Kuru Kuru Kururin Review

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Could you say this is a Kurureview?

Since Nintendo upgraded Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack to include Game Boy Advance games, you may be wondering what's worth playing! KoopaTV commenter Captain Stitch had told me:

“Cool that GBA and GB games are finally coming to switch. You should really play Kuru Kuru Kururin, it is a very fun and very addicting game. Short too, and the music is Absolutly phenomenal. Seriously, play just a bit or listen to the soundtrack you will not regret it. Everyone loves the Cave music, but I'm partial to the Cake Land music myself.”

I decided to do more than just listen to the soundtrack or play a bit... I played and beat the game, while collecting all it has to offer, including Perfect clears of its Adventure mode and Challenge mode levels. Let's get into the review to see what I think.

Fast Facts about Kuru Kuru Kururin

Name

Kuru Kuru Kururin

Console

Originally Game Boy Advance, but played on Nintendo Switch

Developer and Publisher

Eighting and Nintendo

Genre

Puzzle

Space Required

The space for the Game Boy Advance emulator provided by Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack

ESRB rating

It lacks a rating due to a lack of an original American release, but I'm sure if it had one, it'd be E

Number of Players

One for most of the game's content, but there is an up-to-four-player Versus mode

Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price

Included in Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, which KoopaTV pays $80 a year for

Demo?

Nintendo Switch Online has a seven-day trial, but the Expansion Pack isn't included, so no demo

KoopaTV's Failed Attempt at Building THE MIGHTY BOWSER

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Alternatively: Two people with no LEGO experience try building one of the most complicated sets of all time.

While most of KoopaTV's staff were in our Sierra Leone headquarters between April 19 and April 23 this year for a big meeting, we had some non-meeting fun activities. The most fun of those? We permanently blew KoopaTV's current and future budget buying the $270 LEGO The Mighty Bowser set that released last year. Was that worth it? Read this review to find out.

First of all, disclosure. Only two people on KoopaTV's staff actually worked to try to build The Mighty Bowser (set #71411) (ages 18+): myself and Witch Princess. Despite my frequent writing about LEGO Super Mario as a topic, neither of us have LEGO set building experience. To compensate for this, LEGO also shipped us the 4x4 Off-Road Ambulance Rescue (set # 40582) (ages 6+) as a free gift—normally a $20 value. I think it's because they thought an incentive to buy such a large purchase would be cool.

We treated the ambulance as a tutorial level in being able to read LEGO's enclosed instruction books. The ambulance had two bags in it, and we finished the whole thing in an hour (29:48.35 on bag one, and 27:07.50 on bag two) without having issues. (If you're wondering what's with the times, we decided we'd time ourselves for The Mighty Bowser, because no other review on the Internet—and we looked extensively—gave a time for how long it took them to construct the entirety of the set. We decided we'd be the first ones out there to report this information.) This was the wake-up call that The Mighty Bowser would take a very, very long time to build, so we would end up putting some of the meetings off and dedicate the entire Friday to building The Mighty Bowser. Still, despite the time investment, we felt confident that we were competent enough people that we could be successful, even if it would take a long time.

Saturday Night Live's "HBO Mario Kart Trailer" is an Improvement over "Wario"

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Some jokes are recycled, but the presentation is significantly better.

The last time KoopaTV thought Saturday Night Live was relevant enough to discuss, we reviewed the “Wario” skit featuring Elon Musk. It was dreadful in pretty much every way. A couple of years later, we've tried watching their skit again on a similar topic. This time, it's an “HBO Mario Kart Trailer” skit, which seems to parody The Last of Us (based on the videogame series) on HBO... but with Mario Kart (another videogame series) in that gritty environment. Apparently, The Last of Us is a pretty popular show—I have zero plans to subscribe to HBO and find out how good it is for myself, however. So while I can't exactly appreciate the digs on The Last of Us (at least, its TV adaption), I do know quite a bit about Mario Kart.

The trailer fills in the audience right away that the gist is that The Last of Us is a “prestige dystopian drama” and what you'll watch for the next three minutes is that concept but applied to Mario Kart, as an “iconic game”—Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch has sold at least 48.41 million copies, and that number will officially go up when Nintendo does their financial disclosure tomorrow. (KoopaTV will cover that, too.) There's a pretty good chance that's a big enough number that members of the audience will appreciate it. But did I?

Reviewing Xenoblade Chronicles 3

By HEAVY LOBSTER - A game that lives in perpetual memory.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is truly an unforgettable experience. I have never encountered any piece of fictional media that felt so real, so emotionally resonant. It's a gripping tale of humans struggling to rediscover their humanity in the face of an inhuman world, at once timeless and intimately relevant. The story and characters are the core of the experience, but it's not simply a movie game, as the gameplay is also excellent, with combat and exploration that complement the story and characters. The art style is stunning even considering the hardware limitations of the Switch, hearkening back to a 90s anime style that itself tells so much without saying a word. While similar stylistically to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, the subtle changes in presentation reflect a more mature, intense, and grounded tone even with many of the sci-fi fantasy trappings of previous games. The soundtrack continues the brilliance the series is known for in that respect as well and ties the whole thing together.

Reviewing "Catland: The Soft Power of Cat Culture in Japan"

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I'm on Team Cat, after all.

Reviewing books isn't normally what I do on KoopaTV, but a fan of mine provided me a copy of Catland: The Soft Power of Cat Culture in Japan. This individual asked me how I liked the book, and I refused to actually answer this fan's question directly. Instead, I said I'd review the book on KoopaTV, and they can wait and read that to get the answer. ...Somehow, that didn't go over poorly. And here we are! I mean, the book is about cats and about Japan, and I think those are two topics that the participants and lurkers of KoopaTV like.

Fast Facts

Title

Catland: The Soft Power of Cat Culture in Japan

Author

Sarah Archer

Publisher

The Countryman Press

Year Published

2020

Subjects

History, cats, Japan

Page Count

180, plus bibliography, credits, and index

Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price

19.95 USD

It's very important to note upfront that Catland is a very quick read—it took me about two nights to get through—because a very large chunk (perhaps even a majority) of its pages are cat photos or reproductions of cat art. Here's an example of a given page:

Paper Mario: The Origami King Review. How does it compare to Color Splash?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I try to unfold this Paper Mario game.

Once upon a time, a game called Paper Mario: The Origami King came out. I was asked to write a review on it. After sitting on the request for ten months, I've decided to now do so.

Unlike its prequel, Paper Mario: Color Splash, there wasn't a big gap between Paper Mario: The Origami King being announced (May 14, 2020) and when it was released (July 17, 2020). Just two months, really.

I 100%ed the game a very long time ago. As in, around August 29, 2020. (I have a date because I publicly bragged about it.) That's given me a long-term perspective on Paper Mario: The Origami King that isn't influenced by a honeymoon period. ...Well, the real reason I didn't write this review in a more timely fashion is because I don't like writing reviews, but it's also given me time to think about what I think about Paper Mario: The Origami King. If you read the following review and want to know even more, please comment in the comments section!

This review avoids spoilers as much as possible.

Habit-Forming Game Comparison: Ring Fit Adventure vs. Pokémon Smile

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Both these games want you to do pro-healthy things. But they have very different approaches.

More and more games want to instill good habits in users. Healthy habits. Games as a source for good. That's explicitly the goal for games like Ring Fit Adventure on the Nintendo Switch (even the antagonist says as much) for exercise and Pokémon Smile on mobile devices for brushing teeth, as well as Pikmin Bloom for walking.

Habits take time to form, and they need certain elements. According to author Nir Eyal—who has worked in the videogame industry helping companies motivate and manipulate their players—and his book Hooked: How To Build Habit-Forming Products, designers can build lasting habits in customers with a four step “desire engine” (that you can learn about in significant more detail at this talk he gave with several gaming references) that he abbreviates as A TARI:

1. Trigger—gets you to act. Can be external or internal.
2. Action—when doing something is easier than thinking about it. Fast decisions where the brain doesn't have to think. To get an action, you need to be motivated and have the ability to do it (and have the trigger).
3. Reward—habit-forming tend to be “variable rewards”, where every time you do the action, you don't know if you'll get something out of it. Your dopamine system spikes when you're searching for a reward, in anticipation for it.
4. Investment—users think about future rewards that make the next (or repeat) action more likely.

Nir believes through proper design, designers can make a certain behaviour—started by someone trying to seek pleasure—into a habit. That means you feel pained (or stressed) when you don't do it. You can use that design for good or for evil. For this article, I'm going to review and compare Ring Fit Adventure and Pokémon Smile and see if they have this proper desire engine design. Did Ring Fit Adventure and/or Pokémon Smile succeed in their core design elements to build habits in their users’ lives?

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.

KoopaTV's Murder by Numbers Game Review

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Solving murder mysteries with evidence obtained by solving Picross puzzles.

I used to look at Picross-based games (otherwise known as nonograms or paint by numbers) like Murder by Numbers with derision. Then I played Mario's Super Picross thanks to the Nintendo Switch Online SNES app, and really enjoyed it, but I thought that a game that's JUST a bunch of consecutive Picross puzzles could be improved by adding other game elements to it, like a story.

Murder by Numbers, by British developer Mediatonic (you may know them from developing Fall Guys, though I didn't realise they did that until writing this review; they also developed the Hatoful Boyfriend remake), seeks to combine the thrills of Picross with the classic adventure game trappings of murder mystery. I'll review how well they did that, and minimise any spoilers, since the game has a story it wants to tell and you won't want to know the details of that story before playing it for yourself.

Fast Facts

Name

Murder by Numbers

Console

Nintendo Switch—note, this review is of the Switch version

Steam

Developer and Publisher

Mediatonic and Irregular Corporation

Genre

Puzzle (Picross), Adventure

Space Required

Approximately 1.1 GB

ESRB rating

T, including depictions of tobacco use, blood, violence, and some language

Number of Players

One

Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price

14.99

Demo?

None

Jump Rope Challenge for Nintendo Switch Review

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Is this even worth reviewing? Well...

Today, The Last of Us Part II came out. If I wrote to you how I felt about it, Sony will submit a DMCA request and try to shut KoopaTV down. Quite frankly, they don't deserve the attention, so let's talk about Nintendo once again. At the start of this week, they released the free download-only game, Jump Rope Challenge, which is supposed to let you “jump rope” with your Joy-Cons while the software keeps track of how many you've done. You know, so you can stay somewhat physically active while you're unable to buy Ring Fit Adventure due to supply shortages.

I guess I'll review it. There's not much to it, so this should be sort of easy.

Fast Facts

Names

Jump Rope Challenge

Console

Nintendo Switch (incompatible with Nintendo Switch Lite)

Publisher/Developer

Nintendo

Genre

Exercise

Space Required

Approximately 78 MB

ESRB rating

E for Everyone

Number of Players

One to Two

Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price

Free

Demo?

None, but it's free

 

I suppose since the game is quite barebones, it doesn't make sense to go section-by-section. There's only one gameplay input: Waggling your Joy-Cons (or one Joy-Con if you're doing multiplayer mode with another person, which isn't a co-op mode but more two rabbits sharing the same screen). You're supposed to be jumping, but the actual input is that the Joy-Con senses any kind of movement. Therefore, it doesn't matter if you're leaping, or bending your knees, or doing anything at all with your body. Personally, I'm just sitting on my chair and drumming the Joy-Cons like that Wii Music drummer from Nintendo's E3 2008:

Game Review: Calculation Castle: Greco's Ghostly Challenges

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Are these math games a treasure?

Let's say you're a parent, and you're going through hard times right now. The schools aren't taking your children in during the day, so you need to stay home with them, possibly in addition to you having to work from home. The school district is trying to implement some kind of learn-from-home virtual classroom, but it's pretty shoddy. You need your children to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. You can learn the first two on the Internet pretty easily (for example, on KoopaTV, you can read articles and write comments—though KoopaTV is outside the age range of “children”), but the math part might be difficult.

Fortunately, there are a variety of math products geared towards elementary-school students. Some of them are even videogames. For example, there's Donkey Kong Jr. Math, a Nintendo Entertainment System classic. Unfortunately, it's hard to come by, and it's not even included in your Nintendo Switch Online subscription. However, in Donkey Kong Jr.'s footprints, there is a mathematically-gifted demon boy named Greco, followed by a squadron of like-minded ghost henchmen, holed up in his castle of treasure.

Does Greco's four games, the Calculation Castle: Greco's Ghostly Challenge series, live up to its edutainment ancestors? I played through Calculation Castle: Greco's Ghostly Challenge "Division" (since division is my favourite math topic) to find out my answer and write a review on it, although my review on the Division title will also cover the other subjects/games as well.

This review will spoil the game's contents, but given the nature of the game, I don't think my spoilers will end up harming your experience.

Fast Facts

Names

Calculation Castle: Greco's Ghostly Challenge "Division"

Calculation Castle: Greco's Ghostly Challenge "Addition"

Calculation Castle: Greco's Ghostly Challenge "Subtraction"

Calculation Castle: Greco's Ghostly Challenge "Multiplication"

Console

Nintendo Switch

Publisher/Developer

media5 corporation

Genre

Education, Math

Space Required

Approximately 450 MB each

ESRB rating

E

Number of Players

One

Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price

9.99 USD per game

Demo?

None

Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection Music Player Review

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Great music, but the potential is limited by a feature-poor music player.

You should recall that a couple of weeks ago, Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection released on all major platforms. They made a big deal about the soundtrack going into this, with the ten Reploid Remixes DLC as a pre-order bonus.

I pre-ordered Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection despite believing that CAPCOM would later release the ten remixes as free DLC later on. I did it pretty much so I could have access to the entire series soundtrack in a portable manner (obviously I got the Nintendo Switch version). The games are good for their gameplay, too, and at $30, a collection of six high-quality action platformers is worth it. However, when I made the choice to buy it, I was planning to spend most of my time with Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection by treating it as a music player.

Therefore, how good is the in-game Music Player? That's what I'll be reviewing.

Trap Phantasm is one of my favourite songs of any Mega Man game.

A Brave New World in Subnautica

By KAMEK - It's A Brave New World.

Open world games have quickly become the most iconic AAA games released. Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto, Far Cry, and even my once personal favorite Horizon Zero Dawn. This isn't surprising, but what if a comprehensive open world experience came from an indie developer? Subnautica is such a game (from Unknown Worlds Entertainment) and this Koopa will tell you it's a wild ride!

We've seen this happen before. Other smaller projects such as Minecraft took an open world experience and ran all the way to a completely different dimension with it. Subnautica though, it's something special. The audio design is pleasingly plump with bits and bobs that give you a real sense of what you're doing or picking up. The visual design is beautiful in its gorgeous biomes and desolate shipwrecks. The gameplay and controls are odd, but I chalk that up to my inexperience in Keyboard/Mouse, and open world games in general. Subnautica, through the richness of the game, makes you feel something. It engages you. It engages your imagination. Maybe it's these things that we've been wanting and searching for all along.

Clear your mind...What is it that you truly desire?... KoopaTV of course!

The Division 2 Doesn't Divide Critics: Except Variety

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Well, that's why they call it Variety...

Have you read Matt Paprocki's review on Variety.com of Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's The Division 2? Well, it's quite... interesting. You won't learn much about The Division 2 (rather unfortunate, since it's the first The Division 2 review I've actually read), but you will learn about how frustrated Mr. Paprocki is about Fox News host Tucker Carlson being on TV and defending conservative values and gun rights.

It's a kooky review, but Variety is culturally important (I didn't know they wrote about games—though games are part of the culture, so it makes sense) in the United States. And, importantly for the videogame industry, they have a seat as a Metacritic-approved reviewer.

The scores are positive for almost everyone... and Variety is the only negative one.
For a game about division, that's pretty good.

That means it's worth giving some attention to this review, since it affects the industry.

The reason for the review's... unorthodox style, according to the writer, Matt Paprocki:

Kirby Star Allies Review — Complete Version

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The allies may be stars, but is Kirby Star Allies a shining star of the system?

We made a fairly big deal about the release of Kirby Star Allies when it released for the Nintendo Switch back in March of this year. Since then, Kirby Star Allies has had three substantive updates, adding new game modes, experiences, and content.

I think it's now worth writing a full review of the entire Kirby Star Allies game experience, since I initially refused to write a review until the game was actually complete.

Between the game's release and now, I've accumulated over 105 hours in the game, and have 100% completed everything (100%'ed Story Mode, gone through all the characters in Guest Star mode, all the hearts in Heroes in Another Dimension, completed all of the puzzles in the gallery) with the exception of the very final difficulty mode in The Ultimate Choice. I've gotten... close! But I don't feel that finishing that would impact the rest of this review.

My review won't have spoilers in it, but I also count anything in Nintendo's marketing materials as not a spoiler. Be careful of that. 

The title screen of Kirby Star Allies on its final version: 4.0.0. I'll be reviewing this version for you.

Fast Facts

Name

Kirby Star Allies

Console

Nintendo Switch

Publisher/Developer

Published by Nintendo

Developed by HAL Laboratory

Genre

Action Platformer

Space Required

3.9 GB via game download

1.0 GB via physical game with updates

ESRB rating

E10+, featuring cartoon violence

Number of Players

Minimum of one, supports co-operative play of up to four players. Local multiplayer only

Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price

59.99 USD

Demo?

Demo available on the eShop with two levels. Read a write-up of that here.

Yooka-Laylee isn't Half-Bad...or is it?

By RAWKHAWK2010 - And is this seriously KoopaTV's seventh Yooka-Laylee article?

As someone who weathered the Yooka-Delaylee storm so that I could experience the game on Nintendo Switch, I'm at last prepared to provide my thoughts. Do I really want to? Well, not really. Reviews aren't really thing. It's why my Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney "review" is a gaggle of Miiverse screen captures. It's why my Paper Mario: Color Splash review hasn't happened and never will. But in this case...I suppose I must oblige:

It's me! (Six paces above "Ray and the Family Dickinson".)

And with that,

Rawk's Review of Yooka-Laylee:

The Detective Pikachu Demo Thinks You're Dumb

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The only thing dumb is the game. You're just fine.

Today, Nintendo released the Creatures Inc-developed Detective Pikachu Special Demo Version. They want you to download it, and apparently your progress transfers over to the full game if you choose to buy it. It's unclear what makes this demo special — it's the only demo on the eShop for Detective Pikachu, so any adjectives are superfluous. (It's 1767 blocks on the Nintendo 3DS eShop, or 221 MB.)

You'll have to deal with my camera quality with these pictures.
...Not that Detective Pikachu has great graphics anyway.

 
I just wrote about how, prior to the release of Detective Pikachu, I didn't understand how anyone could understand its appeal other than SAG-AFTRA members.

Now that I've played through the demo, what do I think of it? ...Well, like the game's actual plot, this isn't even going to be a post-page-break plot twist: Detective Pikachu is not good.

Finally, The Paper Mario: Color Splash Review

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - In terms of action commands, is this EXCELLENT, GREAT, NICE, or just GOOD? ...Or a failure?

After being informally requested for a long time, on September 23, 2016, it was requested (and seconded) by the readers that when Paper Mario: Color Splash comes out, we would write a review of it. Well, REVIEWS TAKE A LONG TIME, so here we finally are.

We have a very extensive and rich history with Paper Mario: Color Splash. When it was first revealed in a March 3, 2016 Nintendo Direct, Ludwig cursed it. That caused an analysis article looking at the first public trailers of every Paper Mario game, where he again condemned Paper Mario: Color Splash for its striking similarity to Paper Mario: Sticker Star. However, by the time the next round of footage came at E3 2016, the entire KoopaTV staff was stunned at how Paper Mario: Color Splash progressed, which forced Ludwig to write an extremely controversial article defending Paper Mario: Color Splash from people who were still criticising it. From between then and the game's ultimate October 2016 release, KoopaTV covered every Rescue V: Fearless Color Defenders video Nintendo put out, which you can find and read on your own time since this paragraph has enough hyperlinks.

Finally, after having beaten the game and spending quite a number of months thinking about it (to make sure we're not in a honeymoon period), we're ready to review Paper Mario: Color Splash. We'll be reviewing it on what the game is, not what we think it should've been. Also, this review is free of spoilers, or at least, if there are any spoilers, there isn't any context given so you wouldn't know that it's a spoiler.

Ludwig's Fort Cobalt Review! (Paper Mario: Color Splash)

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Was Ludwig's experience as the Blue Big Paint Star guardian a positive one? (Spoilers about that, obviously.)

I have recently had a phenomenal experience as the boss of Fort Cobalt. You might have experienced it for yourself if you've played Paper Mario: Color Splash, but I, of course, have my own unique perspective that you won't hear about anywhere else. You might've experienced it from that dimwit illiterate supervillain named Mario — but with the power of Internet blogging, you can learn the true heroics of your favourite prince of Koopa Kingdom, LUDWIG VON KOOPA!

I'm the hero of this adventure. I spend my days tinkering secret weapons, looking at surveillance footage, and taking care of my hair.

I'm going to go over each part of the adventure in detail. The graphics, gameplay, music, story, characters, replay value, and more! As you would expect from any review. Let's start with what I'm most proud of: The music!

I believe music to be a very important part of any experience, especially as someone who is trying to orchestrate the destruction of other people. So, throughout this review, feel free to listen to the theme of Fort Cobalt:

I have my own theme, of course, but I won't embed it in case you want it to be a surprise. I will, however, give you a track listing. They're all excellent songs, reflecting my own brilliance. You see, I composed them while I was waiting for Mario to show up:

Hour of Code 2016, and Justin Trudeau's Bad Breakout

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Breakout... the game. Well, the balls are everywhere like they're zits, too.

While we're not fans of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (both from a political standpoint, and because of geopolitical tension), we are fans of initiatives such as code.org's Hour of Code, which is an annual event being held this week. Code.org is primarily focused on the United States, but, hey, Canada can join in, too.

So when Canada's prime minister makes...a game... of some sort... to promote the Hour of Code, well, the world pays attention, and Gamasutra writes a short article about it. (But they're silent when the prince of Koopa Kingdom makes games...)

See the tweets for yourself here.

Coding is easy, eh? The kids taught him, eh? CHECK OUT THE GAME HE MADE, EH? EH? EHHHH? (...I put all of those “eh”s in there BEFORE I realised I was talking about a Canadian, just saying.) Fine. I will.