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Friday, May 1, 2020

KoopaTV's April 2020 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - New, official enemies getting in the way of fun.

Welcome to KoopaTV's April 2020 newsletter, coming at you on the first of MAY. Spelled M-A-Y. Sometimes I spell that as something else. Just gotta get the muscle memory in my claws. May. It's May 1. Today. But we'll be talking about April. April 2020. Good month for KoopaTV. Probably a bad month for you. Sorry, we can't carry you all by ourselves. ...Though you'll get decently far!

Actually, significant portions of this newsletter are covering future-facing information, and that incorporates May. Let's begin.

KoopaTV's Top Five Recommended Experiences of April 2020


April 2020 had a number of excellent articles. Here are just five (under a quarter) that you absolutely ought to read, presented in chronological order. Note that an absent article is still worth your time and adoration:
  1. ARMS North American Online Open April 2020 Recap — April 2020 featured the largest ARMS tournament in history, and KoopaTV's Heavy Lobster entered it. How did he do, and what are the implications for ARMS as a franchise?
  2. Super Mario's LEGO Debut: Teaching Kids to Murder — There are some sick, horrible things going on with that plumber and his newly announced LEGO set releasing this summer. Read this before your children get caught up in that awfulness.
  3. Two Years Later, We Won. You Are Avoiding Cardboard! — For two years, KoopaTV has been waging a war against the malevolent cardboard forces of the Nintendo Labo, and now we're ready to declare VICTORY. The whole public is fully convinced about the dangers of cardboard boxes!
  4. Human Doctors Are Getting Laid Off; Dr. Mario Hires Dr. Goomba Tower — KoopaTV is also continuing our investigation into Dr. Mario's practice, as he seeks to stuff everyone's faces with dangerous Megavitamins. He's hiring dubious folks to assist him.
  5. Game Review: Calculation Castle: Greco's Ghostly Challenges —Math-based edutainment games (featuring the sacred art of DIVISION) are important for Ludwig, and thus he wrote a full review of Calculation Castle: Greco's Ghostly Challenge "Division". When you're keeping your kids safe from propagandist LEGO, murderous cardboard, and dangerous Megavitamins, is this math game worth exposing them to?

Best Three Comments and One Worst Comment of April 2020


I expressed a lot of concern about possible dangers to your kids over April 2020. But what were you all telling me? ...Well, comments covering different subjects. Here are the best three comments (and one worst comment) of April 2020, in chronological order:

  1. “Hello, HeavyLobster43. I’m Tangerine, one of the viewers from the website. I’m glad that I was able to get the link by Ludwig, and there are some things that I want to comment on this article. First of all, I really appreciate the amount of detail that you use to describe the gameplay and types of ARM combinations in the game. I’m not familiar with the game since, I never played ARMS until the game gain popularity by Nintendo of America when they gave players the ability to play ARMS for a short amount of time. Since I’m new to the game, I wasn’t able to get far into the bracket because I played against a professional who has 80 hours into the game. Having an article that went as far as 8th place into the bracket is enough to share the tournament to newcomers of the game. Other than that, I’m hopeful that you will be able to help carry the website by sharing various gaming genres that are not often found in a website about video games. Thank you and have a nice day! - Larry Koopa ” — Tangerine24
  2. “I'd theorize that Rise From the Ashes is kind of turning people off from continuing with the trilogy at all. I mean, that case is a huge pain to finish all the way through, it's one of the worse cases I've experienced myself imo. Maybe we should tell people that the rest of the Trilogy is way better.

    Yeah, hey you guys reading this! Don't get put off by Rise From the Ashes, the cases in the other two games are way better! ” — Lheticus Videre
  3. “You kinda advocate for the only option I hate.

    I'm totally cool if a game has 0 voice acting (I actually kinda like it). I'm cool if only battle dialogue is added for cues. I love when the whole game is voice acted (though I don't require it to enjoy a game)

    I absolutely hate partial voice acting. When voices drop out in the middle of a conversation is quite literally the most annoyed you can make me while playing a game. I actually stopped playing Persona 5 cause it bugged me too much.

    I always try turning voice volume to 0 in these kinds of games and I generally like it that way until you hit a scene that was designed around voice. Such as in persona you hit some scenes that are kind of like cutscenes where the dialogue advances on its own and it doesn't tell you who is talking. So when I turn voice volume to 0 those scenes are terrible.

    I wish all games would just choose. Do you want to invest in voice work? or not? this in between thing has got to go.” — Madman Asunder

Let's put aside the fact that Tangerine24 signed his comment off as Larry Koopa but introduced himself as Tangerine. Other than that sort of confusing bit, I like the wholesomeness of the comment. Hopefully he'll read future KoopaTV articles by drifting to them himself instead of coming across a link I put out there. In fact, you can bring KoopaTV articles right to your email inbox with our fancy and automated email subscription service. (And by fancy, I mean it's really basic. But it's reliable.)

While I personally disagree with the idea that the fifth case in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is an unplayable monstrosity (it's really good), I do appreciate the comments section plugging for the Ace Attorney series on top of my articles doing that. I mean, I covered THREE different sales during April 2020 for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy being 50% off.

As for Madman Asunder, I dunno who he is or where he came from, but I appreciate him coming to an older article on the site and contributing his thoughts in a way that has me rethinking some of my earlier positions there. Maybe I should expand on it. I wrote that article on voice-acting to get folks thinking and be educational, after all. It's good when I get my mind thinking as well!

As for a comment that was totally devoid of any rational thought from its maker, here is April 2020's worst comment of the month:

  1. “it didint work” — Unknown

This Unknown is a total moron. He made that comment in my 2018 article comparing Nintendo's eShop code size to Amazon's gift card code size, and in that article, I have a picture of two clearly-used codes (as explained both within the picture itself [with title text for screen-readers if you're hard-of-vision, not inclusive of the codes in the picture being hard to vision] and the caption) from the eShop card and the Amazon card. My point is that the eShop code font size is way too small.

How dumb do you have to be to go out of your way to comment, in April 2020, that the code “didint” work on an article from July 2018, when right next to the non-working code it clearly states (in multiple places) that the codes don't work? They instead suggest a working method: Participation in the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program. In fact, you should observe the next section of this newsletter for exactly how it's done:

KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program Round 31 RESULTS!


Y'all kinda gave up on the end of April, didn't you? Well, I wrote in the February 2020 review newsletter that I only have one Nintendo eShop card code left, and I need to replenish my supply of them. Actually doing that has proven difficult, so the winner of my last $10 Nintendo eShop card code is...
  1. Lheticus Videre—48 points
  2. Samantha Lienhard—35 points
There were other participants, but it's not worth name-dropping. Moving on...

What Happened to the KoopaTV Loyalty Cruise Program?


There's been a whole lot going on with this. UNFORTUNATELY, none of it is good. In last month's newsletter, I wrote about United States Navy destroyers threatening our KoopaTV Loyalty Cruise ride. This month, President Donald John Trump vowed to shoot down Iranian gunships if they harass American ships, and, uh, I dunno, anyone can just claim they've been harassed nowadays. Just ask President Donald John Trump. He knows all about false accusations. And anyone can claim that someone is holding is gun. Just ask certain victims of police violence in the United States. And anyone can be mistaken for Iranian. So it's very dangerous out there.

On top of that, many of our KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program winners reside in the United States, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a No Sail Order for all cruise ships. How would we get you guys out of the United States into the open seas?

There are ways (like sending the superior transportation method of the Doomship to your houses and flying you out), but they're outside of our budget. Lord Bowser wouldn't approve of them. We'll end up converting the KoopaTV Loyalty Cruiser into a warship after all. ...And then, at the very least, we wouldn't be falsely mistaken for having a gun. We'll have a big button! Bigger and more powerful than anyone's!

Making an Enemy of CHINA


I don't want to take the whole KoopaTV Loyalty Cruise Program being cancelled with only levity. It's time for some truth: It's cancelled due to the decisions and actions conducted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a collection of very awful people on your planet, Earth. China is responsible for this coronavirus pandemic, which has caused many problems for you, some of which also impact KoopaTV. They also have a big role to play in the global suppression of free speech, and free speech values are ones that KoopaTV depends on.

While we can't, uh, declare war on the Chinese Communist Party like we can with the Mushroom Kingdom (and we'd like to stay out of geopolitical affairs, and more importantly, have Earth nations stay out of OUR geopolitical affairs), we can at least join in protest against the Chinese Communist Party.

Starting today, I am officially announcing a new goal for KoopaTV: To be blocked from Chinese Internet servers. Please understand that this is an entirely grand-standing move, and the number of Chinese web sessions in a year we receive can be counted on two human hands. This has nothing to do with self-sacrifice, but it does have to do with our values.


I'm not actually sure at this time how we'll achieve this goal, but I assume it'll have something to do with writing enough anti-Chinese Community Party content that we get noticed by them and then blocked. I'll be checking this comparitech.com “Test if a site is blocked in China” tool every newsletter to track our progress, and I suppose I'll have to increase my written vitriol towards China. An alternative tool is GreatFire.org.

comparitech KoopaTV.org accessible from China April 2020
KoopaTV.org is currently accessible from mainland China.

I am also unilaterally making the editorial decision to, from now on, refer to COVID-19 as the Chinese Communist Party Virus (CCP Virus), after the example set by The Epoch Times.

Corrections Corner; April 2020


No one submitted any corrections in the KoopaTV comments section during April 2020. Therefore, there is nothing to write about in this newsletter's Corrections Corner.

Announcing KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program Round 32!


Usually, KoopaTV's KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program rounds that span the May–June time-frame had a sweetened incentive due to it spanning the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). E3 is the videogame industry's largest newsworthy event, and we dedicated weeks to full coverage on it. However, in 2020, E3 has been cancelled, due to sanitation concerns caused by the ravaging Chinese Communist Party Virus.

We're not cancelling the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program. Losing the KoopaTV Loyalty Cruise Program is bad enough. However, it won't have an extra incentive.

The reward this time is one Amazon gift card code worth $10. Quite frankly, I'd prefer you spend that $10 on something that won't result in a cardboard box shipped to your house! But once the code is yours, there's nothing I can do about it. Can you win it this round? Check out the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program page for details on how.

KoopaTV Feedback Form and Quiz Part XXV Available Now!


As of publishing this newsletter, I haven't started making the KoopaTV Feedback Form and Quiz that corresponds to the just-announced KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program Round 32... but I will, soon. When I do, I'll update the newsletter.

Update, May 3: I made them. You can go to that link and have fun with those, and they'll get you big points for Round 32.


Too bad about the Cruiser, right? No one in Koopa Kingdom could've seen that coming. You should do your part so your fellow humans can see Koopa Kingdom coming, and help share KoopaTV articles out to the world.


Last month's March 2020 newsletter is over here. 
Next month's May 2020 newsletter is here. Spoilers: Not blocked in China yet.
Last year's April 2019 newsletter is over here. This one is quite different.
By April 2021's newsletter, China has blocked KoopaTV.
Here is what KoopaTV did instead of having a cruise ride on May 12.

2 comments :

  1. ...Huh. I didn't really mean to, but I won anyway. I'll be darned.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No one else meant to win, either!

      By the end the only comments I was getting are from idiot eShop code beggars. And you'll see those in the May 2020 newsletter, too. (As a worst comment.)

      Delete

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