KoopaTV's August 2022 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's the beginning of the end of the year.

Summer isn't actually my favourite season, but I always like the idea of a portion of my friends and readers no longer being bound to daily schooling duties. (Doesn't affect employed people... unless they're teachers or something.) I know that a lot of people (LIKE IN EUROPE) go on vacation for massive amounts of the summer. Is keeping up with KoopaTV part of that vacation routine? Maybe, maybe not. ...I think it's mostly not. But, hey, that's a reason why we have these monthly newsletters reviewing the previous month. Maybe you'll get inspired to catch up in more detail than what's covered here.

I do have several stories in this newsletter, so let's dive into it and remember the last full month of summer. (Though it's still summer for several more weeks in September.)

FeedBurner email subscriptions FINALLY stopped

Despite Google's declaration that the FeedBurner email subscription service would be discontinued after July 2021, anyone who has subscribed to receive KoopaTV articles directly to their email inbox through that kept getting emails. I'd know, since I'm on my own list. After several months of emails continued to be sent, I concluded that Google just forgot to turn it off and ended it at that.

The last automated email I ever got from them was July 24, 2022, featuring my article about the LIVE A LIVE demo and its release. And that's it. So I guess it's finally over.

KoopaTV's new official email subscription method is with follow.it: subscribe by clicking here. I'm using the free version of it, so it's a bit inferior than what FeedBurner provided. But I asked y'all if it's worth paying for additional and customisable features, and the answer I got was no.

Top Four Recommended Experiences of August 2022

What's that? Four? Well, it's only fair. There was a whole vacation break week in the second week of August 2022, so going from five featured articles to four featured articles when there were 20 to 25% less articles is proportionate. Though this was a tough list to make, so I could easily fit five articles here:

1. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet “Competitive” Play Trailer... and Cyclizar — I went over all of the details of Cyclizar's trailer with the new items and moves shown with an in-depth competitive Pokémon (but also casual) perspective.
2. Reviewing "Catland: The Soft Power of Cat Culture in Japan" — No one goes to KoopaTV to read book reviews—I hardly know how to review a book—but here we are with a book on cats in Japan, complete with photographs.
3. Rock, Paper, Scissors: SPLATFEST! Our best option is... — Why I picked Team Paper over Team Rock and Team Scissors. This was an unpopular pick, but I had very good reasoning.
4. Splatoon 3: Splatfest World Premiere Gameplay and Splatfest Impressions — Besides writing about how my pick lost the Splatfest, I also went into detail about my gameplay experiences for Splatoon 3 and how I'm psyched for the game.

Alright, all four of those articles were are all published within the same seven-day time period. I promise you, though, that every KoopaTV article is worth reading! ...Well, there might be one mentioned at the end of this newsletter that isn't.

Best Three Comments and One Worst Comment of August 2022

There were quite a bit less comments made in August than usual, with several days worth of no commentary! To be fair, for several of those days, I wasn't around either. But, hey, so what? I'll get to you when I get to you. I read all the comments! Or else this section of the newsletter wouldn't be possible.

1. “I so far have no way to tell how many minutes I actually played this game. I also had to replay the end a few times for my family to see the credits that had my name and my cat cameo. But yes it felt short. But since I have so much responsibilities in real life that I shy away from long games lately, I am glad to have a shorter game that I can actually finish.
   
   I did pay for the early bird special during the Kickstarter so it was $14.
   
   I did get stumped a few times on what to do next. Dr Frumple gave vague hints when asked for hints that Athena Cykes wishes she was not that obvious when she was asked for hints. I did love the story. The humour (gotta rep the British in the game) was great. Lord Winklebottom is adorable with his constant wiggling ears.” — ShinyGirafarig
2. “Not if I am choosing the Scarlet version and using Koraidon who uses legs to run instead of wheels.
   
   Is Koraidon originally from Koridai? Isthe rider supposed to yell “Squadala” while riding Koraidon?” — ShinyGirafarig
3. “CUTE!
   
   The cute cat pictures have distracted me too much to be concerned with what books have or have not been reviewed.” — Samantha Lienhard

ShinyGirafarig has played Lord Winklebottom Investigates for between 5 to 10 hours. If she also could keep spelling humour correctly, I'd also like that on a personal level. Anyway, ShinyGirafarig was also making a whole Link: The Faces of Evil reference, which I continued in a response saying that Lechonk's final form might be the final boss, to which she said maybe a book-based Pokémon can deal with that. She managed to win a copy of New Super Lucky's Tale from the developer back in 2021 with the same reference, since Ganon refers to the book as a burning pit.

For some context, Samantha Lienhard sent me a copy of her book, The Book at Dernier, two years and ten months ago. I haven't read it, but I was considering being a good friend and not only reading it, but also reviewing it on KoopaTV to get her attention. A book of cat photos is a lot easier to pick up and read than horror-fiction.

Quite frankly, I had quite a number of BAD comments to choose from in August 2022. Often, my problem is that the comments are too good and the existence of the worst comment part of the newsletter isn't justified. Maybe school being out really DID result in secret children coming by and commenting crap. I'm going to avoid making a slightly controversial decision and instead go for a tried-and-true bad genre of comment:

1. “Can I get a code plz” — Anonymous

Note that my reply was, “How would you like me to send you it?” No response. I didn't even say no. I get these comments a lot, and I don't understand how if I reply in a way that's favourable to you, why you wouldn't bother following up. Why did they even ask to begin with? But what's unique about this comment wasn't that it was made in one of the articles about Nintendo eShop card codes (assuming that's the kind of code this person wanted—it wasn't specified)—it was made in the KoopaTV Requests Page 2022. (And hopefully the two active requests there get filled before 2022 ends.) Like, the person is requesting a code instead of requesting an article idea. But they ain't coming back to receive it. So no code for them. (Well, I don't think I'd actually give them a code anyway, but they don't know that. ...If they did know that, they wouldn't have commented to begin with.)

KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program Round 45 RESULTS!

This is the legitimate way to receive CODES from KoopaTV: Winning the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program. Here are the final results of Round 45 of the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program, only featuring people with double-digit point totals:

1. Captain Stitch — 58 points — $10 Nintendo eShop card code
2. Samantha Lienhard — 27 points
3. ShinyGirafarig— 20 points

I'm pretty nervous about sending Captain Stitch the code, because the last time I did, the code got all scratched up and it was a disaster. I'll... I'll try to be more careful with my claws this time, but these cards have a design flaw.

Announcing KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program Round 46!

We've finally looped back to the September–October round of the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program. That's the one where we give out a spot in the KoopaTV Nintendo Switch Online Family Group (as opposed to a CODE). That spot is currently occupied by Captain Stitch, who has won every KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program round in 2022. But... it certainly doesn't have to remain that way. Just study the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program page and there are plenty of underused ways to get points, including (but not limited to) the contents of the next newsletter story.

Note that our Nintendo Switch Online subscription is the basic one. Because I'm not paying $80 a year for Nintendo 64 games for me and the staff and a skillful KoopaTV player.

KoopaTV Feedback Form Part XXXVIII and KoopaTV Quiz Part XXXVIII Now Available!

The 38th KoopaTV Feedback Form and Quiz are now available! Click this link for form and quiz. As usual, the feedback form seeks to help us understand our users better, and the quiz tests if you've been paying attention to recent articles (and often contains witty wrong answers).

Corrections Corner; August 2022

There weren't any corrections made to KoopaTV articles as pointed out by readers in August 2022. That's a good thing!

First KoopaTV Article to Run Afoul of Blogger Content Policy

KoopaTV runs on Google's Blogger content management software, and so we're supposed to follow their content policy (which is more constrained than the pure free speech we'd prefer). You would think we would have run into problems with this policy a very long time ago, but we haven't for the many years we've been in operation. But on August 8, 2022, KoopaTV received an email from no-reply@google.com titled “Your post titled "KoopaTV's Live Reactions to GT.TV 11/22/13" has been put behind a warning for readers”. We've never gotten this kind of email before. Here's what it says:

Hello,
As you may know, our Community Guidelines (https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy) describe the boundaries for what we allow-- and don't allow-- on Blogger. Your post titled "KoopaTV's Live Reactions to GT.TV 11/22/13" was flagged to us for review. This post was put behind a warning for readers because it contains sensitive content; the post is visible at http://www.koopatv.org/2013/11/koopatvs-live-reactions-to-gttv-112213.html. Your blog readers must acknowledge the warning before being able to read the post/blog.

Why was your blog post put behind a warning for readers?
Your content has been evaluated according to our Adult Content policy. Please visit our Community Guidelines page linked in this email to learn more.

We apply warning messages to posts that contain sensitive content. If you are interested in having the status reviewed, please update the content to adhere to Blogger's Community Guidelines. Once the content is updated, you may republish it at
[personalised-link]
This will trigger a review of the post.

For more information, please review the following resources:

Terms of Service: https://www.blogger.com/go/terms
Blogger Community Guidelines: https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

When you actually try to visit KoopaTV's Live Reactions to GT.TV 11/22/13, you'll get this notice with two buttons at the end. The design of the page really makes you want to click the consenting button and read what the naughty article is, eh?

Sensitive Content Warning

This post may contain sensitive content. In general, Google does not review nor do we endorse the content of this or any blog. For more information about our content policies, please visit the Blogger Community Guildelines.

I UNDERSTAND AND I WISH TO CONTINUE I do not wish to continue

The typo on Guidelines is what it actually says; it's not my mistake.

Quite frankly, I forgot this article existed. Not only is it almost nine years old, but it was published by ex-staffer RawkHawk2010 on a fairly irrelevant topic hosted by an unpleasant person. It was a live reaction log to what happens to be (although Wikipedia and the IMDB refuse to say the show ended since they keep using present tense and don't use an end-date) the very last episode of GameTrailers TV with Geoff Keighley (or GT.TV), with Reggie Fils-Aime showing off the Kong-POW feature of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze for the Wii U.

It seems obvious the show was falling apart, since Rawk kept repeating the sex hotlines and porno websites that made up their sponsors/commercials, which no show should want to be relying on for ad revenue. Looking back, it's amazing that Nintendo of America would ever associate with such a show as their avenue to release news about an upcoming first-party game. KoopaTV wouldn't associate with it either, except RawkHawk2010 had his own Donkey Kong-based agenda at the time that pulled us into very unsavoury directions.

I'm not going to appeal the warning because, quite frankly, the log deserves it. I'm just wondering why this happened in 2022, and I guess I'm also wondering how the article was flagged and who flagged it, and who is even looking at it in 2022. ...And, really, why people haven't flagged other KoopaTV articles. Or maybe they have and it wasn't found to be “sensitive content” by the reviewers? It's just really weird that of all the articles it could be, it was THIS.


Don't let that last story discourage you: KoopaTV is arguably a family-friendly website! ...It just depends on how poorly you raised your family. Share KoopaTV articles to the broken and chaotic households in your life and you will help the site a little bit! ...You probably won't end up helping them, though.


When the previous month's July 2022 newsletter was published, there was a big heat wave. While the heat wave is over, the newsletter remains a good read.
Next month's newsletter doesn't have a big special story (or two) in it, though the Corrections Corner was substantial.
Last year's August 2021 newsletter also questioned FeedBurner and how long August felt like it lasted.