the Royal Wedding!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - And Vortexica is in danger. ...Again. ...Again.

A disadvantage to being royal is that you're obligated to keep tabs on all of the other royal families out there. That unfortunately includes the British Royal Family (house of Windsor). They're important in particular because Queen Elizabeth II hates us, after Koopa Kingdom annexed Alberta and mocked her. That hatred could fester into something bad for Koopa Kingdom at any time.

This week, one of Queen Elizabeth II's grandsons, Prince Harry, had a Royal Wedding with someone named Meghan Markle. Now that she's married, she's “Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.” I can't say I particularly care about any of this, but a lot of people throughout the world of Earth gave a big deal of attention to this... and it turns out, someone who isn't from Earth, too. A hostile alien. Someone who shouldn't be around Earth, but has been for some time now.

Cappy the Bonneter. Yes, that Cappy. The one that teamed up with Mario to crash the Royal Wedding between King Bowser Koopa and Princess Peach Toadstool.

I can say I particularly care about all of that.

Here's Cappy caught on camera in two pictures:

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Xbox Gaming Tournament at the Special Olympics — Not Real Olympics Event

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - eSports continues to approach the ultimate stage, but this isn't it.

Did you know that Microsoft is the Premier Partner sponsoring the 2018 Special Olympics USA Games? They want you to know that, because it helps make them look like a socially responsible company. To that end, Microsoft is hosting the first-ever videogame tournament that is taking place at the Special Olympics — this July 2nd in Seattle. KoopaTV will not cover it. We'll have our monthly newsletter instead.

Besides, who wants to watch “Unified teams” consisting “of an athlete with and an athlete without an intellectual disability”? They'll be playing Forza Motorsport 7, a game we don't care about. Here's what I said when Forza Motorsport 7 was finished being revealed at Microsoft's E3 2017:
“I'm supposed to be suffocating from this breathtaking Forza finish. But I'm still breathing.”
I suppose being alive is a better fate. Anyway, not only do I not care about Forza, but I'm not a fan of the Special Olympics. I trained quite hard for the Rio 2016 Olympics... which was a set of real Olympics with a high and existent skill floor. You can get official Olympics approval on the name, but the Special Olympics, by design, is the opposite of what the Olympics is supposed to represent. (And it's not diversity, unity, or climate change.)

However, it doesn't matter what I think about the Special Olympics — it matters that eSports are recognised as sports. So, let's look at the official list of 35 sports available at the Special Olympics...

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

World Turtle Day — Comparing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Koopa Bros.!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - They're back...

Turtles, for the most part, are still a foreign concept to me. What is a Koopa to do for World Turtle Day, then? Well, for the past month, we've been dealing with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) every week. First it was Raphael and Leonardo. Then it was Michelangelo and Donatello. Then it was Raphael, again, and Donatello, again. It turns out that, legally, Donatello is the best Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

Splatoon 2 Splatfest Donnie Donatello wins victory TMNT Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle tournament undisputed king Marina
“Today we proved that Donnie is the undisputed king of the Ninja Turtles.”

I got sick of writing about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and you got sick of reading about them. And then... it dawned on me. For almost two decades, people have been comparing the Koopa Bros. to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to the point that they believe the Koopa Bros. are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle rip-offs! You remember the Koopa Bros., right? Well, here's a side-by-side comparison:

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Moe the Clown is Probably a Racist

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Boycott the Berry Big Circus!

If there is one thing that KoopaTV doesn't tolerate (and... there isn't just one thing), it's when people denigrate African countries.

For example, we wrote a whole article defending our country of residence, Sierra Leone, when President Donald John Trump allegedly declared it a “shithole.”

Lawrence “Moe” Curls, the current ringmaster of the Berry Big Circus out in California, had this outrageous comment to say about an African country... and we got it RECORDED:

Monday, May 21, 2018

Pick: PC Gaming Show vs. Splatoon 2 World Championship Semifinals

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - These two events conflict with one another. Which should KoopaTV react to... LIVE?

Check this out. I'm putting together the schedule for KoopaTV's inevitable E3 2018 coverage. That's important to plan in advance, since the Electronics Entertainment Expo in June is always KoopaTV's most trafficked month. Part of that is because we publish more in that month than the other months, and part of that is because that's when gamers are the most hungry for our content.

In the interest of transparency, we have a conflict to present: On June 11, starting at 6:30 PM Eastern, Nintendo will be running the Splatoon 2 World Championships semi-finals. On June 11, starting at 6:00 PM Eastern, the PC Gamer magazine will be hosting the PC Gaming Show. That's a clear time conflict, and based on last year's PC Gaming Show lasting 105 minutes, they're going to overlap.


Splatoon 2 World Championship semifinals time June 11 Nintendo E3 2018PC Gaming Show 2018 time June 11 2018 E3

Which do we pick to live react to?

On one hand, this site doesn't cater to PC gaming. We're significantly more focused on console gaming. We also don't consider the PC Gaming Show to be an E3 conference, hence why it doesn't end up on our conferences tier list every year.

On the other hand, the Splatoon 2 World Championship semifinals is totally without consequence. There is no news that will be announced in there. Splatoon 2 is already out and has been for some time. If they want to drop an announcement for it that won't already be at Nintendo's presentation, they'll do so for the FINALS on the 12th. We haven't even been following the qualifier rounds, so it's not like we'll feel like we're missing anything. Plus, the non-Ludwig staff has demonstrated their boredom with watching competitive Splatoon during last year's Splatoon 2 World Inkling Invitational Championship.

If we miss the PC Gaming Show from its live broadcast, we can and probably will go back and still react to it. There WILL be news in there, even if the staffers don't personally care about it. Some other KoopaTV staff members also believe the PC Gaming Show will be funny.

If we miss the semifinals of the Splatoon 2 tournament, we're not going to watch its video-on-demand. It'll be lost forever to us. The other reason that the Splatoon 2 World Championship semifinals is somewhat compelling here is because it gives context to the finals round that we'll watch on the 12th, and because all of the Splatoon articles tend to get a high level of interest from readers. (Also known as: Splatoon consistently gets views and engagement on KoopaTV.) It also affects our rating for Nintendo's E3 2018 performance.

We're leaving it up to you guys, our readers, to tell us what to do three weeks from now. 

THREE. WEEKS. UNTIL E3 2018!


KoopaTV's staffers have a DIVISION for what to do, so the staff decided to just let you guys decide. Don't expect this level of transparency in the site's decision-making to carry over to many other areas of staff debate, such as the Game of THAT Year awards.


For Nintendo's full E3 2018 plans (as we know them as of May 21), click here.
The Splatoon 2 World Championship was announced here.

Friday, May 18, 2018

Caught: FAKE NEWS CNN and Fake Tears Schumer!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Represented by the epitomes of fake.

There has been a rash of FAKE NEWS in the past week. I have an ethical policy of not writing opinion articles on FAKE NEWS because I don't like giving garbage any of my royal credibility. The only thing that's more of an annual recurrence than the pre-E3 massacres are the pre-E3 “leaks”, which is an inaccurate way of saying FAKE NEWS. They're unsubstantiated rumours at best. It's only a leak if it's actually true but wasn't supposed to be released to the public.

Anyway, it's also unfortunate that the mainstream media is joining the pre-E3 FAKE NEWS, though on non-E3 topics. This time, they're not only spreading FAKE NEWS by themselves, but they are aided by allies, like the Democrat Party. No one is more complicit than the United States Senate's Minority Leader, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York.

Earlier on Wednesday, FAKE NEWS CNN, a good-for-nothing collection of garbage, reported that President Donald John Trump of the United States, during a roundtable on immigration with California leaders (which is a roundtable he would much rather participate in compared to one on videogame violence), called (all) immigrants “bad” and “animals.”

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Camelot's Credibility-Building Mario Sports Intros

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Will Mario Tennis Aces continue Camelot's cinematography?

People might be sleeping on Mario Tennis Aces, which may or may not be a shame. We don't know for sure yet since it releases next month, but based on what we saw from it back in the March 2018 Nintendo Direct, we should give it the benefit of some doubt. It has a story mode, after all.

Camelot isn't on the best streak of quality gaming lately (no one cared about Mario Sports Superstars, and Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash cared more about amiibo than making a game with personality), especially not compared to their heyday. But Mario Tennis Aces has the potential to turn that around.

Mario Tennis Aces Wario Waluigi story adventure mode possessed darkness glowing yellow eyes stone statues
Mario Tennis Aces obviously has cutscenes in it because of its story mode.
This has a lot of potential to bring back the magic last seen from Camelot over a decade ago.

That bit about Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash not being about personality is crucial to this article: Camelot's games were all about developing personality. That focus established credibility that fans could not only trust Camelot to work with the Super Mario franchise, but fans could look forward to when Camelot works with that franchise. (To compare the alternative situation, see the fan reaction for whenever Nintendo hands control of the Yoshi franchise to Artoon/Arzest.)

Let's go over a brief timeline of Camelot's credibility-building cutscene wonderfulness... featuring embedded videos!

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Splatfest Part 3: Raphael vs. Donatello!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The loudest sigh, and the final round.

This Saturday, May 19th, will be the conclusion of this three-round Splatoon 2 Splatfest tournament based on everyone's favourite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

In Round 1, I supported Leonardo over Raphael. Raphael ended up winning. 
In Round 2, I supported Donatello over Michelangelo. Donatello ended up winning.

Can you guess who I will support in Round 3? That's right. Donatello. 

Marina will never root for Ralph Raph Raphael Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Splatfest
Mainly for this reason.

I already explained why I dislike Raphael and like Donatello in the previous articles. Does that mean this article is over and done with? No. I'm going to tell you about why I've been sighing and detesting this entire Splatfest tournament series.

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Creating a Nintendo Switch Online Family Group

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We explain family group/membership logistics, and why Nintendo allows it.

Last week, I set aside Nintendo's family groups as worthy of their own article when discussing Nintendo Switch Online. That is because, starting today (May 15), you can set up your own family group!

Nintendo Account add family group member enter the e-mail address
If I know the e-mail address you registered your Nintendo Account with, you can join the family!
Set up a family group here.
 
To back up a bit, a family group is required to have a family membership plan, which is an alternative to the individual plan for Nintendo Switch Online ($20 for one year for one person). The family membership allows for EIGHT people to be in one plan, for $35 a year. The family group behind the family plan has a group administrator, and either normal members, or parents and children. (Children are supposed to be under 13, but can go up to under 18, and all of their information is handled by their parent/guardian.)

The family group is a very cost-effective way to have multiple people in one plan. I'm a big fan of how they have an eight-member maximum. That's just enough for King Bowser Koopa and all seven of the Koopalings! ...Bowser Jr. shouldn't be playing online anyway.

Why would Nintendo offer such a fantastic value in family memberships compared to individual groups? It's a good deal for them. Consider this:

Monday, May 14, 2018

KoopaTV Turns Ripe: Five-Year Bananniversary!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The .org really does stand for dot organic?

Welcome to the KoopaTV fifth anniversary article! KoopaTV started our Internet existence on May 12, 2013. It's now five years later, and we're still around!

...Five years and two days. Yeah, we couldn't make the actual anniversary day because the article slipped on a banana and fell. After that, we decided to rewrite this entire article and make it about bananas. You could say that we “went bananas.”

Ludwig Von Koopa tripped bananas plush plushie
I tripped over the bananas, too, so there's a possibility I'll end up with amnesia.

It's still about our anniversary, of course. You see, much like a banana, KoopaTV has a lot of layers to it. You need to peel a banana to get to its rich goodness, and similarly, you should look below the surface level of what you see on KoopaTV to appreciate this site. At the end of this article, we'll be announcing what exactly turning ripe means for KoopaTV. (Besides a colour change.)

In the meantime, we have some banana-related delicacies to share!

Friday, May 11, 2018

Thoughts on the new ARMS Demo

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - This is a new demo! But are my thoughts on it new, too?

Let's get one thing out of the way: Nintendo just released a new demo for its failing fighting game, ARMS. This is completely different than the ARMS Global Testpunch, a dreadful experience that I wrote about here. Unlike the ARMS Global Testpunch, the ARMS demo is based off the game's current (and final?) build. That means all of its balance patches and new characters are in, though you can only play as a handful. On the other arm, you can potentially fight all the new characters, controlled by weak CPUs.

The main menu of the ARMS demo, with some interesting options.

The very way this demo is set up is worth talking about, but first let me explain what's in the demo. You can play with one player or two players. I assume the latter is local multiplayer, but I haven't tried it and never will. The Basics (1 player) gives you a mandatory brief tutorial on the game's controls, and then pits you against two matches of low-level computer players. I assume it's an excerpt from the game's Grand Prix mode.

The last option is “View Full Version Menu”, which gives you insight on what options are available in the retail version of ARMS. Trying to do anything from there will tell you it's only available in the full version of the game, which you can buy. The option's verb IS “View”, after all.

What did I do in The Basics (1 player), then? Well, take a watch:

Thursday, May 10, 2018

Nintendo Switch Online — Features NES and Cloud Saves

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Oh, and family groups... but that'll get its own dedicated article later. STAY TUNED.

Though I failed to specifically mention it, Nintendo mentioned a week ago in their financial Q&A that they would be providing more details on Nintendo Switch Online in early May. Well, it's early May. Here they are.

There is a features table that we took a screenshot of back when Nintendo Switch Online was announced in January 2017. (Wait, what? That was over a year ago!) It's pretty interesting to compare that table to this new one:

Nintendo Switch Online paid service table of benefits updated Save Data Cloud backup
This table is dated May 10, 2018.

Besides the fact that they now find it necessary to say that everyone will get system and software updates for free, there's a new feature. But, first, keep in mind that some of the features got renamed from January 2017 to June 2017. They used to have “Monthly Game Download” and then renamed it to “Classic Game Selection”. They have now settled on “NES - Nintendo Switch Online”, and the specificity of that name change (classic games to specifically NES) implies something about the scope of the free games you'll get.

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

I Cared About Miitomo

By RAWKHAWK2010 - "#MiiToo", said Miitomo to Miiverse.


Miitomo Miifoto of the Day Mii end ending Nintendo RawkHawk2010
"Miitomo? Ending?! HEAVENS NO!!!"

Before it was announced that Miitomo would be put out to pasture, I hadn't played Miitomo in almost two years. That doesn't mean my Mii didn't at one time get something out of it, though. It enjoyed a fascinating journey through Nintendo's first mobile app, and, unlike Ludwig's, made memories from it that will last a lifetime.

Something important: Miiverse may have had our Miis already doing video game commentary, but Miitomo encouraged them to voice their opinions on literally everything that exists.  That was no doubt the most important aspect about Miitomo. Your Mii wanted attention and was gonna find a way to get it.

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Rawk's Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All Experience

By RAWKHAWK2010 - Colon Cancer.

Do you ever get tired of typing "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All"? I do. That's why I almost said fuck "Rawk's Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All Experience" and was gonna opt for "Rawk's Gyakuten Saiban 2 Experience" instead. Ludwig proceeded to call me a weeb for that, but would a weeb play Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for over 400 hours with English VA enabled and not bitch? Didn't think so. (And yes, there are people playing in Japanese who bitch constantly about how their gameplay experience is ruined because they can't understand the flow of combat due to the fact that spontaneous battle cries and taunts aren't subtitled as if that's a thing that ever happens. I say they've made their futon and can lay in it.)

Oh, and Ludwig also claimed subtitles > numbers because the former are easier to remember, but I assure you I'd have a far easier time processing the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series if the numbers hadn't ended at Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis. Since then we've had Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again!, 
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem!Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move (which sounds like a gastrointestinal problem), and Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars. I can't tell you which of those are mainline games and which aren't. They might all be but I can't tell you that either. The whole thing's a maelstrom of confusion.

Oh yeah, so about Gyakuten Saiban 2 Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All. Funimation's English dub for the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All anime is officially released today (I'm not sure if it's called "Season 2" or "Part 2" since either a "Season 2" or a "Part 2" refers to the recently-announced Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations anime which means Ludwig may have a point), and to celebrate I have some pics from my Miiverse-ing of the game. Warning: They're not as good as last time (likely because I was rushing to get to Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations since I had been told Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice for All was the weakest in the series), but here you go anyway:

(Warning: Spoilers for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All ahead.)

Monday, May 7, 2018

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Splatfest Part 2: Michelangelo vs. Donatello!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I'm still sighing, but we DO have an exclusive, timely photograph to go along with this.

If you participated in Round 1 of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Splatoon 2 that was last weekend, you ought to go and collect your Super Sea Snails. Right now. Before Tuesday morning. Or they'll go away, because Off the Hook will announce the next Splatfest: Round 2. Yes, I'm writing this article before Off the Hook officially announces the Splatfest, but I know what they'll say anyway.

Splatoon 2 Splatfest Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TMNT Mikey vs. Donnie Michelangelo Donatello
No Off the Hook commentary,
just the cringe-worthy official artwork of Michelangelo vs. Donatello from Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Pearl will side with Mikey, and Marina will side with Donnie.

And like Round 1 where I sided with Leonardo (and lost — we'll talk more about that in Round 3's article) and got shoved to Marina's team, I'll be siding with Marina again with Team Donatello as my preferred Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. I can explain!

Friday, May 4, 2018

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is released. Again!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - You can still get the game on the Wii U. Though you should have done that four years ago.

I wanted to write something about déjà vu, but it turns out that while we wrote a lot about Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze before its release, and a lot about Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze after its release, we never published a release article for the game on the Wii U. KoopaTV's infamous February 2014 hiatus prevented us from doing that.

Nintendo is generously offering us the opportunity to make up for that unfortunate dark stain on KoopaTV history. So, let's do that.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze was released on the Wii U on February 21, 2014 for $50. Fantastic game, developed by Retro Studios and composed by David Wise — David Wise's work won KoopaTV's Best OST of 2014.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is released on the Nintendo Switch today, on May 4, 2018 for $60. It's just as fantastic as four years ago. But NOW it features Funky Mode, which is where all of the marketing for the Switch version is going into. I'll dedicate a whole article to Funky Mode later, since I think it's fascinating.

For now, I want to address two interrelated issues: The game has been removed from the Wii U eShop, and people's general upset reactions.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Yoku's Island Express isn't Yoshi's Island... or is it?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - ...Nah. It's something completely different, but that could be good!

You may be watching some of Nintendo of America's videos on YouTube. Perhaps you're watching the mass of Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze videos they're uploading, since that comes out tomorrow. Whatever you're doing, you see something catch your eye on the video list, or the related videos on the right sidebar... What is that? A Yoshi's Island game?!

Nintendo YouTube channel uploads May 2018 Yoku's Island Express Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze
See? Second on the left, second row? Yoshi's Island! Let's click on it!
 
Once we get to the video, we're greeted with an ESRB rating of Everyone 10+, and a descriptor of Animated Blood. Yoshi...? What happened to you? ...But it turns out that this isn't Yoshi at all. It's Yoku's Island Express.

...If you look at the YouTube comments, all of them are about Yoshi. That's...not an exaggeration:

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Kimishima and Furukawa Team Up to Answer Investors’ Questions

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We learn some things about Shuntaro Furukawa, the next president of Nintendo.

To the sub-title's point, we're not just learning some new things about Shuntaro Furukawa, but we're also learning about current Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima. Quite frankly, we still don't know much about him, though that'll soon be irrelevant.

...Just to back up, if you missed last week's article, that was about how current Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima is retiring at the end of June, in favour of this guy that no one knows about, Shuntaro Furukawa. This was announced as part of Nintendo's annual reporting to the financial people, and now the transcript of their questions & answers has just been translated into English for us to dissect. You can read it here. The Q&A were handled by both Kimishima and Furukawa. (I'm still having trouble remembering the guy's name, by the way. ...Both of them.)

They were mainly asked about what the investors usually care about: mobile stuff, and geographic expansion. The partnership with Cygames to develop Dragalia Lost, a game we don't know anything about, was of particular interest. (But they loved it.) From the way Furukawa answered the questions, it's clear that he really wants to continue and expand Kimishima's push into putting more Nintendo stuff on mobile trash.

KoopaTV's April 2018 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's coming... sooner than you think...

At the same time last year, we were announcing that KoopaTV will be returning to a full, five articles a week schedule, up from three articles a week. We are most definitely doing better now than then, and April 2018 was a great April. 

As you'll see in this newsletter, there are multiple ways that April was great for KoopaTV. Between the rich content, the great comments and participation from you guys (the readers that participate — alternatively known as the players in the KoopaTV game of the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program), and even some site infrastructure updates.

We'll turn five years old in less than two weeks. (And we don't have any plans yet for exactly what we're going to do with that anniversary...)

KoopaTV's Top Five Recommended Articles of April 2018


Part of that bit about rich content gets down to if our articles are wonderful or not. In April 2018, they were. (Well, every article on the site is worth reading, so... they're all varying degrees of wonderful.)

Here are the top five recommended articles of April 2018, chosen by the KoopaTV staff. Presented in chronological order: