Turnabout Job Interview, and Lindsey Graham & Adrian Andrews

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Our ability to compare and contrast with current events and Ace Attorney is... unparalleled.

We have been mesmerised by the activities of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee and the confirmation process of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, especially the hearing yesterday featuring him and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford. To back up, near the start of July, President Donald John Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the United States Court of Appeals for the Washington DC circuit to replace retiring Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy's Supreme Court seat — a normally lifetime position. He's extremely qualified, and a conservative Republican. Naturally, the resistance Democrats want to oppose his nomination, since they disagree with his judicial philosophy.

What has followed are a series of increasingly incredible but non-credible accusations of sexual assault and rape from women, going back 36 years ago to Brett Kavanaugh's high school days. Brett Kavanaugh has denied all of them. Christine Blasey Ford was the only one of these accusers that even the desperate Democrats considered credible, and so we have the following case...

Turnabout Job Interview.

Date: September 27, 2018
Defendant: Judge Brett Kavanaugh
Victim: Dr. Christine Blasey Ford
Defence Attorney: Rachel Mitchell, and Senate Republicans
Prosecutor: Senate Democrats
Judge: Senator Chuck Grassley
Allegation: A drunk 17-year old Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted a 15-year old Christine Blasey Ford at a house party
Verdict: To be determined

Read on for details.

Nintendo Beat Those MariCAR Inc. Dudes In Court

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - At least this case gets resolved. Unlike some other ones.

Do you remember the MariCAR Inc. case that we covered two and a half months ago? It was this go-kart company on the streets of Japan that posed a threat to Nintendo intellectual property, enough that Nintendo's investors were asking about it.

In the footer of that article, I wrote, “KoopaTV may or may not bother to stay on top of this on-going story for you.” Well, I figure we might as well conclude it. 

MariCAR lost, and their statement is here (in Japanese). Nintendo won, and their statement is here (in Japanese). I don't know Japanese, but the loser thought it was unfair and the winner thought it was good.

Fortunately, Takashi Mochizuki of the Wall Street Journal knows English, so here's the end result of the decision:

Tokyo District Court ordered Mari Mobility Dev., previously MariCar, to pay ¥10 million in compensation and stop using Nintendo-related outfit. The street go-cart company operates services in Japan, and Nintendo was complaining it was damaging its "Mario Kart" franchise.

— Takashi Mochizuki (@mochi_wsj) September 27, 2018

10 million yen is almost $90,000, so that's... not very significant. I don't think their business is going to get bankrupt or anything. Meanwhile, MariCAR's website appears to be unphased and is just as stupid as it was in the first article we wrote. No word if they'll drastically change their name.

There's a significantly more important legal proceeding/not-supposed-to-be-a-trial-but-really-was-one that happened today that captured our collective attention. We'll write about it with effort and depth tomorrow to finish the month, but that takes time to do, so you get a filler article today.

But at least we tied up a loose end. Speaking of the effect on Mario Kart, we still don't know anything about Mario Kart mobile, but that crappy Dragalia Lost mobile trash is released now. That's about as much as I'll write about it.


KoopaTV knows you're not sad about not being able to wear Nintendo costumes for this go-karting business in Japan, so instead, you can comment about... Well, you know, you can go ahead and be creative about it.


Here. Non-filler article with effort and depth about a more important legal proceeding.
MariCAR wasn't done. They appealed up to the Supreme Court of Japan... and they denied the final appeal.

Why KoopaTV Doesn't Talk About Fan-Made Material

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We're better than that.

KoopaTV has been asked many times (and I've been requested many times) over the years to write about some fan-made meme or fanart that is the talk of the day. And I say no. I'm not going to give examples, but surely you can think of memes that are spawned from the Internet's cesspools that have to do with Koopa Kingdom folks or people that Koopa Kingdom is interested in.

Why doesn't KoopaTV, the official Internet presence of the Royal Koopa Family, wish to comment on those cultural artifacts? The answer is simple: It goes against our core beliefs in truth & levity, as well as the belief that engaging in that kind of commentary does a disservice to the reader.

First of all, KoopaTV already avoids writing articles about rumours or so-called “leaks” because that's just sharing someone else's clickbait and trying to get a piece of it. We don't want to be part of the trend of sites that print that unverified garbage and profit off of it, and then suffer no accountability or consequences when it turns out to be false and made-up. There is enough that's happening to comment on things that are officially occurring.

It's the same philosophy with commenting on fan-made material. (Though you could classify rumours as fan-made material, too.) KoopaTV exists to give you value-add. We don't just go share other people's memes or whatever. What makes us better than anyone else if we resort to that?

Meltan — Fake Ditto-Induced Myth, or...

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Just Meltan.

Since I breathlessly gave coverage to the new Pokémon of the week back in the pre-release era of Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon, I must give coverage to the newest-discovered member of the Pokémon biosphere: Meltan. Meltan is the Hex Nut Pokémon. It's really small, the size of a Diglett.

Meltan is a Steel-type Mythical Pokémon, meaning it's an event-exclusive Pokémon that you can't catch outside of the event. You probably won't see it in-game, either. But it'll get a movie.

Speaking of a movie, here's a trailer that The Pokémon Company International released about Meltan, featuring Kanto's Professor Oak, and... Professor Willow from somewhere in Pokémon GO land.

(Professor Oak and Professor Willow have a weird and complicated relationship that I won't try to tangentially describe in detail.)

Ace Attorney at Tokyo Game Show 2018: Dismissable

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - GUILTY of lofty expectations.

Ever since the Ace Attorney franchise failed to appear at E3 2018, despite our expectations, we've been looking for the 2018 Tokyo Game Show for CAPCOM to formally announce the next Ace Attorney game on Nintendo Switch.

And then CAPCOM said this, weeks prior to the Tokyo Game Show taking place this month:

“ファンなら見逃せない『逆転裁判』シリーズの最新情報をお届けします！”

That Google-translates to, “We will deliver up-to-date information on ‘Ace Attorney’ series that fans can not miss!” In other words, unmissable news for Ace Attorney fans. Meaning that people who are already fans of the Ace Attorney series will be very interested in the announcement.

Well, Rawk and I stayed up for 3 AM on Saturday to spectate the Tokyo Game Show panel. The announcement? This (but in Japanese):

Bowser Jr.'s Journey... to ARMS Scrub?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - He's on a journey, but it's not to anywhere good.

As Alex Hunter's Journey ends after FIFA 19 releases next week, Bowser Jr.'s Journey is apparently just beginning when Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey releases next year.

Bowser Jr. is dragging Morton Koopa Jr., Roy Koopa... and KAMEK with him?
Well, at least it's not me on there.

I don't really know what antics Bowser Jr. is doing on his journey... I just know that we're involved. We being the Koopalings. Not that we want to be. I mean, look how Morton feels about being on the boxart:

What's Your Style? Retro vs. Modern Splatfest!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Featuring Nintendo Switch Online.

I'm not really one for wearing clothes. You know, normally. Sometimes, special costumes and outfits are cool (there was a whole Splatfest about that). But normally, Koopas wearing hoodies just look terrible.

This weekend's Splatoon 2 Splatfest asks, “What's your style?”

I'm all about the RETRO style!
Or...
I'm all about the MODERN style!

This Splatfest is wondering what your “aesthetic” is, which is some kind of tumblr concept that I don't understand or appreciate. I just know it's annoying.

On KoopaTV, I not only bash retro gaming by saying that no one cares about NES games, but I regularly bash modern games and their practices. Obviously, I'm just an all-around hater, so I'm not sure what my “style” is.

And then Nintendo shared this official promotional art of Pearl (Team Retro captain) and Marina (Team Modern captain):

Abolish the Borderless White Font

By RAWKHAWK2010 - It's a typeface only a mother could love.

Frankly, I'm sick of it. I'm sick of trying to raise awareness of critical Nintendo Switch issues hoping they'll be fixed by the time the console generation ends, only to be swatted down by fans who won't acknowledge a single flaw with the system such as the Joy-Cons' minus button being totally unpressable. (If it's such a perfect button then where are all the videos demonstrating such? *thinking face emoji*)

The problem detailed in this article isn't an issue with the system per se, but more an issue that plagues the Switch's double-whammy of "best Zelda ever" and "best Mario ever", at least as lauded by many reviewers and fans. The issue in question? A new brand of borderless white font that actively attempts to hide itself from the player.

With The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it's not...too offensive and is more just the fiend in its larval stage. The game's in-game text, if without stylization (outside of the Shrine names anyway), is at least overlayed on top of translucent shadowy text boxes -- you know, as you'd typically expect from a game with borderless white font. But then you shift your attention to the Memory cutscenes, etc. where Nintendo clearly thinks too much UI would distract from the cinematography. They want the font to be as non-distracting as possible...except that too little distraction means it won't actually be legible.

It's not like this is out in Hebra Mountains. Princess Zelda is the cutscene protagonist and just her clothes are enough to cause trouble.

Failed Trial; or Buy And Then Unsubscribe: The Best Ways To Change Nintendo Switch Online

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - These are the metrics Nintendo will understand.

Now (or after the 7-day trial) you have to pay to play your Nintendo Switch games’ online multiplayer features, on top of the purchase price of the games. We, of course, knew this was coming for a very long time. Let's briefly recall KoopaTV's coverage of Nintendo Switch Online:

• January 12, 2017: During THE Nintendo Switch Presentation, the famous one that introduced the Switch in great detail with its hardware philosophy, they announced in the first five minutes that online play will be a paid service releasing in Fall 2017.
• January 17, 2017: Nintendo's Switch online service page becomes available, where I describe it as less services at a higher cost. I noted Nintendo never promised to establish online infrastructure with this service, and they may just pocket the money.
• June 5, 2017: Nintendo Switch Online is delayed to 2018, and the pricing model of $20 a year is revealed.
• May 10, 2018: Nintendo Switch Online has been announced to launch September 2018, and they now say there will be cloud saves.
• May 15, 2018: Details on the family groups that you can establish to share Nintendo Switch Online with you and seven other people become clear, as you can now create your own groups. KoopaTV made one. Family plans are $35 for a year for the entire group.
• September 13, 2018: It's announced that Nintendo Switch Online will be released on September 18 during a Nintendo Direct, featuring the following trailer:

The Stealth Mode Nintendo Labo: Vehicle Kit Launch

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - They're trying to cover-up the Nintendo Labo's actions. We shine the light of truth.

In the midst of all of the controversies and news in the last week, between the delay of the Nintendo Direct, the controversial Nintendo Direct itself, not to mention the uproar over Nintendo Switch Online (more about that in tomorrow's article), there was a product release that happened on Friday that wasn't just a new version of Splatoon 2.

The Nintendo Labo: Vehicle Kit launched on Friday, now in retail stores everywhere. Not many people seem to be paying attention to that, but we at KoopaTV can't let this moment slip by. 

Not with what we already know about the threat of the Nintendo Labo: Vehicle Kit.

100x Battle In Splatoon 2 ISN'T a Battle Royale — And Other Version 4.0.0 Findings!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA  - Splatoon 2 version 4.0.0 is out. What's in it?

Early on in yesterday's controversial Nintendo Direct, they showed a Splatoon 2 trailer with no narration and no explanation of what was going on. Here is the trailer itself, embedded:

My reaction in the log was to the 100x battle bit. Knowing that awful Battle Royale games like Fortnite boast 100 players in one fight, I was afraid that Splatoon would take this awful route as some paid DLC expansion mode or something. After all, that is worth a whole new version number.

What if they're ending Splatfests and now using Shifty Stations for stupid Battle Royale modes?! NO!

Fortunately, according to the official Splatoon tumblr and the detailed patch notes, this isn't the case. The entire Splatfest system got a redesign with the new version update, which will be put to the test next week. (Stay tuned for the dedicated Splatfest article about Retro vs. Modern!) I honestly don't understand the system compared to the old Splatoon 2 Splatfest scoring system other than to see that they renamed Team Battles to Splatfest Battle Normal, and Solo Battles to Splatfest Battle Pro. There is now a new point system called Clout, and Clout is based on how much ink you accumulate. The old system was just based on if you win or not. (It might still be that, since the Splatfest ranking system (Fanboy, Fiend, Defender, Champion, King) is on a different scale than Clout.)

The 100x Battle, and there's also a 10x Battle, just multiples how much Clout you get from the match by that amount. It's still no more than 8 Inklings or Octolings at once. Less, of course, if someone disconnects, which will be as likely as before since Nintendo Switch Online won't be funding a better online connection or anything.

KoopaTV's September 13, 2018 Nintendo Direct Live Reactions!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The staff is all here. Was that effort worth it?

A really important thing to note here is that this Nintendo Direct was supposed to air last week. Since then, much of the information that is discussed in the Nintendo Direct have already been announced by Nintendo or other companies.

Our reaction log starts with conversation about Hurricane Florence. If you want to know why, read yesterday's confrontational article that is all about this Nintendo Direct and the story of its delays due to natural disasters.

The entire KoopaTV staff is present to live react to this log (myself, RawkHawk2010, Kamek, Wendy, and Witch Princess), along with our long-time friend who is in the log as Ryu. These live reaction logs provide you the staff's unfiltered, raw opinions. It's how we truly feel as it's happening. Everything after is just spin.

You can watch the Nintendo Direct alongside our reactions with the embed below. Make sure you start it once the log reaches 6 PM so it's synchronised.

Nintendo Direct Natural Disaster Hypocrisy

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The company postponed the Nintendo Direct due to a natural disaster, and has now rescheduled it to be during an even bigger natural disaster.

Due to the powerful hurricane on the East Coast of the United States of America, we have decided to delay this week’s planned Nintendo Direct. We will provide a new time and date in the near future. Thank you for understanding. 

Just kidding. 

You might remember last week where we were supposed to have a Nintendo Direct on September 6, 2018. It got delayed due to a powerful earthquake affecting the Japanese island of Hokkaido, a large but low-population area of about 5 million people. It's a remote island, far away from Nintendo's offices, subsidiaries, and business partners, with the exception of 64% of NDcube, developer of Super Mario Party. (Yet Nintendo still chooses to list them as a Tokyo company.) For American geographical context, the distance between the Hokkaido earthquake and Nintendo's headquarters in Kyoto is around the distance between Nintendo of America's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, and the many earthquakes that occur in California.

If you've talked with me in public over the past week, I've been passive-aggressive towards Nintendo regarding the delay of the Nintendo Direct. If you've talked with me in private, I've been actively aggressive against Nintendo. Not because I really, really wanted to see the Direct (in fact, I have no expectations for it and I wasn't asking for a new one), but because I disliked the precedent it set.

But if Nintendo was going to set a new precedent from now on for when it cancels Nintendo Directs and other events, then okay. As long as they're consistent about it.

And, of course, at Nintendo's first opportunity, they're not consistent.

Witch Princess: Ace Attorney

By WITCH PRINCESS - Salutations! My first article! And it's about Ace Attorney! I mean, duh.

B efore KoopaTV, I had no earthly idea what Ace Attorney was. When I saw Ludwig posting about it on Miiverse (nonexistent now), I was a little curious in finding out more about the series. It wasn’t until December of 2016 that I actually went to the eShop and downloaded the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy for my 3DS…

HOLD IT! If you don't wish to be spoiled, I suggest leaving this page immediately!!

And then my world changed. I was into something new. Let me tell you my experience.

Disclaimer: Prepare for some ranting of some sorts.

If Phoenix is a rookie attorney, then I'm a rookie KoopaTV staffer. We've both gotta do our jobs well!

Welcome Witch Princess to KoopaTV Staff!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A warm welcome.

In an ongoing effort to increase KoopaTV's diversity (ideological or otherwise) and better distribute our workload in producing amazing content on a regular basis, we've been aggressively trying to hire qualified people to join KoopaTV's staff.

I would like to announce that the Witch Princess will be joining KoopaTV's staff as a Content Writer!

Witch Princess.

This will be the second princess that KoopaTV has on staff (behind Princess Wendy O. Koopa), though in her interview, Witch Princess declined to state exactly what she is a princess of. In any case, we definitely have a monarchist bent here, though Koopa Kingdom is far and away the superior kingdom.

In her spare time, Witch Princess loves causing trouble for the Harvest Goddess and farmers. Her quest to denigrate blue-collar professions doesn't end there—she also has a hatred for pesky plumbers, too! (The research is unclear for which “collar” farmers actually fall under.) That fits great with KoopaTV's mission. Being anti-plumber, I mean. #NotAllBlueCollars

It's unclear so far if Witch Princess is actually a human or some kind of magic apparition. We didn't discriminate in the hiring interview. She also isn't an alumni of the Nintendo NSider Forums like the rest of the staff, so she has a much different background than the rest of us. We hope she does KoopaTV proud!


The Witch Princess is going to be publishing an article very soon, so look forward to that, and once again, please give her a welcome! By the way, even after this, KoopaTV would still like to expand the staff count even more, so please consider the wonderful opportunities.


In a previous form, the Witch Princess wrote this guest article.
The About page has been updated. (Political Compass update coming soon, too.)
The Contact page has also been updated.
Here is Witch Princess's first article, published the next day.
Witch Princess displays just what kind of mischief she can provide in her first short story on KoopaTV!

Mega Man 11 Nintendo Switch Demo With Block Man

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Just don't try to do real-time weapon change and the game is much better.

Remember when I was complimenting Mega Man 11 and CAPCOM a lot based on how Mega Man 11 looked back at E3 2018? Well, they brought a modified version of the demo — Block Man's stage — over to the Nintendo eShop for a pre-release demo! (The game releases in a month, after all.)

Of course I'm going to play the demo for myself. And I'll tell you what I think about it.

Let's start Mega Man 11 demo version.

 
First of all, there are four difficulty modes, three of which are available: Newcomer, Casual, Normal, and the unavailable Superhero mode. Your difficulty level affects many different things, including damage given/taken, the availability of helpful pick-ups, the regeneration speed of your Double Gears (as well as how much time you get to use them), how much weapon energy is used up per shot when you use a special weapon, the availability of checkpoints after losing your life... lots of things. Also, at least for this demo, the difficulty modes affected your life count and additional support items. (Newcomer gives you infinite lives, health support, and doesn't let you die from pits or spikes.)

Of course, if you know what you're doing, you can win no matter what. I don't know what I'm doing, though, so I tried Normal mode and got a game over. Then I tried Casual. Game over. So I played Newcomer and won... and then I discovered my problem.

KoopaTV's September 6, 2018 Nintendo Direct Live Reactions!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Big Nintendo Switch and Nintendo 3DS news!

Due to the powerful bank shooting in Cincinnati, Ohio, we have decided to delay this day's planned KoopaTV article. We will provide a new time and date in the near future. Thank you for understanding.


Lives are more important than videogame announcements, you know!


Ludwig does away with the passive-aggressive writing and tackles the real meaning of this article head-on. (Plus, the new time and date.)
Here is the real live reaction log for the Direct that was supposed to happen here!

No Olympic Future for eSports Until Violence Is Out

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I don't like Thomas Bach.

The Olympics have a ton of events outside of... THE Olympics, at least, if you trust the International Olympic Committee (IoC) ran by Thomas Bach. We've previously described Thomas Bach as akin to JEB! Bush, someone who doesn't understand what the Olympics is about, and someone that acts like he rules the entire Earth. So when Thomas Bach speaks, we may or may not listen. But he just had some words to say about videogames, so, yeah, I guess I'll bite.

Since Asia doesn't feel represented in the Olympics enough between 2018's PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games and 2020's Tokyo Olympic Summer Games, the continent just concluded its 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia, which is one of those events recognised by the International Olympic Committee I alluded to in the opening. Thomas Bach, as president of the International Olympic Games, was there and had an interview with The Associated Press about lots of topics, including eSports at the Olympics.

The Asian Games 2018 were notable for having eSports available “as a demonstration sport,” meaning it was there for a sort of proof of concept. There were six games: Arena of Valor, Clash Royale, Hearthstone, League of Legends, Pro Evolution Soccer, and StarCraft II. (As you might expect, South Korea won StarCraft II without losing a single game.)

That's a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), a real-time strategy, a card game, another MOBA, a sports game, and then another real-time strategy.

What did Thomas Bach have to say? Well, he is not saying that eSports are not sports, but he has a problem with being “civilized” and about “Olympic values”...

Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes — January 2019

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Sorry for once saying I knew what was going on about this game.

Back in April 2018, I wrote an article about Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes headlined, “We might finally understand what Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes is”. Unfortunately, most of that article turned out to be wrong.

For one, Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes isn't coming out in 2018, and that's become more obvious as the year has progressed. Instead, the game is releasing worldwide January 18, 2019. According to developer Suda51, the reason for the delay was to make sure that Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes's release wouldn't negatively impact the sales of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. That's the bigger game that didn't have its release date (December 7, 2018) announced until as late as Nintendo's E3 2018 — the grand event that Travis Strikes Again didn't appear at. Suda51 couldn't wisely date the release of Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes until after he knew the release date of Smash Bros. I think it's a valid enough reason for a delay.

I was right that Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes is not No More Heroes 3. Suda51 is still saying No More Heroes 3 is a theoretical project he wants to work on, and Travis Strikes Again is a side-story in the same universe.

Here's 15 minutes of direct feed gameplay from PAX West. I'm almost scared to watch it:

KoopaTV's August 2018 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I wonder if school's gonna ruin things.

August has ended. Today is Labor Day in the United States, the unofficial end of the summer season. Didn't feel like summer over here. All we did was work. (Also, Koopa Kingdom is hot all year round, so the notion of seasons doesn't apply here.)

You're probably just interested in this newsletter having interesting stuff to talk about, so, sure, we have that. Check them out:

Top 5 Recommended Articles of August 2018

I don't have any complaints about our article content in August. Everything on KoopaTV is worth reading. You shouldn't have any complaints either, with a best-of line-up like this (chronologically-ordered) one:

1. Super Smash Bros. at EVO 2018: A Mysterious Destiny — What happened at EVO 2018, how people responded to it, and Ludwig's thoughts. And, yes, it's mostly about Bayonetta and Super Smash Bros. For Wii U.
2. Ashley has granted kids to Hell... What about Sakurai? — When you sit down and think about it, examining all the evidence... Ashley hasn't actually been confirmed to be an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. We wonder why...
3. Which utensil is more useful? Fork VS. Spoon Splatfest! — The August 2018 Splatfest asks which is the more useful utensil: Fork or Spoon? Ludwig has a favourite in spoon, but his own research indicates that fork is factually the better answer. What does he do?
4. Fixed One-Time Cost vs. Microtransactions/Loot Boxes vs. Subscription Fee — Shigeru Miyamoto wants the game industry to embrace a subscription fee model more than it does right now. Let's analyse the payment models.
5. Let's Hope There's No Madden Movie About The Jacksonville Shooting — KoopaTV is the site that did investigative journalism about the fate of the Madden Curse movie... and now we ask that there isn't one about the shooting at the Madden NFL tournament in Jacksonville, Florida.