Play Fire Withdraw: A Free Videogame By KoopaTV!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The next generation of one-button gameplay, with a very important moral lesson.

Check below (under the page break, so it doesn't try to load every time someone sees the home page) for a new videogame you can play right from KoopaTV. ...On a PC with a keyboard. This is KoopaTV's first new videogame since 2017! And this is my first completed project developed using Scratch 3.0. It's also KoopaTV's first and only videogame that's based on the Super Mario IP. (Which we don't own. Go beat the Story Mode for the credits.)

As of July 9, 2023, you can now play the game with just a mouse, but it's not implemented in an optimal way or reflected in-game yet. This patch also made Level 5 marginally easier. A future patch will redo the in-game instructions and user interface to reflect mouse use. This should also make the game playable on a mobile device.

Fire Withdraw is a single-player game that evolves the one-button gameplay inspired by the Egg Catcher minigame from Kirby's Adventure (and Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe) and further developed by the Rock Harden minigame from Pokémon Stadium. I have a full explanation of everything below the page break (plus the embedded game itself, playable right from your web browser), so go: ↓↓↓↓↓

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Chatot Parting Shots “Objection!” and Other Ace Attorney Speech Bubbles

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A collection of speech bubbles.

There was once a trailer for Pokémon Shining Pearl and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond featuring Chatot using Parting Shot. The description for Parting Shot is, “With a parting threat, the user lowers the target's Attack and Sp. Atk stats. Then it switches with a party Pokémon.” That threat is why Parting Shot is also a sound-based attack. However, I didn't know the move's animation was for Parting Shot, which is a very rare move that not only has poor distribution, but high level-up requirements. (In Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl, Chatot is the only Pokémon that can learn Parting Shot!) Given that the trailer didn't show the effects of the move, only the animation, I thought it was Chatter... but it was not. And so I levelled up Charap (the in-game-traded Chatot) in Pokémon Shining Pearl to level 49 until it learned Parting Shot. Why did I care so much? The move's animation looks like this:

A white speech bubble with a stylised black border and red text? Can it be...?

...Another familiar white speech bubble with a stylised black border and red text!

What if I put these concepts together? Well, behold:

Objection! You've spoken contradictory testimony!

I've made these for all of the other Ace Attorney series speech bubbles that are in the mainline six Ace Attorney titles, in honour of yesterday's announced Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy. Take that! (That's one of many of these.)

The Mighty Bowser VERSUS The Bootleg Bowser

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Imagine getting a bootleg for a gift.

In these tough economic times, maybe you can't afford to blow your organisational or personal budget on a $270 2,807-piece The Mighty Bowser LEGO set like KoopaTV's staff did; click this for our review of it. (Click here for the official set.) Your choices are then to find alternate ways of entertainment and challenge-tackling, or to turn to bootlegged versions of The Mighty Bowser. Fortunately (???), there are multiple options out there that are significantly cheaper.

Of course, since they're bootlegs, they might not be at the same quality or feature levels you'd get from buying the official $270 LEGO set. For example, no interaction with the LEGO Super Mario stuff. But maybe you just want Bowser. Perhaps this DG Dreams 1358-piece set for only $80 (currently 25% off at $60) would be of... interest? It's about the same size as the real The Mighty Bowser, and it comes with the stand with two towers. Here is a comparison of DG Dreams Bowser versus LEGO Bowser using official product photos:

Left: The Bootleg Bowser
Right: The Mighty Bowser

Disgraced Game Developer Yuji Naka Confesses his Insider Trading to the Court

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Hopefully this is a SONIC SPEED trial, then.

I am rather obsessed with the developing saga from the end of last year where disgraced BALAN WONDERWORLD director and former SQUARE ENIX employee Yuji Naka got arrested for insider-trading Aiming Inc. shares with private information about Dragon Quest Tact... and then got arrested again very shortly after being let out of jail because they found out he also insider-traded Ateam Inc. shares with private information about FINAL FANTASY VII: The First Soldier. He's a menace to society.

Following arrests (and repeated arrests) are trials, and Yuji Naka just had his first day at court. Japanese sources report that Yuji Naka confessed to buying the stocks in those two companies, and that there is no doubt that he did so. He admitted that he knew about those mobile games’ developments before they were announced and that he bought the stocks in the companies that SQUARE ENIX was working with on those games when the general public didn't know those companies would be working on them. He admitted to making about $145,000 in profit, which is probably more than BALAN WONDERWORLD's profit. I can't confirm that, but it should be true in a just world.

At least Yuji Naka is making it easier for everyone by admitting these facts. Now, the reports don't actually say he has plead guilty or that he has no defence, but he's basically already admitted to the particulars of the crime, so my expert analysis says that he's given up and has accepted his fate. Since he had two instances of insider trading, this should be an easy verdict of two guilty charges, and hopefully Yuji Naka can remain locked up. ...My un-expert reading of Japan's Financial Instruments and Exchange Act says Yuji Naka could be banished from society for several months, or at most a couple of years.

At least Yuji Naka didn't trade with THREE different companies. (At least, not that we know of.)
(It's hard to figure out who is the biggest loser out of Wocky Kitaki or Yuji Naka. They fit well together.)

Do you think the Yuji Naka case is going to be a done deal now, or will there be plot twists ahead that make it go into unexpected directions? Let KoopaTV know in the comments section below! Also, feel free to provide more ideas of how to visually represent Yuji Naka's plight in the comments section as well, because there should be at least one more KoopaTV article about him (when he gets sentenced).


Here is the KoopaTV article three months later about Yuji Naka being sentenced. The punishment was higher than expected.

My Sephiroth amiibo arrived! Photos inside!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - He's so... cool!

On January 13, 2023, Nintendo released the amiibo for Sephiroth and Kazuya Mishima Wins. I don't care about the latter: It's Sephiroth I'm after. So I ordered his amiibo from Amazon, and even though they said it'd be delivered the first week of February, I just received it over the weekend. I now have a Sephiroth amiibo! He's really cool, and contrary to an image someone showed me to dissuade me from buying a Sephiroth amiibo, his face doesn't look horrible. Looks normal! And just like his official artwork, he has one wing.

Sephiroth looks fine. Dazzingly handsome, even.

Not only does Sephiroth ooze cool, he can be used as a Figure Player (or FP) in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate! Now, he's not a world-destroyer right away... not for a long time, in fact. Not by publishing this article, either. He's been nothing but humiliated for a while, in fact. I even edge-guarded him with Little Mac (and I don't mean my amiibo Little Mac), which given how Sephiroth's recovery works, I wouldn't recommend doing in a real fight.

I nicknamed my Sephiroth amiibo Sephiroth, because getting him feels like catching a Legendary or Mythical Pokémon, and I never nickname those.
Note Sephiroth's lack of a wing as a Figure Player in this Super Smash Bros. Ultimate screen.

Anyway, I'm happy. If you want your own Sephiroth amiibo, they're sold out in many places. (Kazuya Mishima Wins is in greater stock.) So... maybe that'll change with greater supply in the future. Here's some more pictures in a collage:

Fourth Night of the Tera Type Fire Chanukkah

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - This is before the coming Paldean Inquisition.

This is the only night I can publish this article with this premise...ever, I think. It's the fourth night (December 21, 2022) of Chanukkah (some people spell it Hanukkah, while others spell it Chanukah... but only I seem to spell it Chanukkah. Is there an eight-character limit that the Jewish people follow that I'm not aware of? ...Is it a reference to there being eight nights of the holiday? But I get ahead of myself.) tonight into the day of December 22. If you don't remember what a Chanukkah Menorah looks like, it has nine prongs, with the centre prong being the biggest one among the rest.

The way that one is supposed to light the Menorah is you stick a candle in the centre big prong first, and then for "n" number of nights, put in one candle from the right-most prong to the left. So on night four, there are four candles plus the centre candle. You light the centre candle on fire, and then use that fire to light the other candles on the other prongs (from left to right, or newest candle first). That means over the course of the holiday, you're using up 9 + 8 + 7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 candles, or 44 candles. Be sure not to buy from crafty vendors who will sell you boxes of 43 candles to make you buy two boxes.

Anyway, here's how they're celebrating Chanukkah tonight in the Paldea region:

Four smaller candles powered by the big centre candle!

Fireworks over at Tama's House!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Boom! Bop!

I don't actually like fireworks. They're loud and frightening and I always wonder what happens on the way down. That said, it's either that, or talk about the meaning of INDEPENDENCE, which is in a pretty bad Earth state, at least. I mean, Hong Kong is in a completely pwned state (and its opposition leaders are in prison) compared to the active protests before. Ukraine is Ukrekt, or on its way towards that (don't ask me how to actually pronounce Ukrekt).

So fireworks it is. Who is hosting this year's party?

It's Tama, Nippon's one and only Pyrotechnist!

We just gotta head over to Shinshu Field. Only at night. It's a big field, but you go up some hills and then down some steps and you'll reach his house. You'll know it when you see it based on its design. There's also a sign marking that it's the house of Tama the Pyrotechnist:

Well, yes.

While I'd rarely characterise any of the music in ŌKAMI as a “bop”, the music in Tama's house is a bop. Don't get me wrong, the music in the game is great. Just not the boppy style. That's why I muted the sound effects for this clip of the fireworks party (featuring the Cherry Bomb) inside Tama's house. Oh, and, um, don't be worried about him:

ŌKAMI HD is currently 50% off on the Nintendo eShop, as part of the Big Ol' Super Sale that ends July 6. (It's also on sale on Steam.) I highly recommend it not just for the fireworks, but for everything else.


Did you enjoy Independence Day? Or was it just a normal Fourth of July to you? Why not discuss this in the comments section?

Hey you! Get off of my cloud!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's still not his cloud.

If you are lucky, you won't remember that article from a month ago featuring LEGO-ified me. But at the end of that discussion, I said that my set comes with me standing on a very low cloud less than one Mario-length off the ground. I wrote that you could swap me for Lemmy, because the next LEGO Super Mario release also includes a LEGO Lemmy Koopa alongside LEGO Ludwig (...I really don't want to say LEGO me!) and LEGO figures are designed to have the same feet as one another allowing them to stand on interchangeable surfaces. Like the cloud. Therefore, you can recreate the Hotel Mario scene where that menace invades Lemmy Koopa's High-ate Regency Hotel, kicks Lemmy out, and then demands that Lemmy get off Mario's cloud. Even though it was Lemmy's before.

But besides recreating it with LEGO, you can also recreate that scene with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as I did:

It's totally off-screen in the video, but Lemmy actually gets on top of the cloud platform by footstool jumping off of Cloud Strife: putting another meaning to “get off of my cloud!” (As well as another meaning to how many clouds Mario claims to possess.)

In the decade since Paper Mario: Sticker Star released, I haven't seen anyone equate the TOTALLY RANDOM BIGGEST FAN THAT APPEARS OUT OF NOWHERE in Hotel Mario to the TOTALLY RANDOM BIGGEST FAN THAT APPEARS OUT OF NOWHERE in Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Which then made subsequent appearances in Paper Mario: Color Splash as a Thing, and even Paper Mario: The Origami King as a very random cameo on Bonehead Island. I'm not saying I'm the first person to ever think of it, but... I haven't seen anyone else. The Fan in Hotel Mario is EXACTLY like the running gag from the past Paper Mario games. They're both big. They both blow things away like clouds or fog. Especially in the Paper Mario stage in Super Smash Bros., where it blows away the cloud platform and anyone on it.

Sucks this happens to Lemmy Koopa a lot!


It's probably not a coincidence that there are big haters of every game the fan appears in. Ludwig at least liked Paper Mario: Color Splash and Paper Mario: The Origami King, though he has an overall unfavourable opinion of Paper Mario: Sticker Star and Hotel Mario. He considers it canon they are the same fan. Do you?

Samus Will Smile in the Presence of Round Things

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Samus's opportunities for happiness.

When Metroid Dread released on the Nintendo Switch last October, fans of heroine bounty hunter Samus Aran rejoiced at their new game and its characterisation of Samus as a badass (though less thoughtful than how she was in Metroid Fusion). However, some writers, like Ian Walker of Kotaku (different writer than the Kotaku editor that promoted piracy of Metroid Dread), believe that “Samus Doesn’t Need To Be An Emotionless Robot To Be Badass.” (Note that the Kotaku article spoils the story of Metroid Dread, which I promise isn't the point of the KoopaTV article you're currently on.) They wanted Samus to vocally express herself when grappling with revelations about herself and her past. Instead, as fans will point out, Samus expresses herself with subtle body expressions (and sometimes facial expressions when you can see her face through her mask). She's not emotionless. Just quiet.

The Kotaku writer went as far as to say that he'd expect “someone in that position to let her guard down a bit and ask a few questions, maybe even crack a smile. But no, Samus Aran is Samus Aran: cold, emotionless, unfazed.” In other words, Samus needs to smile more. I'm not familiar with Mr. Ian Walker's full line of work, but I wonder how much he asks male characters that they need to smile more and write articles about how they're deficient for not contorting their facial muscles to his liking.

But it is true that Samus rarely smiles. But there are reasons for that. Samus Aran enjoys her life in only a few circumstances—when surrounded by round objects. That's according to the Super Metroid 4-koma manga published in Shounen Oh Game Comic back in 1994. The first issue, “Round and Round”, written by manga artist Matsumoto Hidetaka, shows Samus Aran in many contexts only expressing happiness and satisfaction when encountering round things. Unfortunately, it takes a much longer time than the average, usual Metroid game for Samus to acquire the Morph Ball ability in Metroid Dread—and that's an excellent reason for her to be cranky when she can't do this:

The Blue Birds: Quaxly and the Ducklett

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - PECK YOUR BEAK. ...STRETCH OUT YOUR NECK!

I have seen a lot of people compare Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet Starter Pokémon Quaxly to the likes of... Donald Duck or other DuckTales characters. But as I said in my live reaction log on Sunday when they were first revealed, I see Quaxly as akin to the Blue Birds from Rhythm Heaven. See clip below:

The Blue Birds consist of a captain and three ducks, and I know the perfect roles for them.

Captain Quaxly is a little intense.
He'll get mad if you mess up, but just let it roll like water off a Ducklett's back.

Quaxly already has the hat or hat-looking thing on his head. With sunglasses, he looks just like Captain Blue Bird. And the normal Blue Birds are also ducks, and are pretty much Ducklett with hats.

It makes sense for Quaxly to be the captain, because Water starter base stat totals have ranged from 308 to 320; Ducklett's is only 305. It should be guaranteed that Quaxly will follow the trend and have better base stats than Ducklett, and thus deserving of the higher ranking. (Though I will say that Quaxly and Ducklett both have the exact same height of one foot and eight inches, while the Captain is portrayed as much shorter in Blue Birds.)

I... don't have anything creative to share with Fuecoco and Sprigatito. So it's probable that, if I get either Pokémon Scarlet or Pokémon Violet (and that's far from a guarantee—I specifically did NOT buy Pokémon Shield because doing so would've been a signal to GAME FREAK to make an open-borders Pokémon title, and that's now how they're advertising these new titles), I'd pick Quaxly as my starter.


By the way, open-borders games is now how Ludwig is going to refer to open-world games. Because he dislikes open borders as a political concept, so he might as well associate it with the gaming trend he also dislikes. Let Ludwig know if you'd like less Pokémon content (because it's tended to dominate the Artistic Corner)... or if you'd like more Rhythm Heaven content, though he's not sure how much more he can do because Blue Birds is already his favourite minigame.


While Ludwig doesn't think of Donald Duck when he sees Quaxly, he thinks of Darkside when he sees Grimmsnarl.

Happy Valentine's Day to Incineroar and Clawroline

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - KoopaTV* wishes them well.

While Incineroar's American football team failed to win Super Bowl LVI (that's fifty-six) last night, he does have two things going for him. Number one, it's still his Zodiac Year (of the Tiger). And number two, it's Valentine's Day and he did well enough for himself that he's impressed a new babe to be his girlfriend: Clawroline.

Who is Clawroline? You might remember her from the Kirby and the Forgotten Land trailer shown at the February 9 Nintendo Direct. I called her a “furrybait boss” but have later learned her name. Clawroline. Lovely.

Anyway, here's my commemoration to Incineroar and Clawroline for Valentine's Day 2022:

Larry Koopa and Marge Simpson vs. Sunset Express and Monorail

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I think Larry Koopa and Marge Simpson share a similar sense of style!

Some hours ago, one of my brothers, Larry Koopa, was bashing my hair. He said, “What beautiful hair? I thought you just had wings growing on your head” and then he was figuratively laughing his... tail off. I don't tolerate those kinds of remarks towards my hair, so... Here's what I think about Larry's hair!

And their colour schemes share a lot of yellow scales/skin, too. Green, too.

Larry, if you have any objections, maybe you can help the KoopaTV cause and write your own comeback. (Or maybe the cause would be better served if we didn't fight in public?) But I have more even more evidence that I put a lot of effort into. Take a look at these following images:

Tencent's Got ≥25 million Nintendo Switch + Mobile suckers with Pokémon UNITE

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - And some third party estimates are way higher. They're stuffing the Pokémon Bank for sure.

When I wrote “Tencent's Got ≥9 million Nintendo Switch suckers with Pokémon UNITE” two and a half weeks ago, I really didn't expect that 9 million to increase so dramatically so quickly. The mobile version wasn't out yet—just the Switch version. But now it is. And now the official count is at over 25 million Pokémon UNITE downloads across all platforms:

Nintendo Switch版・スマートフォン版合計のダウンロード数が2500万を突破！
これからも『ポケモンユナイト』をよろしくね！#ポケモンユナイト pic.twitter.com/vCOdTqKXY9

— ポケモンユナイト公式 (@poke_unite_jp) October 4, 2021

Why, why people? There were five million mobile pre-registrations, but it seems like many times more mobile gamers downloaded Pokémon UNITE than just the pre-registrants. And if mobile data firm Sensor Tower is to be believed, the game has been downloaded on mobile over 30 million times, which makes the total at least over 39 million. That also makes it the most popular mobile MOBA launch in the genre's history. Obviously, Tencent's strategy of preying on Pokémon-loving children (outside of China, since they're restricted within China) is working very well. KoopaTV is powerless to stop this, unfortunately. I wish it weren't so.

So what is Tencent doing with that? Well, check out this cosmetic (not pay-to-win) item:

Masahiro Sakurai's Ludwig Hatred Continues: I'm not Bowser Jr., and he can grab his own ledge!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - And neither is Wendy O. Koopa!

I have a well-documented series of articles about Super Smash Bros. series director Masahiro Sakurai's personal hatred of me, Ludwig Von Koopa. From me having the worst end of the stick in the Super Smash Bros. For Wii U reveal out of all the Koopalings, to me having the worst end of the stick in the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate reveal out of all the Koopalings... To Sakurai denying my debut decade and me being the only playable character completely ignored in Spirit Battles at launch. I am the worst-treated Koopaling in this franchise, and I'd say I am in the running for the worst-treated character of any species. Down there with Little Mac.

Last night, Masahiro Sakurai returned to his lows of unwarranted animus towards me with this horrible tweet:

I've archived Sakurai's tweet here, in case he ever does the right thing and deletes this insult.

Obviously, I, Ludwig Von Koopa, am not Bowser Jr. My sister (and nominally fellow KoopaTV staffer) Wendy O. Koopa, is also not Bowser Jr. If Masahiro Sakurai would like to discuss Bowser Jr.'s two forms of grabbing a ledge (one ledge grab with the Clown Car and one ledge grab without the Clown Car after ditching it from using Abandon Ship), he should post an image of... Bowser Jr.

Would it have been so hard to post this image instead?

Look! It's Bowser Jr. with two forms of grabbing...
....Featuring (the actual) Bowser Jr. displaying the two forms of grabbing!

Indeed, Bowser Jr. can grab the ledge without transforming into myself or transforming into my sister. He has grown up to the point where he can grab the ledge ALL BY HIMSELF.


Ludwig had lots of other things he WANTED to write about, especially after that Direct, but no, Masahiro Sakurai is making a fool out of himself and insulting Ludwig's personhood. There's only so many times Ludwig can take this unwarranted loathing from Sakurai before he starts a #SackSakurai hashtag.


While Bowser Jr. can grab a ledge by himself, he'd probably cry if his ledge got trumped.

Latios and Latias aren't INCLUSIVE enough. Meet Latixs

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The non-binary Eon Pokémon.

As people are celebrating Eon Heritage Month now in honour of Latias and Latios, the so-called Eon Twins (September happens to be the last time Latios and Latias have been distributed by Event in the West), there's a group of people who feel excluded. Allow me to explain.

You see, Latias and Latios are gendered Legendary Pokémon. Legendary Pokémon with a gender are a mere fraction of all Legendary Pokémon, which themselves are a mere fraction of all Pokémon in general. Usually, they're genderless. Latias is female. Latios is male. But what about people who don't identify as female or male? What Eon do they get? For a while, there was no inclusive answer. But KoopaTV would like to make you aware of... Latixs!

Meet Latixs. Pronouns: They/them.

Grit Blue Moon's Degenerate "True Grit Triumphs" Experience

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A bad online event tourney... trivialised by a broken CO.

Last weekend had a dreadful Super Smash Bros. Ultimate online event tourney: True Grit Triumphs. There isn't really a theme to it: It's just two-stock free-for-all Stamina (150 HP) matches that last 3 minutes. No items, no Final Smash Meter, and no hazards on in the stages. No character restrictions. The only unique thing there is the presence of Stamina, which is otherwise ignored by people outside of a select few Classic Mode routes and some Spirit Battles. So why is that so bad?

In practice, Stamina just doesn't work with two stocks and only three minutes. The rules heavily encourage camping and avoiding direct combat until time runs out. Sudden Death is enacted based on stock count, not hit points remaining—so a player with 1 HP and 1 stock and a player with 150 HP and 1 stock when the three minutes are up will be considered tied, and they will both go to Sudden Death. When Sudden Death starts, all players will only have 1 HP... so any attack will KO them. That's different than normal %-based KOing that you would deal with in non-Stamina Sudden Death... as the video below should make abundantly clear:

In the above, Grit (represented as Fox McCloud) avoided direct combat and mostly stayed away from others and shot very long-range lasers. Grit has way more range than any of the other combatants, and can wipe out enemies’ stamina before they ever reach him. Once it became Sudden Death, one hit from the Blaster gun is enough to end the fight and do that 1 HP of damage, and there's pretty much nothing Ganondorf (...Von Bolt?) could do about it. The Blaster comes out very fast and goes very far... and he can keep shooting an endless stream of the lasers. (Von Bolt could've tried jumping to the higher platform instead of rolling, though.)

It's a true Grit triumph, done exactly how Grit would've approached it. (In a non-approaching way.)

While it's very in-character of Grit to fight that way... it's still very degenerate for everyone else. Grit is commonly seen as a top-tier commanding officer in the Advance Wars series (well, mostly Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising) because of the increased range and attack power of his indirect combat Artillery units. People hate fighting him. He's THE camping character in Advance Wars, after all. He will have rows of infantry to protect his Artillery and Rockets (and Missiles, if necessary) and then slowly advance...obliterating everything in the way to his opponent's headquarters. Very effective if there are chokepoints (limiting avenues to approach), like how Fox's lasers are harder to avoid if there is only one path to approach (no platforms). He can keep the path locked down. Advance Wars combat also runs on a Stamina mode with unit health, so it's pretty accurate to compare.

At least in Sudden Death for non-Stamina, you have to walk up to someone and hit them with a move that deals knockback. There are still many projectiles that will do that, but at least they tend to be more difficult to use than Blaster. At least this bad event tourney is over now.

By the way, for people who didn't get the meta of the event tourney and they actually lost both of their stocks before the three minutes were up, it was very common for them to just ragequit and disconnect, which causes the game to suddenly pause for SEVERAL seconds as it processes that this person has turned off their Nintendo Switch. This totally cuts into the mental momentum concentration that the remaining players have. That same problem would go for any stock-based free-for-all match. A lot of players are impatient and inconsiderate twits who don't care how the game ends. Stock is still the superior mode for singles and team matches... just not for online free-for-alls.


Ludwig didn't come up with the Fox strategy. Instead, he encountered someone else who was doing it first. Then Ludwig copied the strategy for the content (and easily won with it)... and then he decided to make it an Advance Wars thing because it's named after Grit. Maybe you'll want to comment on if you played the tour for yourself. Did you think it was fun? At all?


Want more Advance Wars Blue Moon content? Check out this analysis featuring Colin Blue Moon!
The event tour that got a KoopaTV article before this one was more thematic in nature, about characters from the 2010s.

Two Competing Vaccine Perspectives—Coming to Nintendo Switch End of 2021

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Which perspective do you relate to the most?

Normally, you'd expect me to publish an article about my Ring Fit Adventure progress as I'm training for next month's Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games as a member of Team Koopa. We've been calling it “KoopaTV Fitness Fridays.” But this week is different, and I wasn't able to do so. That's because of the Pfizer vaccine that they've given to every Tokyo 2021 Olympics team.

I've already written three weeks ago about the first dose I had... and I definitely had some side-effects, though they didn't stop me from completing World 42 of Ring Fit Adventure. But for the second shot... I was in the poor situation where my body was way too chilly and miserable for me to fall asleep, yet I lacked the energy to actually get out of bed. Bad combination. But I feel fine now. Still, I wouldn't have been able to do sufficient fitness during this week, so I just skipped it. Next week should be different.

Now, if you're going to KoopaTV for your medical advice (“Should I get vaccinated?”), I recommend you still keep going to KoopaTV, but find other, non-medical reasons to. However, I have noticed that there'll be two Nintendo-published videogames coming to the Nintendo Switch in the last quarter of 2021 with two very different perspectives on vaccines: Metroid Dread (October 8, 2021) versus Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Pokémon Shining Pearl (November 19, 2021).

Left: Chimchar's Vaccine Hesitancy.
Right: Samus's Vaccine Success Story.

In this article, I'll explore those perspectives and you can tell me in the comments section which one you think makes more sense to you.

Rillaboom for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Moveset Concept

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Rillaboom drums up a beatdown!

In exactly one week is Nintendo's E3 2021 conference. Everyone expects that the identities of one or both of the remaining two Fighter's Pass 2 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate downloadable content characters will be revealed then.

One (unsupported) “theory” is that the Pokémon franchise is “owed” one of the DLC fighter spots (because it's big and popular and The Pokémon Company has a lot of influence over Nintendo executive decisions), and the most common-sense decision is to take a popular Pokémon from the new Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield. Top contenders include Cinderace, Toxtricity, and Rillaboom. (No one wants Inteleon.) Of those three, I'd prefer Rillaboom. Unfortunately, Rillaboom detractors cite that he's just “moss Donkey Kong”, akin to:

After I got this screenshot I realised how scary the top of Moss DK's head looks like.
That's the blue Player 2 indicator, not Donkey Kong having the worst haircut of his life.

KoopaTV will therefore present a viable moveset concept for Rillaboom, taking deep inspiration from the Pokémon games in putting it together:

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.

Bowser's Shulk-Bash Backslash Backlash

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - One-upping basic “M” alliteration with a tongue twisting tale.

One consequence of the Pyra and Mythra newcomer announcement from last week's Nintendo Direct is that there's new artwork associated with their Super Smash Bros. Ultimate existence:

To celebrate the announcement of Pyra/Mythra joining Super #SmashBrosUltimate, here's a special illustration from the original game's character designer Masatsugu Saito! pic.twitter.com/uYoIQEfkA2

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 17, 2021

There's a lot of very interesting things going on here. First, pay attention to Mythra's outfit. In a previous KoopaTV article titled “Massive Melee Mythra is a Marvelous Meta Miracle” by ex-KoopaTV staffer RawkHawk2010, he predicted—over two years ago—that Mythra's leggings and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 DLC would result in Mythra appearing in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in more than just a Spirit capacity. By the end, he was rudely warning King Bowser Koopa about Mythra, referencing Shulk's trailer that we saw in an August 2014 Nintendo Direct. What you need to know about that trailer is it began with Bowser innocently wandering the Gaur Plain and watching butterflies, and then this Shulk jerk surprise BACK SLASHES the Koopa King for no reason. That was the first time I had ever heard of Shulk.

Shulk Back Slashed Bowser in his debut trailer for Super Smash Bros. For Wii U.
I've personally held a grudge against Shulk ever since.

Now, look back at the embedded artwork at the top of the page by Masatsugu Saito. Notice who is right behind Shulk's back? That's right. It's King Bowser Koopa. And while everyone's Xenoblade Chronicles attention is on Pyra and on Mythra, Lord Bowser, expertly avoiding Pyra's and Mythra's trailer altogether (as did every other Koopa in the game, including myself), is instead using this time for REVENGE on Shulk. Saito happened to catch the moment before the backslash backlash.