Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon Saved the Whole Pokémon Franchise

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Pokémon asked for a Rescue Team! And it got one.

There is this gross trend lately among Pokémon games. Someone among Nintendo and/or The Pokémon Company is getting all these third-tier development teams like Genius Sonority to make a slew of addictive-yet-destructive free-to-start Pokémon games for the Nintendo 3DS (and then to mobile). We've seen it with Pokémon Shuffle, Pokémon Rumble World (where it brings up very concerning ethical issues), and the just-announced-and-now-released Pokémon Picross. The latter of which was the only new game announcement from the last Nintendo Direct in November, amusingly enough.

Basically, Pokémon has devolved (in a series supposedly about evolution) into a series that uses manipulative revenue models to restrict great gameplay, all while preying on children. It sucks, and maybe it's the cost of not having a mainline game in the series this year. The Pokémon Company needs to leverage its brand for SOMETHING that will constantly be money-making, since it's specifically dedicated to just one franchise compared to other companies that have multiple levers to play with.

So hey, let's have games that would be over pretty fast if people could play them whenever they want. That means we don't have to work that much on content if people access it really slowly! Or pay to proceed. Or pay to access the content.

Yet one Pokémon game stands to defend the old way of gaming. One game... comes to the rescue.

Friends to the Rescue! No, not the show.

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon.

Ludwig Passively Reacts to The Game Awards 2015

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I have other things to do, and this always sucked.

I didn't know these were tonight. It's The Game Awards, hosted by Geoff Keighley.

...The Game Awards is notoriously awful.

So here's what they themselves put up:

It's advised that you didn't bother watching The Game Awards.

Still, Nintendo fans were hyping themselves into thinking there'd be some big Nintendo announcement. Spoiler alert: It was a trick. There was nothing for you.

I got more enjoyment out of eating my chicken than watching The Game Awards 2015, so here's my live reaction to it.

Ludwig and Team Koopa are Going to Rio

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - To play at the Olympics! And the arcade?

You know, playing at the Rio Olympic Games was never on my agenda. That's basically my whole August destroyed in foreign lands. You think I know Portuguese? Plus, all the training. We just gotta do it to represent Koopa Kingdom against plumber and Sonic. Well, I was honoured to be selected, so yeah, you'll see me there August 2016. I have no idea how this site will work during that time. Maybe it won't! Maybe you'll join the staff and pick up the slack. Maybe our existing staff will. I doubt it!

Remember: Training takes a huge investment of time if you want to do well. I know an Olympic athlete (and not counting King Dad's previous participation in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games games) and she had to dedicate her life years in advance. Meanwhile, I'm just learning about this now and already regret it.

I think it's too late to turn back. Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games is going to take over my free time. (And I'm never going to actually buy it.)

KoopaTV's November 2015 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Hearing your feedback soft but clear.

KoopaTV is a site by a person and for the people. We want to be the best KoopaTV that we can! And so we're shoring up some issues, as you'll see in another "we have headers with anchors" edition of our monthly review newsletters!

So what happened in November? Great levels of activity, and greatness from us and you. Also, it went by SUPER fast.

Top Five Recommended Articles From November

Let's start with KoopaTV's greatness. As I always have written, every article on the site is worth reading, and that truism won't die down. But here are my top five recommended articles in chronological order that you really gotta read if you didn't read anything else from November! (And what's wrong with you, if you haven't?)

1. King Activision: Murders and Executions
2. Myth: School Takes Up All Your Time!
3. Was the November 2015 Nintendo Direct THAT Mind-Blowing?
4. Localisation Is Not Censorship
5. Gluten Wars the Splatfest: Pizza vs. Burgers

There are definitely awesome articles not included in the above list. It's just if I had more than five it'd be breaking tradition, and you'd be less likely to actually look at these! 'cause you might as well just look on the sidebar and randomly click things from November 2015. Not that I'm against you doing that. Anyway...

Gluten Wars the Splatfest: Pizza vs. Burgers

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - What I think... plus the opinions of many others!

The next North American Splatfest is December 5, 2015! It’s Team Burgers vs. Team Pizza! So turn on your Nintendo Wii U and get ready for awesome Splatoon action! (Forgot about Xenoblade Chronicles X, okay?)

(Those times are in Central.) “I hope you’re hungry for action!” “And food!”

Believe it or not, but we didn’t have any Splatfests for the entire month of November! The last one was still the Halloween Pirates vs. Ninjas — and my pick, Team Pirates, won! We’re actually behind Japan now, which has had eight Splatfests. North America and Europe each have had seven. Most of Japan’s have been food-related, but this is only North America’s second eating-related Splatfest since Marshmallows vs. Hotdogs!

Considering Team Marshmallows won, and that hotdogs and burgers are basically the same thing except set up in a different orientation, Team Pizza should definitely at least be more popular and with approximately the same skill level.

It makes sense, too. People try to get you to come to their events with PIZZA. “Economics Club meeting Thursday night at 7! Pizza will be served!” Or something. And it’s not just your college club — it spans everything, even crunch time at videogame companies. Everyone loves pizza. Including me! Even if it’s made from Pac-Man!

...A-Are you SURE Pac-Man is gluten-free?!?

But I’m sort of... impartial in this debate, so I’ll defer to the strongly-held opinions of the following people:

(Round 3) Ludwig's Best. Game. Ever 2015 Votes

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Thirty-two of the top games a sheltered gaming community thinks are the best ever.

You might be asking which game I think GameFAQs will crown as the BEST. GAME. EVER. At this point, it's been decisively proven that GameFAQs has lost control over their own contest. Thanks to dedicated crazies at tumblr rallying tens of thousands of votes in support of a game that literally just came out! Jeez, what a honeymoon period.

So it's less GameFAQs and more the Internet. So in that case, KoopaTV does matter! Not that we can tip the scales of a poll. And not that we all think the same way. Well, whatever. Here's what I think. You can vote here, by the way.

TIME FOR ROUND 3! I think the "3" I made here is pretty good!

See my Round 2 picks here. The games I picked did... pretty well. I mean, I voted for who I'd want to win, not who I think will move on. It just so happened that most of them did move on.

Round 3 begins Sunday, so this article won't be on the Best. Game. Ever. tab on this site until Sunday. I just don't want to have polls missed without you knowing my opinion! I'm very important, you see. Also, formatting change: There will be TWO matches a day in Round 3, not the four matches we've had in Rounds 1 and 2. (Round 1 pick here.)

Head to the comments section if you want to start a conversation about any of my choices, or perhaps what YOU'D vote for! And for the first time ever, I'm going to occasionally give comments as to why I'm making certain votes within the article. That should make for a value-added experience.

Black Friday: Get the Splatoon-Super Smash Bros. Wii U Bundle

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's the best Wii U deal I've ever seen.

It's time for the holiday season to begin. According to Nintendo of America's Reggie Fils-Aime,

"Wii U has something for everyone leading us into the holidays. If you're still waiting to jump in, or looking for a great gift this season, keep an eye out for a new Wii U bundle this holiday. Featuring not just Super Smash Bros. For Wii U but also the surprise hit of the year: Splatoon."

Then he immediately follows,

"Also, be on the look out for some great deals on the original Nintendo 3DS XL system. If either of those strikes your fancy, be ready come Black Friday."

While according to our awesome feedback (and thanks for filling it out — and if you still haven't taken the KoopaTV Feedback Form Part I along with the KoopaTV Quiz Part I, what are you waiting for?! It's fun and rewarding!), the majority of y'all have a Wii U and pretty much everyone already has a Nintendo 3DS, if you DON'T own them or you want to give a very good gift, here's your best chance ever.

"Smash Splat Special Edition Deluxe Set" starting at $249.00! Not even $249.99!

You can see more awesome Nintendo deals at Nintendo's special happy holidays deals page. The only reservation I'd have with this is you don't get the cool GameCube controller stuff with it.

Maybe I should use this chance to get some kind of replacement Nintendo 3DS system for my current defective disaster that is now preventing me from actually enjoying new games coming out? ("Replace your broken 3DS with a newer 3DS that might also break!" isn't a good sales pitch. I've heard people say that's how the PlayStation 2 sold so much, and I used to be able to point to my indestructible Nintendo systems and laugh at them.)

Ludwig's Pokémon Fate Finally Lacks Shells

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Just started and bought Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon! Might be as far as I get.

Once upon a time, there was a game series called Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. It was on the Game Boy Advance as Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team and it was amazing. You became a Pokémon and had a partner. The Pokémon you had was based on a personality test. Back in Red Rescue Team I was Treecko, and my partner was Squirtle. My team was Team TeamKoopa... 'cause I didn't know they'd prefix "Team" to the name you picked.

Then there was the sequel! Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time was what I got, and I was destined for Turtwig! My partner? Once again, Squirtle! We had some amazing shell-shocking action, and my team was Team TeamKoopaRedux. (This time the redundancy was an intentional tribute.)

After that, there was Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity, generously gifted to me by a fantastic KoopaTV reader for my birthday. The same fantastic person who is sponsoring November-December's KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program prizes of a $30, $15, and $5 Amazon codes! (And anyone, including you, can and should try to win those. Start by reading that page to figure out how.) I wouldn't have gotten it myself, since I've heard some bad things about it. Those bad things were... more or less right. 

There was no fate, destiny, or personality test. You just got to choose between five Pokémon (instead of having, like, nearly 20 possibilities from the previous titles): Axew, Pikachu, Snivy, Oshawott, and Tepig. I chose Axew as my character and Oshawott as my partner. We were known as "The KoopaTV" in the game, which gave many opportunities for screenshots. Except the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity Miiverse community doesn't allow for screenshots. There were no opportunities for anyone with a shell in Gates to Infinity. There was a very lacking selection of Pokémon in general, while its prequels and sequel have every known Pokémon in them. Let's pretend it never happened.

Fortunately, Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon's does have a personality quiz! And so, you may be wondering... who am I there?

Localisation Is Not Censorship

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Localisation and censorship are actually mutually exclusive.

There is a lot of controversy lately that Nintendo is engaged in outright censorship of games coming from Japan to North America. KoopaTV is an anti-censorship bastion of freedom fries, so it makes sense that we should join in the pile demonising Nintendo, right? ...But, alas, these cries of censorship come only from people who... have no idea what they're talking about.

Over the course of this article, I will illustrate the difference between what people think Nintendo is doing — censorship — and what they and other companies actually do: localisation. Or localization for you z-diehards out there who are going to search engine that way.

What do people consider censorship nowadays? Maybe the lewd outfits in Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water that got replaced with Nintendo lady costumes instead. I've heard complaints about the "boob slider" in Xenoblade Chronicles X that I didn't even know existed got taken out of the localised version of the game. There is a rumour that in Bravely Second, Nintendo (the outside-Japan publisher) changed the Tomahawk (class in Japan) class to the Cowboy class (class outside Japan). Though the "Cowboy" name is what people are calling it, not what the game would call it.

None of that is censorship. 

Nintendo Badge Casino

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Gateway to Internet gambling.

Once upon a time, Nintendo released this quirky 3DS application called Nintendo Badge Arcade that allows you to put "badges" (nice little pictures of Nintendo characters) on your 3DS menu. This decorates it substantially to go along with your themes, folders, and game thumbnails! It's "free-to-play"... not really. It's basically a crane game and you use a dollar of real money to get 5 crane chances.

Here's what my home screen looks like now:

Ludwig's 3DS home screen, featuring Starly, Makuhita, Lucario, and Staravia.

The folders used to be labeled "DUDE", which was totally unintentional. These stand for "Daily" (Starly), "Useless Shit" (Makuhita), "Demos" (Lucario), and "e-Shop Games" (Staravia). I haven't changed this since folders were first invented on the 3DS and it's served me sort of well! Though there has definitely been mobility, like Swapnote going from "Daily" to "Useless Shit".

Anyway, I got those badges from the "practice" plays that, if you're fortunate enough, seem to give you 1-3 free tries at the crane per day. Could you just grind off that?

Well, no. Because the badges are available for only a limited time, and apparently dozens of these are available at any given moment and expiring at any given moment. The result? If you want everything, you need to pay. A fortune.