In Memoriam: Glenn Fraldarius

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - He died like a true knight.

There are few tragedies as far-reaching and destructive as the Tragedy of Duscur. In Imperial Year 1166, the royalty of the Kingdom of Faerghus of the continent of Fódlan—including King Lambert, Queen Consort Patricia, and Prince Dimitri—embarked on a diplomatic trip to the neighbouring nation of Duscur. They were attacked by the people of Duscur. The Faerghus royal guard tried to repel the attackers, but they were slaughtered. One of those knights was Glenn Fraldarius, oldest son of Duke Rodrigue Fraldarius, the head of House Fraldarius. All Faerghus attendees on that trip, with the exception of young Prince Dimitri, were killed off by Duscur fires of torment. This left Faerghus without a king or queen, so King Lambert's brother Rufus became regent of Faerghus until Prince Dimitri would be old enough to rule.

Depiction of the Tragedy of Duscur, painted by Ignatz Victor.
Prince Dimitri is in the centre; Glenn is one of the fallen knights on the ground.

Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 41: Field Day Festival!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Yeah, let's have a field day in the coldest world! That'll warm our spirits...

It's Friday on KoopaTV...more specifically, it's KoopaTV Fitness Friday. That means I'll communicate to you my fitness progress in my quest to be IN SHAPE for life and the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games that start in under two months. That involves Ring Fit Adventure, and on the highest difficulty level (30).

Last week, we made it through World 40 and took a break to restore our legs. This week it's World 41: Extra Fitness Lv. 251. A blonde woman named Thermia asked me to participate in the Field Day Festival, and Ring said it was pretty fun last time we came through this place. Honestly, I don't remember her or this world at all (and it's not elaborated what the Field Day Festival involves or why it exists), but it's based on World 18: The Iceman Flexeth! It's a world based on cold and things being frozen. Not sure why Ring would fondly reminisce on that.

(I don't know what's going on or remember who this is.)

Appropriately, the opening course is calling Shivering Valley. It's definitely a big, cold-looking valley, but most of it is just flight segments (THREE! flight segments, two of which have headwinds). There's an unavoidable Treasure Chest with a Deep Lime Green Smoothie. After that, we're met by the Sportan Commander, who was apparently hoping to see me here. We haven't seen him since literally 14 weeks ago and here he is with no explanation. Maybe he wants to participate in this Field Day Festival, too? He wants me to display “Sportan pride” (I guess I'm an honourary member of their society?) and clear the Wintry Watchtower in 210 steps or less. Intercepting our run is a Treasure Chest containing one Rose Quartz, the stone we got from Dragaux last world. ...I still want more Garnet. I finished it in 143 steps, which was a pretty unoptimal number. (there's a lot of stair-steps in here, so maybe the best thing to wear is the jogging + knee lift improvement outfits?) At the end, the Sportan Commander was nowhere to be found, and Thermia explained that, while he intended to run with us, he sprained his ankle at the beginning. Ring feigned concern for his health.

The DRAGON QUEST 35th Anniversary Announcements

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Well, it could've been condensed. We don't really know much, still.

Last night—and I watched it on-demand this morning—SQUARE ENIX had a 35-year Dragon Quest anniversary announcement stream featuring series creator Yuji Horii and some TV personality named JOY, where they had SIX game announcements. Here's the stream... though I don't recommend you actually watch it.

Basically, it's in Japanese, and there's one English translator but several Japanese speakers, and it was a live event and the translator didn't know what would be said before it was being said. So it's an unfortunate mess, and the Japanese speakers tended to not actually provide any useful information. At one point, they dedicated their commentary to making fun of Dragon Quest producer Taichi Inuzuka transitioning from becoming “skinny” to putting on weight rather than give any additional information on the game he was presenting. ...There was a LOT of the Dragon Quest theme that played, though.

Anyway, I constructed this table summarising what was discussed, so you don't have to watch the anniversary stream and can come away with what little we know:

Monster Hunter Digital Event May 2021 Thoughts

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I wonder if the Rite of Channeling is ethical.

Just last month, CAPCOM held the Monster Hunter Digital Event - April 2021. Now today, there's the Monster Hunter Digital Event - May 2021. Like before, this talked about both Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin and Monster Hunter Rise, and in that order. Like before, I mostly just care about Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin, releasing worldwide July 9 2021:

The event starts with showcasing a scary pit that emits “rage-rays” of light that pisses off monsters that see it. Just another strange thing that's threatening the safety of the world. They showed returning characters from the first game (Avinia the Rider and her Frostfang) and new ones (Orgo the big Felyne and the mysterious Ol' Dede who probably isn't King Dedede's dad or grandpa or something...though that's not confirmed).

But this event today wasn't just story discussion, but they also talked about actual game features and showed gameplay. Note that some of what I'm about to mention is from the website, not necessarily from the event.

John Cena, the Chinese Communist Party Pawn

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - ...That's a shame.

The last KoopaTV article really dedicated to China was published December 2020, about how gaming companies Valve and CD Projekt are pawns of the Chinese Communist Party. The last, and only, KoopaTV article about John Cena was published over seven years ago: it was called “Nationalistic Nintendo Video & John Cena”. At the time, this wasn't ironic. Nintendo had a Nintendo Video service that they made to try to get people to use their Nintendo 3DS more actively, at a time when the gaming library was quite sparse. By 2014, every region besides North America gave up on it. Nintendo of America, still believing the service had a future, was rather heavily promoting then-American hero John Cena and the WWE Slam City cartoon series produced by the WWE as the star of the now-America-only Nintendo Video. John Cena (or a digital likeness of him) and Nintendo of America were joined at the hip for an all-American promotion to benefit the 3DS. IN AMERICA.

Skip ahead to the present day, and John Cena is doing less wrestling and focusing more on his acting (Hollywood) career. As is the case for many Hollywood productions, they're catering to the whims of China, which is a big market for film—provided they don't offend Chinese Communist Party sensibilities. John Cena is a featured cast member in F9, a just-released (outside of the United States—it's not out yet in the USA) film that's the ninth in the lucrative Fast & Furious film series. As Hollywood-focused Deadline.com notes, the China market is a huge priority for F9, and John Cena has been all about China long before that, learning Mandarin starting in 2016.

How does this all connect together? Well, in a recent interview with a Taiwanese broadcaster to promote the movie, according to the New York Times, John Cena said, “Taiwan is the first country that can watch [F9].” This is unacceptable, according to the Communist Chinese Party, because Taiwan is not considered a country and they're just a rebellious part of China that needs to be taught a lesson. ...And GameSpot wrote an article about John Cena's apology, so, hey, KoopaTV can too. And, yes, of course, John Cena “apologised”. Here it is, in Mandarin:

I can't use my childhood dodgeball strategy in Knockout City

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - You probably can't use any dodgeball strategy, actually.

In the latter half of the famous February 4, 2021 Nintendo Direct, there was a game that... made an impression: Knockout City. Wendy thought it “looked really lame.” I thought it was akin to “Fortnite Dodge Ball” and Kamek agreed. But now that Knockout City has released (and with a limited-time Block Party giving you full access to the game for ten days before you're buried in level caps and micro-transactions that you need to pay your way out of), what is it and how does it compare to dodgeball?

About Knockout City

Knockout City is developed by Velan Studios, which you may remember as the developer of Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit. It's published by awful gaming industry villain Electronic Arts, for the major gaming platforms. It's free-to-start—which means it's a Gaming as a Service micro-transaction fest. You also need to make an EA account that unnecessarily provides Electronic Arts personal information like your friend list, telephone number, real name, and date of birth. By default, EA will sell your information to third-party advertisers. Per their "Do Not Sell My Personal Information" page, you need to log into their site and check two boxes to disable this sharing.

Anyway, the sport in this game is actually called dodgebrawl. It's like dodgeball, but more... intense and with attitude and in the streets. Like, there's double-jumping and a glider. After doing the training 1, I immediately got put into an already-in-progress match (where my team was losing—someone probably had just ragequit) and I got pwned without really knowing what I'm doing. The game then asked me if I had fun. Of course, I said no.

Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 40: The worst legs in the world?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - ...Just kidding, it's opposite day. My legs are amazing.

My legs better be good, because with KoopaTV Fitness Fridays, training up my lower-body is a big priority so I can be an incredible Olympic athlete. (Training up my upper-body is the other big priority...) Playing through Ring Fit Adventure is a big way to accomplish this. I do so on the maximum difficulty—30.

Last week, we had the physically difficult experience of Week 39, where we had to hold a long Overhead Squat versus the world boss, and had to survive the Lower Body Set Fitness Gym. This week, the focus on legs continues, as we enter World 40: Extra Fitness Lv. 247. This one is based on World 17: The Boy Who Howled Wolf, which features dark influenced feral animals and ended in an epic showdown against Dragaux. I'm pretty sure we're gonna encounter the exact same thing this time, except my biggest curiosity is how Ring Fit Adventure plans to narratively explain why the animals are corrupted by the dark influence when, in terms of Extra Fitness's storyline, the dark influence has been eradicated.

I feel like it's my duty as the author here to work through the septuple negative.
Pretty sure that has the same effect as one opposite day. (The statement he said before this was,
“You look really, really cool!” So he doesn't think I look cool.)
But he's still a dumb kid, and opposite-opposite-opposite-opposite-opposite-opposite-opposite day is a terrible idea.

By the way, the boy who howled wolf is named Linus, and he's a twerpy deceptive kid. Part of the reason that the world originally took so long is because he actually makes you back-track in the storyline (because he lies), but we don't have to deal with that in Extra Fitness. Instead, we go to Hamstring Marsh—and only once. There's a Blue Dark Hart fight with no explanation on why it exists. So that's how it's gonna be, huh? General Store Number 36 is selling three new outfits: the Leg Master II (look like Allegra and increase blue Fit Skill attack power by 5%); the Blue Chameleon II (increase Ring's vacuum range in platforming segments); and the Coral Snake II (no set boost). Altogether, these will require six Garnet to buy out, and I got none, since I used my existing stash to buy last world's Ocean Athlete II. Where to get all of those stones?

Nintendo's Financial Results Briefing for Fiscal Year Ended March 2021 Q&A Analysis!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We get to check up on the guy who always asks about China.

At the end of the Nintendo's Results For Fiscal Year Ended March 2021 article, I said that once the “investor/analyst question & answer session” gets translated, I'd write a commentary on it. ...Well, a few days after that actually happened, here we are! And here is the link to the session. Maybe you should briefly read through the eight questions and answers so you know what I'm commentating on. ...Though it's kinda boring, so I wouldn't blame you if you just wanted my fun notes on it below.

This was attended by Nintendo's President Shuntaro Furukawa and Executive Officer Hajime Murakami. Who is Murakami? It doesn't matter, since he just stood there and let Furukawa answer all of the questions. (He's in charge of Finance.)

Question 1: What's your rationale for selling 22.50 million additional Nintendo Switch consoles by the end of March 2022?

The guy asking the question wants to know if it's feasible that Nintendo would sell more than 22.50 million. By comparison, over the past year Nintendo sold 28.83 Nintendo Switch consoles, and the year before that, 21.03 million. So they're on an upward trend, so why isn't it still going up? Furukawa explained that 22.50 million is still a LOT, and while the Nintendo Switch is very popular, this IS year five. Consoles normally end their lifecycles altogether a year from today.

Nintendo assumes that supply shortages won't be a problem throughout the year, although they've given no reasoning for why they believe they'll be immune from those.

Question 2: How many players are actively using their Nintendo Switch?

My interpretation is that this caller wants Nintendo to avoid the trap they got caught into during the Wii era: Nintendo was smashing sales records with the Wii, but as they got closer to the end of the Wii's lifespan, no one was really playing on it anymore because many of those purchasers were fad buyers who wanted to waggle their Wiimote, and then they put it in a closet.

Furukawa spoke in relative terms, saying Animal Crossing: New Horizons increased the active user base, then it fell... then it went up again with the holidays, and all is currently good and happy and momentum isn't fading, thanks to strong titles like Monster Hunter Rise. I think it's a good question and a suspicious answer.

Let's Investigate Famicom Detective Club... Worth It?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Open-ended question. Hope I don't need to be a detective to answer it.

Among the many interesting developments from the February 2021 Nintendo Direct were the announcements for the remakes (and the first time they're existing in any form outside of Japan) of two Famicom Detective Club games. The two have now released: Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir and Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind—they're sold for $35 individually, or you can buy them as a two-case collection for $60. (The two hyperlinks with the game names last sentence are to their official launch trailers, and the last hyperlink goes to the Nintendo.com page where you can buy it.)

Here's the overview trailer for both:

This is in the same genre as the Ace Attorney games, which I recommend without hesitation. I believe people when they say that the Famicom Detective Club games have great stories and writing. That said, you look at The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, and that's also two previously Japanese-only games in one bundle. Except those Ace Attorney games are longer/have more content, and their bundle is only $40 versus $60.

Nintendo Set Itself Up for Disappointment on Nintendo Switch Online May 2021 Game Updates

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - ...C'mon, man. Why do that to yourself?

Today, Nintendo updated the complementary Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo Entertainment System games available to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers. Here's a trailer they put out with the new games. If you click from the embed to YouTube (...just remember to come back to KoopaTV), you can see that it's clearly quite controversial on the Like:Dislike bar.

To get those in text, for the SNES you get Joe & Mac (aka Caveman Ninja), Magical Drop2 (it's the Super Famicom version never released on the SNES—meanwhile, Magical Drop II ported from the NEOGEO has been on the Nintendo Switch eShop since 2017 for $8), Super Baseball Simulator 1,000, and Spanky's Quest. For the NES there's Ninja JaJaMaru-kun (never released on the NES but only the Famicom).

Maybe you consider the flavour of having Famicom/Super Famicom games to be pretty cool. Or you're like me and haven't heard of these games before and don't care about them, so you hear this news and... go on with your night. I mean, I'm still playing all the games I already own, which is my go-to response for underwhelming Nintendo Switch Online game releases. Plus, there's been a lot of other (paid) new releases lately to check out.

That's my normal state of mind, but... I do sympathise with the large group of people who are outright offended by Nintendo's game selections. Nintendo themselves contributes to it. Take a look at this photo I took of their in-console Nintendo Switch Online hub:

Anti-Transparency in United States Taxation... and the Solution!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A bad day, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Normally, April 15 is one of the worst days of the year, since it represents Tax Day in the United States. That's the day Americans needed to have filed their tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service, which involves a lot of time spent divulging very personal information to an abusive government that often violates its citizens’ civil rights. This year, Tax Day was delayed by a month to May 17, so KoopaTV's annual (besides last year, apparently!) tax rant got to be delayed!

This year, I'll focus on the lack of transparency. I want to return to the subject of KoopaTV's last tax day article from 2019, about how then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris deliberately conflated size of tax returns with your tax rate. As the article explained, the size of your tax return is really up to you, but the most financially sensible thing to do would be to have a return of zero—that means throughout the year you paid exactly what the government decides you owe it and nothing more. Anything above that—a tax refund—is giving the government an interest-free loan of your money. It's more wise to have your money throughout the year kept in your paycheck.

Yet, Kamala Harris got rewarded for assuming that the American people are dumb. Yeah, she got pwned in the primaries, but look at her now! She actually got elected to be VICE PRESIDENT of the United States. How'd that happen? Well, I'll ask you: Do you know what your effective tax rate was in 2017? 2018? 2019? 2020? It's not impossible to calculate, but it does take a bit of effort, and you can only really know it months after the year is over. Lots of people don't know. But things like progressive taxation (your marginal tax rate increases the more money you make) make it more opaque if you're paying more money year-to-year because tax policy has changed or because of your own actions.

A lot of people truly don't know that what Kamala Harris said was problematic, and that's because the lack of transparency in the system is a feature.

Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 39: Pink Flamingos and Robot Love

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Will we find love... or just leg pain?

Welcome to yet another KoopaTV Fitness Friday, where I'm training in Ring Fit Adventure to get my fitness levels up so I can proudly compete representing Team Koopa at the Tokyo 2020 2021 Olympic Games. Specifically, I'll be representing Team Koopa in Fencing—the Men's Épée Individual.

Last week, we cleared the abs-focused World 38... and now this week, we're on World 39: Extra Fitness Lv. 243, which promises to be a hell of working on your legs. And squats. Lots of squats. This is based on World 16: The Steeliest Buns, which was started in this Fitness Log and concluded in the Fitness Log here. Still, despite the promise of pain, I'm sticking to Ring Fit Adventure's maximum difficulty of 30. I really need to work on my legs, since my specialty in fencing is supposed to be my technique, which translates to being good at stepping. With your FEET, connecting to your LEGS. There's a reason why Side Step is a Fitness Skill in this game.

Upon entering the world, we got to see Titanium White—a cyborg passing as a woman with buns made of steel—and the honest, truth-telling Magic Robot. Apparently the Magic Robot has a crush on Titanium White, while Titanium White has a crush on my...glutes.

The first level of the world is Wingflap Falls. It's a pretty place with lots of front-loaded Black Tea Leaves to pick up if you want to grind those—you also get to fly with flamingos. The next level is Flyover Pass, which has more flying (but at the beginning). And rain. On snow. Except for the path you actually run through. I disrespected the level by just jumping over the enemy fights, so not much to say.

According to this quack spirit animal website,
“ Flamingo Spirit sometimes comes into our lives as an omen of a new love interest.”
And the flamingo is symbolic of romance...
The flamingos are literally love in the air?!

South of Flyover Pass in the overworld is a Treasure Chest with a Garnet stone, and north of that is a Bank Balance (Advanced) Game Gym with a Dragon Fruit prize. The next level is called Scramble Wasteland, and this has more Black Tea Leaves—but much less—and flamingos to see, as you climb up a huge tower to reach the end. And what greets us there?

E3 2021 Preview Update: SQUARE ENIX, SEGA, and an Online Portal

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - More companies, more fun... all virtual!

Normally I like to refrain making articles that are really announcements about announcements—but in this case, multiple mainstream gaming media outlets (like VG247) have reported false information such as, “Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, EA, Sega, Sony, and Square Enix will not make appearances [at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2021].” Misinformation often travels farther than the truth, so here's the most up-to-date E3 2021 company attendance information:

The list of companies confirmed for the all-virtual E3 2021 continues to grow with the addition of several high-profile video game publishers and developers, as well as tech, hardware and streaming companies. SQUARE ENIX, SEGA, BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment, XSEED Games / Marvelous USA, Inc., Gearbox Entertainment, Freedom Games, Devious Eye Entertainment, Turtle Beach, Verizon and Binge.com are joining the fray and preparing to bring major announcements and reveals to fans throughout E3, which takes place June 12 through June 15.

Previously confirmed E3 partners include Nintendo, Xbox, Capcom, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive and Warner Bros. Games.

We've known that for a week, but some irresponsible outlets don't update their original stories that are wrong, and they're still indexed on search engines. You'd think the least they could do is keep updated information on the BIGGEST EVENT IN THE INDUSTRY OF THE YEAR. Nah. They also could've been a responsible website like KoopaTV and not mention that companies that will actually come later will not make appearances.

Anyway, Bandai Namco, SEGA, and SQUARE ENIX will actually be there. It's true EA and Sony will not be there—which is why they're the only two companies KoopaTV originally stated wouldn't be there. Dunno about Activision Blizzard, but I'd be happier without them. Really curious what Verizon has to share.

KoopaTV's Muted Eight-Year Anniversary Non-Celebration

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I'm not keen on celebrating anniversaries for our site, given recent events.

Today, KoopaTV turns eight years old. We were founded May 12, 2013. Usually, KoopaTV's staff comes up with an awesome-to-us theme for an anniversary article and we put a lot of effort into the (ultimately self-serving) production. This year, however, I don't think it'd be appropriate to do that.

Sometime between May 2020 and today, how one celebrates anniversaries has changed. The new definition of anniversary celebration is to make your products no longer available. We just got caught up in that misguided new definition and I don't want to return to it. I'd like to keep KoopaTV around.

Eight years is a long time to keep maintaining a niche site that keeps facing existential threats every year. (Hopefully because this is a non-celebration to KoopaTV, we won't face an existential threat between now and next year?) But KoopaTV is worth the effort. The site has irreplaceable and unique content and continually lives up to its truth and levity values.

Also, thank YOU if you've stuck with us throughout those eight years, or joined sometime along the way and kept it up. You've also helped make KoopaTV's continued existence possible and worthwhile. I hope you appreciate KoopaTV's efforts to have the audience feel included. Whether you do or don't, we have a method of documenting your thoughts with the KoopaTV Feedback Form series.


It'd be weird for KoopaTV to live for another eight years, but the goal is to at least surpass the length of CainTV's existence. It'll be another year until that happens! This totally isn't a celebratory article. Please don't curse the site with the new definition of anniversaries.


KoopaTV's seven-year anniversary was about how we earned the seven Star Stamps from Mario Party 3.
KoopaTV's nine-year anniversary acknowledges the site has survived longer than the site it's parodying, and celebrates free speech.

May 2021: North American Nintendo eShop's Ace Attorney Franchise Sale

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Take that! Sales!

So maybe you read my recent hyped reaction to the announcement that The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles will exist by the end of July 2021 after years of waiting.

Perhaps you want to know what's so good about a new Ace Attorney game. You know, KoopaTV talks about Ace Attorney at any opportunity. Well, between right now and May 19 at 2:59 AM Eastern, you can figure it out for yourself at affordable prices on the Nintendo eShop.

Uh... one of the games is actually missing from this.
(Poor Apollo.)

Here is the full list of games on sale from the Ace Attorney series right now. All of the games are originally $30, except for Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, which is normally $20:

1. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy for $19.99 (Nintendo Switch) or $11.99 (Nintendo 3DS)
2. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney for $9.99 (Nintendo 3DS)
3. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies for $8.99 (Nintendo 3DS)
4. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice for $11.99 (Nintendo 3DS)

I stole that list from the Ace Attorney Franchise Sale! March 2020! article from 14 months ago... with one exception: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy was $14.99 then. It's $19.99 now. This is actually a very rare example of where a CAPCOM game price goes UP instead of down. Perhaps it has to do with the “Ace Attorney Turnabout Collection” that will bundle The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy to one purchasable (digital) item on the Nintendo Switch.

The sale only seems to be available in North America, and on Nintendo's platforms. As opposed to other regions and other consoles. Also, and this isn't advertised, the Mega Man games are also on sale.

As far as I know, this sale is CAPCOM's way of celebrating KoopaTV's 8-year anniversary (May 12), by helping bring our favourite game series into the hands of more people. Thank you, CAPCOM!


If you've been participating in the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program and playing it to win it, you'd have enough funds to buy some of these on-sale titles. Perhaps you should consider trying to win Round 38 (May to June 2021) with its more-than-usual prizes. It won't help you with the sale ending in a week, but it should help you for upcoming purchases thereafter!


The last time these games were on sale was March 2021.
CAPCOM also put the Ace Attorney games on sale for the KoopaTV anniversary in 2020, too, except on Steam.
The Ace Attorney series is on sale for the same prices a month later after E3 2021.

The Jury is in about that "Wario" Skit on Saturday Night Live...

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Featuring Elon Musk... and not featuring quality humour.

We don't talk about billionaire Elon Musk...at all, on this website, but he's a pretty interesting, relevant guy. He's probably going to be responsible for humans from Earth visiting Koopa Kingdom by intergalactic spaceship, though hopefully not in his lifetime. Anyway, he hosted the terrible and irrelevant “comedy” show Saturday Night Live (often abbreviated as SNL) over the weekend. I put comedy in scare-quotes because, to my knowledge, it's not actually funny on a regular basis. It's been around for 45 years now and I don't know if it ever was funny. KoopaTV turns 8 years old this week. If we ever get as terrible as Saturday Night Live, let me know so we don't have to live that long in agony.

Anyway, during Elon Musk's hosting, they had this skit that's... very related to KoopaTV subject matter. Warning: It's terrible and inappropriate, and for the rest of this article, I'm going to discuss why. I don't recommend you actually watch it, but I'm embedding it here for completeness and you can take my word on it as I go through the skit and commentate and review it as a subject matter expert—both in terms of being a humourist, as well as knowing Wario, Luigi, and others quite well.

Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 38: Return to Quizton

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Has Quizton experienced any development?

I would like to welcome you back to another KoopaTV Fitness Friday, which features me logging my fitness progress through Ring Fit Adventure as I seek to be fit and in good health, for the purposes of a better lifestyle and being able to make Koopa Kingdom proud in the upcoming Olympic Games. As such, I'm committing to remaining at Ring Fit Adventure's highest difficulty: level 30.

After training our vocal cords alongside our abs last week, this week brings us to World 38: Extra Fitness Lv. 238, which is returning to World 15: Quizton—a fan-favourite world.

Quizton is famous for its law, “Begin in a quiz and end in a quiz.” In order to go anywhere or do anything that involves another person, you need to (correctly) answer their pop quiz. This may sound quirky on the surface, but Quizton is actually an extremely dysfunctional and problematic society if you think through the implications.

For one, it's quite ableist. For two, it's mentally exhausting. For three, how are babies and young children—before they can talk or memorise information—handled?

So this is how Extra Fitness is handling Quizton's development?
...Avoiding interaction with its NPCs and therefore NOT handling it?

When Ring and I came to the world, we saw the Mayor of Quizton and Daimon quizzing one another in rapid-fire. Ring said it's best to sneak past them, so we went to General Store Number 34. There they are selling the Abs Master II set (increases yellow-skill attack power by 5%), the Burning Ant II (no skill bonus), and the Skip Hopper II (recovers hearts with repeated knee lifts). In order to buy all of these articles of clothing, you'll need many thousands of coins, as well as five Garnet stones—and we have zero, since this is a brand-new item.

The first two levels are the Upper Road and Lower Road. Originally, we had to go to the course representing the correct answer to the Quizton Mayor's question, but in Extra Fitness, we're going to just go and clear every level anyway. The Upper Road course had one Garnet in a Treasure Chest. The Lower Road course had one Strength Drink in a Treasure Chest. The easy-to-miss Treasure Chest in North Road has one Defense Drink. South Road has wild Black Tea Leaves that grow there, which you'll want to collect for money-doubling smoothies (or Tea)—its Treasure Chest also contains 450 coins, and a Treasure Chaser (take the top path, always) has another 100 coins. Also, during South Road, I hit a big milestone:

Nintendo's Results For Fiscal Year Ended March 2021

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Nintendo made a lot of money.

The numbers are in: Nintendo has easily blew past their forecasted financial goals for how many Nintendo Switch consoles and games they thought they'd sell when they announced their projections a year ago. Nintendo is, without a doubt, one of the companies that benefited immensely by the Chinese Communist Party Virus that has plagued Earth for over a year now. But they'll officially keep referring to it as a “risk” rather than a boon. (An actual risk they cited for future plans is not being able to acquire semiconductor chips... which is a problem almost every other company involved with technology is facing now. ...And that's a lot of companies, which is why there's a shortage.)

If there's one just-released financial document from Nintendo you might want to view, it's their financial results explanatory material presentation. The big goal that Nintendo will be working towards by the end of March 2022? Sell 25.50 million more Nintendo Switch consoles (Switch + Lite), and sell 190 million more games. Note that Nintendo's stock price is down because the projected numbers are lower than the year they just completed, and stockholders like to see continuous improvement, not projected decline.

Here's some of the games (but far from all) that contributed to Nintendo's success. Some will likely continue selling in significant quantities into this new fiscal year...while others will be dead:

We are DEFINITELY talking about Ring Fit Adventure below the page break.
Shout-out to Fire Emblem: Three Houses failing to sell enough copies to have updated numbers, still making it so it officially hasn't passed three million yet.

Parking out of the Toy-Con Garage and into the Game Builder Garage

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The specifications are unclear, but quite important!

In a surprise news drop, Nintendo revealed a new experience coming to Nintendo Switch next month: Game Builder Garage. Here's the trailer, and here's the info page.

As the name implies, you are building games in this...garage. Well, Game Builder Garage is meant as an educational tool (for $30) on some basic concepts of game programming and design via guided tutorials and a Free Programming mode. But it's very familiar... and that's because it's obviously inspired by the Toy-Con Garage infamously associated with the Nintendo Labo that also tried to teach programming the very same way.

If you click that link in the preceding paragraph, you'll get to an article filled with videos set to Private. That's because Nintendo has totally given up on the Nintendo Labo after KoopaTV waged a very justifiable war against it for two years and vanquished it. The Labo videos are put on private and the Labo mini-site is gone. The cardboard forces have moved on to other things, the success of which we should be able to evaluate very shortly as Nintendo is about to do a financial disclosure covering their recently finished fiscal year.

All of that said, before our righteous anti-Labo defensive war, I didn't think that poorly of it. I mean, I wasn't enthusiastic, but I could recognise some potential in the concept. So what about Game Builder Garage?

A PlayStation-Discord Partnership Coming Early 2022...?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We know nothing about the extent of it yet. ...Don't trust anyone who claims to know beyond what's written here as of publishing.

So Sony Interactive Entertainment is very proud to announce that they have entered into a partnership with gamer-focused messaging service Discord, to bring... some kind of integration in early 2022. Sony put out four paragraphs of jargon, really explaining nothing about what they actually plan to do. They also invested money (funding) into Discord.

This statement was (purposefully) written so the reader can get whatever they want out of it:

Together, our teams are already hard at work connecting Discord with your social and gaming experience on PlayStation Network. Our goal is to bring the Discord and PlayStation experiences closer together on console and mobile starting early next year, allowing friends, groups, and communities to hang out, have fun, and communicate more easily while playing games together.

Sony announced this yesterday. I'll interpret it as not an important announcement for Discord, because between yesterday and today, Discord hasn't mentioned the story on their news or blog pages. If this was gonna be the next big thing for Discord, you'd think they'd mention it.

Let's compare this announcement to a similar one made almost exactly three years ago... this time from Microsoft's Xbox:

KoopaTV's April 2021 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Start of Spring? Late bloomer!

April 2021 was a screwed up month for KoopaTV, owing to the fact that the first week was erased from existence due to our complications with Nintendo.

That affects EVERYTHING in April, so... Keep that in mind. By the way, at the end of this newsletter, there's some BREAKING news that will affect the smartest among you, you so better read it.

Top Four Recommended Experiences of April 2021

This part of the newsletter is normally the Top FIVE Recommended Experiences, but because KoopaTV had a whole week chopped off, I've turned it into the Top FOUR Recommended Experiences. Just to be proportional. I mean, I could easily add a fifth article to this chronologically ordered list:

1. How PAC-MAN 99's Privacy Policy Lies To You — Ludwig actually read the legal documents associated with PAC-MAN 99, and identified a crucial distinction between what the documents suggest and what actually happens in practice.
2. LEGO and Nintendo Announce "Adventures with Luigi" Starter Set — We already know from prior KoopaTV articles that LEGO Super Mario is dangerous—now there'll be a LEGO Luigi to go with the horrors.
3. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles—WORLDWIDE RELEASE: July 27, 2021! — In terms of significantly happier announcements, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles—a compilation of TWO Ace Attorney games that have never released outside of Japan—was announced, and they'll be in PHYSICAL copies outside of Japan! Super hyped!
4. Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 37: The Abs Song — If you enjoy the intersection between exercise and song, then this is for YOU. ...And it's for you even if you don't already know that you enjoy that.

There's many other experiences from April 2021 not on that list (not as many as other months, but still plenty), so be sure to check those out too. Every KoopaTV article is worth reading!