Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 37: The Abs Song

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Only the greatest abs make the list!♪

This is the 37th KoopaTV Fitness Log on KoopaTV! That's very special. Why? ...Well, I dunno. It's the week after 36, I guess. Same type of reason why the 50th or the 100th would be important. It's all arbitrary. What's not arbitrary is my devotion to being in shape so I can best represent Team Koopa Kingdom at this year's Olympic Games. I'm on the maximum difficulty level in the training regiment at 30!

This log features Ring Fit Adventure's World 37: Extra Fitness Lv. 231, which is based off World 14: Moppets Gone Missing, covered initially here and then concluded here. There's supposed to be a lot of fog and a lot of ghosts. I'm not a fan of either. Well, with the exception of Boo and King Boo in Mario Superstar Baseball.

Typing that last sentence in the preceding paragraph REALLY made me want to put off my fitness journey to go to my GameCube and play Mario Superstar Baseball, but I stuck to doing the right thing and started playing Ring Fit Adventure on Sunday. ...Actually, that might be the wrong thing, since I haven't eaten yet today and I'm hungry...

Well, if you insist... and I can't resist... I better work out right now and not do something else!
(Martha and Carrie were formerly ghosts back in World 14.)

The ghosts that once plagued this world in the story mode are no more, and they're singing an irresistible song about abdominal muscles. Instead of joining in the song about training abs, we go to the spooky Missed Highway to actually train our abs. While the ghosts are gone and turned to humans, the fog is still omnipresent. Apparently, Dragon Fruit grows here (I only found one, at the end), so if you find leveling up to be important, definitely drink a smoothie to double your ingredient haul. There are also two Treasure Chasers with 100 and 150 coins, and this is also the world where Blue/Red/Yellow/Green enemies are greatly replaced with Cobalt/Garnet/Ochre/Malachite enemies. That is supposed to represent an enemy quality buff. Right after completing this highway, I went to the Game Gym north of it, and it's Bootstrap Tower (Novice). Novice?! We've been on Advanced-difficulty minigames for a few worlds now! Why back to novice? Then I remembered why—it's the Novice layout, but all in fog. Which isn't considered a different difficulty than Novice in terms of how the game tracks your high scores. Still, for completing it, I got a Defense Drink.

The Lental Region's Pokémon in their Natural Depth... if you want

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - How eager are you to go on nature trails?

Three and a half months ago, I wrote a controversial article titled Telling You Now: New Pokémon Snap Shouldn't be $60. I still stand by that sentiment, by the way. It's just now New Pokémon Snap actually releases on the Nintendo Switch tomorrow, so I figured I'd comment on the new stuff we've learned about the game since.

For starters, today Nintendo released this rather compelling trailer showing many Pokémon interacting with one another within a natural habitat, and if you have a fondness for the Pokémon outside of them as competitive battling tools, you should appreciate it.

Not only are you passively observing and taking photos of Pokémon in their habitat, but you can affect the environment by tossing items like Fluffruit and the Illumina Orb, or scanning the environment or playing a melody. You can also take different routes within levels, upgrade the levels by exploring them enough (which prompts new/different Pokémon and interactions to occur, which allows for new photo opportunities), and uncover... mysteries. And of course, your photos are graded.

Previous KoopaTV screenshots of New Pokémon Snap feature Bouffalant in the day.
But you can also encounter Bouffalant at NIGHT! ...And they're asleep, as they should be. Good moos.

There's gameplay and interactivity, sure, and there seems to be lots of Pokémon personality. I still think this should be half the price of what it is for the content that's contained. Yeah, I'm biased against the whole genre, I guess. If you want some further interaction with the Lental Region before buying the game, check out Nintendo's website for it, which is a whole interactive experience.

I think a big reason people are actually interested in New Pokémon Snap—besides nostalgia—is because they're in an artificial drought and want to fill it with something. Personally, I haven't bought any games yet in 2021. I still have lots and lots to play from the games I currently own, some I haven't even started. That'll change within one to three months. Depends if I'm sold on Famicom Detective Club or not before I pick up The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles at launch.


Is Ludwig a jerk for advocating for adventure games instead of rail photography romps, when both are niche genres nowadays with questionable interactivity? Let him know in the comments section; and if you are picking up New Pokémon Snap, why you're doing so. Ludwig promises he'll stop skipping new Pokémon games when the Sinnoh remasters arrive.


Ludwig wrote a whole article asking if he should be sold on Famicom Detective Club or not.

KoopaTV Live Reactions: SOTU 2021 + Tim Scott's Response

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Technically not a State of the Union, but “President Biden Addresses a Joint Session of Congress”.

While KoopaTV is supposed to be a videogame commentary story, sometimes we get caught up in doing non-videogame-related things that we would rather not do, but must do, thanks to the TV in KoopaTV's name. Carrying America's State of the Union addresses every year is one of those things, since those end up on every channel.

KoopaTV's whole staff should be here to react to it, but they all fell asleep just at the THOUGHT of listening to President Joseph Robinette Biden talk for over an hour. However, since I've built up some STAMINA with my weekly fitness training (look at KoopaTV's Friday articles), I'm in the best physical condition to endure this onslaught of boredom and monotony. ...Still, it's quite the challenge. Check out my log and see if I survived.

Also, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina gave the Republican Response to the address.

[8:55 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Joe Biden took over the TV part of KoopaTV. :(
[8:57 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh87V3f0FaA
[8:57 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: 3.8k Likes and 12k Dislikes.
[8:57 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: He didn't even start yet.
[8:58 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: ...But they're probably right.
[8:59 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: I can't tell if the White House stream won't start until Biden starts talking, or it's glitched.

(There's no substantive difference between a State of the Union address and a Joint Session of Congress speech.)

[9:02 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: It's past the time it's supposed to start and it hasn't started, but... nothing happening is probably better.
[9:03 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: ...nevermind it's starting.

Monster Hunter Digital Event April 2021 Thoughts

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Warning: My thoughts are mostly for Monster Hunter Stories 2.

Just last month, CAPCOM held the Monster Hunter Digital Event - March 2021. Now today, there's the Monster Hunter Digital Event - April 2021. Maybe we'll get one next month, too. Like before, this talked about both Monster Hunter Stories 2 and Monster Hunter Rise, and in that order. Unlike last month, both games got about the same amount of time to shine:

Quite frankly, it's better to just look at the Monster Hunter Stories 2 website to see the new information than to watch through the event. CAPCOM's web designers did a fancy job of putting blue dots next to the new info. Basically, on top of the basic plot points we learned last time about the protagonist's newly hatched Rathalos super-pet/friend supposedly being a calamitous creature that will bring ruin to the world, there are several organised Hunters that want to capture/kill your pal. Which, hey, makes sense. Everyone in the land probably knows the legends of what your Razewing Ratha is supposed to do, and based people adventuring a lot as their occupation, word must get out fast.

International Olympic Committee's Olympic Virtual Series of 2021

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We are NOT talking eSports, though.

As you may know, I'm an Olympic athlete. Team Koopa Kingdom will be at the Tokyo 2020 (2021) Olympic Games in under 100 days. As you may expect, I'm pretty interested in the intersection between videogames and the Olympics. We previously wrote about how there was an Xbox tournament at the 2018 Special Olympics (featuring Forza Motorsport 7), but that's not the real Olympics. Later in 2018, Thomas Bach said that he's definitely against eSports at the Olympic Games due to an association with violence. He's still in charge.

We also noted there are three videogames based on the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. One is Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - The Official Video Game, which released only in Japan in July 2019 and has apparently been forgotten about since. There is Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, which released in 2019 as well. It's pretty bad. Lastly, there is THE PEGASUS DREAM TOUR, which I asked the developers about back in mid-2020. It's still not out yet, but they're allegedly working on it for a 2021 release.

HOWEVER, what this article is ACTUALLY about (I buried the lede, didn't I?) is that the International Olympic Committee is partnering to produce the Olympic Virtual Series (OVS), the first-ever Olympic-licenced event for virtual sports! The series begins this May 13 and ends June 23. Those partners are...

Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 36: There in El Dorago is Lord Dragaux!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - But we're going to his other stadiums first to dismantle statues.

Normally, my main goal in playing Ring Fit Adventure on a weekly basis is to... be in better shape for the purposes of winning the Tokyo Olympic Games. We call it KoopaTV Fitness Fridays. Last week, we cleared World 35.

This week, however, in the spirit of the United States of America, our main goal this week was to tear down statues. Which, by the way, still requires finesse.

The best place to find statues to destroy is Ring Fit Adventure's World 36: Extra Fitness Lv. 225, based off World 13: El Dorago, with the majority of that content covered in our Week 12 log. I'm continuing to play on difficulty level 30.

Now, Ring doesn't remember where Dragaux is, but according to my notes in KoopaTV's Week 13 Fitness Log, he's in the bottom left Dragaux Stadium. THEREFORE, we'll do that LAST. That's because we want to stock up on Dragaux Statue Cores and Dragaux Statue Fragments obtained by destroying Dragaux Statues and Mini Dragaux Statues, respectively. General Store Number 32 is offering the Stone Dragon II clothing set but they require those items (two Cores and two Fragments—Cores are more scarce), while the Peacock Contender II set requires two Peridot stones.

I do remember. I just wrote it in the paragraph above, Ring.
I hope you read my content and not just look at the pictures and the captions.

Dragaux surprisingly acknowledges that the bottom left Dragaux Stadium is the real one without us having to clear any of the other ones first, just by visiting it from the overworld map. But we can cancel out of that and do the others.

We're visiting Dragaux first thing, but we're not actually going to enter his Stadium until the end.

Let's start with the top right Dragaux Stadium, which is two minutes of a Squat-powered rail cart into a Dragaux Statue miniboss. Dragaux Statues can punch you, gleam through its eyes at you to reduce your defence, and my favourite action of all, shoot laser beams from its eyes that do far more damage than the punch. (Still not enough to be a threat.) Defeating it forced it to drop a valuable Dragaux Statue Core

Analysing Deloitte's Digital media trends Survey 15th Edition: Gen Z and Videogames

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Plus, subscription services and advertisements.

Those damned kids these days... actually have correct opinions on forms of entertainment, apparently. That's according to Deloitte's Digital media trends survey, 15th edition, which surveyed 2,009 Americans in February 2021. (Deloitte is a widely respected consulting company.) Here's the most important chart they provide:

You're supposed to interpret members of Generation Z loving games the most as profound.
(Meanwhile, Boomers are into home audiovisual entertainment like watching Fox News.)

I've argued before that films are an inferior mode of entertainment, with books being better, but I placed videogames as better than books. (Yet Team Film utterly pwned Team Book, probably driven by Generation Z voters, so I don't know what's going on. Maybe it's meaningful that Deloitte didn't even put books as a form of entertainment. Or if they did put books as an option to choose, books didn't get enough votes to register. Sucks for authors these days. I hear the BALAN WONDERWORLD novel was better than the game, too.)

Despite my fondness for bullying Generation Z and deeming Millennials to be the superior generation, Generation Z apparently has the better favourite entertainment activity preferences.

You might think that Generation Z will “grow out” of games, but that's a stupid thought. There's no reason why that'd happen. Games are inherently superior. Playing videogames being each subsequent generation's least favourite isn't a function of growing out of it, but a function of gaming being relatively new. ...And a function of older people having crappy tastes in games, according to another survey, the 2020 Essential Facts About the Video Game Industry. It's hard to put gaming as your favourite activity when your exposure to it is Solitaire.

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles—WORLDWIDE RELEASE: July 27, 2021!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - This is what we LIVE for!

You may recall disbarred and disgraced ex-attorney Phoenix Wright. He got cancelled exactly two years ago. Now he's roaming around homeless in Los Angeles, at least last I checked.

However, in this United States national mood of just finishing up a high-profile court case, CAPCOM is announcing that they'll finally be allowing the United States (and elsewhere) to study the Japanese ancestry of Phoenix Wright: Ryunosuke Naruhodo, in a new (available physically AND digitally) product called The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles that combines The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures and The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve. This'll release July 27, 2021 on the Switch, PlayStation 4, and Steam. (Years ago, you may have read about those on KoopaTV, but called “Dai Gyakuten Saiban”. Incidentally, Shu Takumi, who you're about to see deliver a message, announced that exactly seven years ago. Something about mid-late April and Ace Attorney-related developments...Though the sequel was announced in a June.)

LEGO and Nintendo Announce "Adventures with Luigi" Starter Set

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Second fiddle? ...Still a danger.

Fresh off the LEGO Group press release:

LEGO Luigi, coming out August 1, 2021. You can (but shouldn't) pre-order the starter course here for $60. LEGO Luigi will be compatible with the already-existing LEGO Super Mario sets that KoopaTV has written extensively about, but he also comes with a couple new noteworthy aspects. Note that it's “LEGO Super Mario” but “LEGO Luigi”. ...Luigi has been barred from claiming superiority. That extends past the name and to the details of the whole set. Let's take a closer look...

PS3 and Vita PlayStation Store Closure...and Reversal

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Wait until they decide they REALLY gotta close it in the (near) future.

At the end of March 2021, Sony announced the closure of the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable on-device virtual storefronts, to be effective July 2 (for the PlayStation Portable) and August 27, 2021 (for the PlayStation 3 and Vita). That joins a lengthy list of other things Sony has already shut down, ranging from website-based virtual storefront closures to console communication services, as well as to-come shut downs of new movie and television rental services.

And then, like KoopaTV, the proclamation got...partially uncancelled. KoopaTV was partially uncancelled because nothing is undoing the week or so of lost content after our cancellation, while the partial factor for Sony is that the PlayStation Portable store is still going down, but the PlayStation 3 and Vita will “continue operations.” This reversal stems from “further reflection” at PlayStation's executive leadership.

Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 35: Daddalus Consulting Co.

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - This log contains SIX enemy super attacks!

It's (barely still) Friday, and you know what that means... KoopaTV Fitness Fridays! Where I tell you what progress I've made throughout the week in fitness and exercise. All in the name of personal health... and the rapidly approaching Tokyo Olympic Games.

Last week was Week 34, making this week Week 35, focusing on World 35: Extra Fitness Lv. 222. This is the Extra Fitness version of World 12: Wings of Daddalus, a world I totally forgot about. This takes us back to Eureka Village, home to the inventor Daddalus, who uses his brilliant mind to invent... non-useful things, like a Sentry robot that poses as a human with human speech patterns. World 35 is a bit of a breather level compared to World 34, with only ten courses total. I am increasing the difficulty level back to 30 (max) from 29, though.

We easily tricked the Sentry to not give us a hard time.
Dunno why Ring thinks the intersection between linguistics and artificial intelligence is a waste of time, though.

The first level is Clever-Trick Temple. It's not so clever of a trick, since it's the same level design as Pushpull Shrine from World 32. Right at the start they force a Treasure Chest to you containing a new stone: the Peridot. The second treasure chest—this one being very missable if you screw up the “ride the block down the incline and then double jump to the upper platform” timing—has a Defense Drink, which is sort of appreciated since it's a rare item and not one you can just make more of, but also not useful because I have more than enough Defense. (It's a permanent +1 to your Defense stat; with it, I now have 1316 Defense.)

The next course is a surprise...!

How PAC-MAN 99's Privacy Policy Lies To You

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - You shouldn't go anywhere near PAC-MAN 99.

Last week, Bandai Namco released PAC-MAN 99 for free to all Nintendo Switch Online subscribers. The purpose of the game is to try to get you to buy downloadable content for different game skins based on other Namco properties, as well as pay for game modes like private battle and time attack. All in all, you'll have to pay $30 to get the most out of it. (That's for the game modes and the cosmetic stuff; you can buy the cosmetics separately but not the game modes.)

Now, I have never liked PAC-MAN—that's an understatement—but I figured I'd try it at least once. Typical of free Bandai Namco experiences like Dragon Ball FighterZ, you need to get through a terms of service and privacy policy to play anything. At least at 14+6 pages, the legal documents are substantially shorter than the 42+42 pages you see from Activision.

You need to hold down the A button to agree to the EULA.

So after that 14-page EULA/terms of service is that 6-page Privacy Policy, which I read. I took a screenshot of an interesting part about Game Analytics, which sort of implies that Namco is going to do things with your game data, though not sell it to third parties:

“You can opt-out of this use through the options menu in the Game.”

You may like the idea of Namco doing special things with your game analytics and maybe marketing things just to you. I definitely don't want to be marketed about PAC-MAN because I'm the kind of person that gets mad every time I go to the character selection screen on Super Smash Bros. and see PAC-MAN there. Moreso on Super Smash Bros. For Wii U than Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, if only because it's hard to find anyone on that character selection screen, let alone PAC-MAN.

After agreeing to the Privacy Policy, the first thing I did was want to do as the Privacy Policy suggested and go to the options menu in PAC-MAN 99, which is called the Setting menu...

KoopaTV Live Reacts to Nintendo's Indie World Showcase of April 2021

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Why'd we watch this? ...Why'd we publish it?

Normally, I don't watch Nintendo's Indie World Showcases live. Or all the way through after the fact. Occasionally, something interesting will be announced there and I'll watch that individually, like Murder by Numbers at the end of 2019.

Either because I'm lazy today, or it's a slow news week, or because I'm still recovering from not writing anything for over a week, Heavy Lobster and I live-reacted to today's Indie World Showcase instead of writing real commentary. We expected nothing, mind you. And that's what we got!

[12:00 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RNkRaNfCp4
[12:00 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: This is gonna be a boring log if I'm watching this and have nothing to say.
[12:00 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: I probably shouldn't be logging this, then.
[12:01 PM] HeavyLobster: We can be bored together, at least.

RIP CAPCOM Store; Ransomware Update (Blame the American IT Department)

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Double dose of CAPCOM...failure.

Two updates to earlier CAPCOM stories for ya, coming on the same day.

Remember when CAPCOM got pwned by that ransomware attack? According to a press release from today, the cause was that a relatively old and insecure Virtual Private Network (VPN) device in the California office was targeted and used to access CAPCOM's global files. CAPCOM's Information Technology (IT) Department had already been deprecating those old devices for new ones, but due to the Chinese Communist Party Virus (the one that makes people sick, not one that corrupts computers), they couldn't fully replace all of the supply so they kept the old insecure device around for a back-up. CAPCOM's other network security measures were being reviewed by IT but not implemented across the organisation... again, due to the CCP Virus messing up priorities. (IT probably was busy making sure every employee could work remotely with minimal business operation disruption, which can be a herculean task depending on their starting point, and could easily and understandably derail security implementation efforts.)

Through third-party consulting companies, CAPCOM is obviously now taking information security far more seriously and prioritising it after the fact to try to rebound from an international and public embarrassment, installing several measures to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again.

Smart companies will take their information technology seriously with real investment. In my article on working conditions to avoid when looking for a job, I mentioned if a company won't invest in dual monitors for employees, that's bad. What I didn't mention? If they're using unsupported/very old hardware/software. Like, if anyone is still using Windows XP—and many healthcare companies do so—that's a bad sign and it's a major security risk, as well as a poor employee experience. The bare minimum your IT department should be doing is actively replacing the old, vulnerable stuff and removing them from circulation.

E3 2021 Begins June 12, 2021

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - My thoughts on the “new” E3... at least, what we know so far.

In two months... we'll have the Electronic Entertainment Expo again! E3 2021 is the world's premier event for videogame products, and it will begin June 12 (Saturday) until June 15 (Tuesday), so if you have school or work or whatever then, be sure to schedule time off now. True to its name, it'll be entirely digital this time—an all-virtual event. We'll see live press conferences on a four-day video stream, and the show's organiser, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), may wish to test this format to gauge E3's future, even after pandemics end. (Reminder that E3 2020 got cancelled entirely.) In fact, the ESA believes that “in 2022 [...] E3 will encompass a full 360 degree interactive digital and in-person event.” (What does 360 degree mean? Many camera angles? A return to the Xbox 360?)

Big videogame company names will include Nintendo, Microsoft, and CAPCOM. They're excluding perennially awful E3 performers like Electronic Arts and Sony, which is fine by me. (Well, to be more accurate, those companies excluded themselves. I'm sure E3 would've rather had them, even if I'd rather not watch them.)

KoopaTV will provide our signature E3 coverage during the livestreams, and as far as I'm concerned, the digital format is a good thing, because coming to E3 in-person is pretty bad. Last time I physically went to E3, I got detained by the police and sat in a jail cell.

There's a pre-event media...thing that's supposed to happen from June 7 to June 11. They haven't yet defined who constitutes as media and haven't started asking for media applications... but I get the feeling that they wouldn't consider KoopaTV to be media. According to the ESA, approved media “will have unique opportunities to connect with our exhibitors and sponsors.”

...Meh, I've had enough unique opportunities to connect with Nintendo in just the past two weeks to last me the whole year. Or more. Probably best to participate as a normal fan. ...With excellent insight, mind you. That's what we do at KoopaTV!


You'll want to stay tuned to KoopaTV during E3 2021, as well as the two months leading up to it, as the companies will likely disclose what their plans will be, which KoopaTV will cover since all of that will constitute as commentary-worthy events.


Several other companies are joining as well, including SEGA, Bandai Namco, and SQUARE ENIX.
Nintendo's E3 2021 plans are made clear, and KoopaTV is indeed participating as fans, not a media site.
E3 2022 got cancelled.

Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 34: Three Houses

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Choose your trial!

Two weeks ago I gave you my 33rd week of KoopaTV's Fitness Fridays. What's with the gap? Well, last week was... a very special week, and because I knew that early in the week, I just took a break from all forms of physical exercise, just so I wouldn't miss a beat in telling you all the details of my personal fitness. ...Yeah, that doesn't read like a very smart thing I did.

Because I took a break (and read this for how the break ended), when I started up Ring Fit Adventure on Sunday night, I lowered the difficulty level from max (30) to one less (29). Just to help get back into things easier. We're at World 34: Extra Fitness Lv. 217. Since this is based off World 11: Valley of Wishes (covered in Week 10 and concluded in Week 11) we encounter the spotty Fortune Teller, who says we must pass FOUR TRIALS. I gotta admit, I totally forgot this world had a Fortune Teller—he charged us 100 coins for a fortune at the time. All I remember are Allegra, Armando, and Abdonis posing as my friends, but the Fortune Teller did mumble that they passed by here. He also knows we saved the world.

Survival is pretty easy. My defence stat is way too high for enemies to kill me off.

The first level is Rumbling Road, which I noted before has some cool level design in how the special movement features of the level (including Squat Hold jump pads and Overhead Ring Pull pulleys) interacts with a barrage of spiked rolling logs, and how you need to time your platforming and movement appropriately so you don't get hit by them. (Getting hit makes you lose 10 coins, which is a far worse and permanent consequence compared to losing hearts.) There is a Treasure Chest with one Deep Purple Smoothie at the end of the level. Clearing the road got me access to the Dreadmill (Advanced) Game Gym, which then gave me one Topaz item for completion. It also got me access to the Town and General Store Number 30! They're selling the Sky Jogger II (set bonus being slightly increased item vacuum range) and the Sunset Runner II (for easier jogging and knee lifts). You need four total Topaz to buy the new items... which is more than I got. Perhaps I'll find a Topaz in the next level, Sunset Road?

KoopaTV's March 2021 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - LONG LIVE KOOPATV!

You may be wondering what this newsletter is doing here, as opposed to not existing. Let's... get right into that discussion. Just remember there is also the rest of the newsletter that follows this opening discussion, and you'll definitely want to read that content. Especially the worst comment of the month discussion.

KoopaTV Lives Past March 31, 2021!

You should already be familiar with my March 31, 2021 article about the many things that Nintendo sunset starting April 1. I then wrote that Nintendo put KoopaTV on that list because Koopas share the same 35-year anniversary that Mario does, so Mario and Koopas are linked in terms of (not) being able to remain past that date. (Nevermind that KoopaTV is totally disconnected from the anniversary celebration, since we've existed since 2013.)

After that article, I and the rest of the staff (though without a legal team... with team defined as one or more people actually versed in law) have been arguing with Nintendo people for almost a week that their logic is bad and KoopaTV should continue to exist. We were getting nowhere with them until Nintendo's in-game events had these two happenings: first, a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Spirit Event themed after Bowser's Fury from Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, featuring the Fury Bowser Spirit; and second, Mario Kart Tour has the new Ninja Tour. The Ninja Tour specifically calls out Koopa Troopa as a gift.

How can Nintendo maintain that Koopas are cancelled because the anniversary is over when these Koopas—Fury Bowser and Koopa Troopa—are being featured post-anniversary? They can't. And they knew they can't maintain that.

As a result, KoopaTV is coming back! Unfortunately, that means Mario is as well. But we'll continue to oppose him and eventually reach a world where we're around and he isn't.

Now, let's look at KoopaTV's March 2021 content, which also includes that kind of anti-Mario opposition content I'm promising more of.