KoopaTV's November 2016 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Inside: A new mini-contest where you can win a $10 Nintendo eShop code!

Eh, I dunno how it's December already. Weird.

Even if the month of November just disappeared, it was really important. So, first headline in our November review:

Hillary Clinton Lost, So KoopaTV Continues

The first headline in last month's review newsletter was that if Hillary Clinton became president, KoopaTV would end. Thanks to YOU, she failed in her ambitions. As long as this idiotic recount thing fronted by Jill Stein doesn't yield any election-overturning results, we're clear! Yay!

Top 5 Recommended Articles of November 2016

Every KoopaTV article is worth reading, and November was this interesting flurry of unplanned content that we had to cover. This put us into some very interesting situations, so here's our top five articles for you to read in chronological order:

Capture the Confederate Flag Strategy Guide Part 3: Boss Rush!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - You thought returning the flags to every capital was the final step? You gotta defend them.

You have learned the basics of what it takes to succeed in KoopaTV's in-house flash game, Capture the Confederate Flag. You then learned the peculiar attributes of each unique state in the fully-explorable, interconnected world of the Southern United States.

You have evolved from a Lillipup to a Herdier to a Stoutland. However, Robert E. Stoutland's job is not over yet. You may have bested Hillary Clinton's devious scheme to keep the Confederate Flags locked away in the Washington D.C. museum, but one man has returned from the grave to undo all of your hard work, and subjugate the South forever.

Abraham Lincoln!

Abraham Lincoln summons his own Pokémon, his Braviary, to eliminate the threat of Southern pride once and for all. However, Robert E. Stoutland has his own Pokémon to ride: Metagross!

What follows is an epic battle taking place in every state in Capture the Confederate Flag, ultimately ending in some place that doesn't even seem to be on this Earth. Somewhere that's missed G-d's grace. We'll get to that at the end of this guide, but first, you must survive this boss rush! We'll tell you what new tricks Braviary learns in every state, and how to handle them. And, unlike the last guide, this part of the game is totally linear. That means the order of the states is scripted.

The Vision for Nintendo at Universal Theme Parks

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Featuring creeper Mario.

The fact that Nintendo and Universal Parks & Resorts were teaming up has been known for a while, though it was not mentioned on KoopaTV. However, we now know a little bit more than just the fact. We have a new press release to analyse with some details, and an official video featuring Universal's Mark Woodbury and Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto for people too lazy to read things (so, for those people who think KoopaTV is about television):

If you happen to live near Universal Orlando, Universal Hollywood, or Universal Osaka — or have the means to go vacation near those places — looks like you're in for a great treat with a lot of loving care put into it. ...In the span of “over the next several years”, but that's to be expected, isn't it? The main highlight here is an all-ages (which should be great for even the youngest among us who want to get into Nintendo, right?), highly interactive Nintendo world, with plenty of square footage to explore! And, unlike another attempt to bring a Nintendo experience to life (that hasn't actually happened yet), you're welcome to take plenty of photographs AND share them, so you can cherish the memories forever!

Ludwig's Second Miiverse Ban

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - WHY THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN, and more!

One of the problems with being recognised as a criminal/terrorist outside of Koopa Kingdom is that everyone wants to get rid of you and shut you down. Of course, within Koopa Kingdom, I'm a freedom fighter or whatever, and taunting, kidnapping, and sometimes killing human scum is a great deed. Unfortunately for my Miiverse account at NNID PrinceOfKoopas, Nintendo is based way outside of Koopa Kingdom. Like, not even the same universe.

YOU HAVE BEEN BANNED FROM MIIVERSE.
And obviously, that's referring to me.

 
So, I've been banned from Miiverse, again. I'll be back December 11. It's been a long time since I've gotten a violation, and a really, really long time since I've gotten banned. It took a year and a half, but the Miiverse console ban policy is finally kicking in for me — after I defended it. Not that I had other NNIDs, anyway.

So what did I do to set the admins off? First, let's review the Miiverse violations since my first ban, because those might've factored in as well:

Nintendo's Cyber Deals for Cyber Monday

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - They also extend past Monday, and the shipping is INSTANT.

It's always been in my mind that Nintendo and “Black Friday deal” don't go together, and I think regardless of the contents of this article, that's still largely true. It's just not the same as getting a new microwave (which we need and don't have — and burning things with fire breath doesn't count as microwaving, as we've quickly come to realise in the Koopa household).

...That said, Nintendo is offering these deals until December 5th, giving you plenty of time to figure out if you want up to 50% off on certain games. Games getting the full 50%-off treatment range from Mighty No. 9 (lol) to the excellent Zero's Escape: Virtue's Last Reward. There's also Mega Man Legacy Collection; which is one cent cheaper on the 3DS eShop that competing systems, AND for a longer period of time. Thanks, CAPCOM!

Source: Capcom Unity's Capcom Holiday Savings post.
Note the Mega Man Legacy Collection prices.

I don't plan to buy anything Nintendo-related this weekend, and I already have Pokémon Moon somewhere in the Paratroopa-ran postal service. I still haven't even played Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma (30% off, from $39.99 to $27.99)!

Things to be Thankful for Thanksgiving 2016

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Things are going swell. Thanks!

Most of our audience today will be celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday. Well, thank G-d for the many blessings that have happened recently, and in 2016 as a whole.

Now, obviously I can't and won't speak for your individual lives, and I'm sure you don't need some royal dude over in another universe to get you to reflect on your own experiences. But since I have nothing better to write about (and no one's going to expect heavy-hitting commentary today anyway), I might as well speak from my own heart, however small and black it is.

I'm thankful for having great friends, family, and readers. (“I like attention.”) We've all gone through a lot together, from my family having to contend with the Zika virus and escaping Rio de Janeiro, to all of the behind-the-scenes faith-testing moments that you don't see and we don't want to tell you about. But they exist, and one JUST happened.

On that note, if you observe any broken YouTube embedded videos across the site, let us know. (More on that next week in the Review Newsletter.) Just saying. We'll be greatly thankful. We have a great bunch of readers, and we love when you move from the realm of reader to a participator and contributor, or as I wrote on the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program page, a player. Just yesterday we published a guest article that had a perspective that none of our staff would be able to pull off!

...Okay, are the kids gone now? Let's just come out with it: I'm REALLY thankful that Donald J. Trump is now president-elect of the United States. Great job, America! As I wrote about before, this really validates everything we've been talking about on the site, and how we talk about it. We would've had to end this site (and most of my attention) otherwise.

There's rumours and misreporting (as usual) from the media about Donald Trump turning his back on  his supporters. Fortunately, I just published a guide on how to handle yourself in a sea of bad information put out there by organisations that exist not to give you the facts, but to brainwash you under a false guise of objectivity. Since Mr. Trump was KoopaTV's first-ever successful presidential endorsement, we feel like we will be partially to blame for whatever successes or failures he does with your country, the United States. I don't plan to run away from that, and in-between gaming commentary, we'll be honest with you and we'll be holding the Trump administration accountable. Based on what he actually does and doesn't do. Parsing words at this point doesn't do anyone any good.


Of course, KoopaTV will continue to parse words for its usual daily commentaries on gaming and whatever!


Ludwig is practising on how to be that figurative uncle who brings up politics at Thanksgiving dinner and causes fights. Fortunately, no one's going to be disagreeing with the point in the Koopa household. Still, you should be careful out there, and have a happy Thanksgiving!


KoopaTV published a staffer-driven what-we-are-thankful-for in 2014 for Thanksgiving.
Last year's Thanksgiving article was more substantive and about employees during Thanksgiving.
Donald Trump was inaugurated and is now the president!
2017's Thanksgiving article features a staff member leaving.
By the end of President Donald John Trump's first term, KoopaTV had provided consistently negative-leaning coverage of his activity.

Nintendo Considers Itself a Family Friendly Company, But How About Catering to People Who Want to Start New Families?

By SHINYGIRAFARIG - THE BABY!

When it comes to the term “family-friendly” or the like, I think of things safe for children that parents won't really complain about, like watching movies from Disney. Nintendo tried to engage the family a bit more with the Wii, with games such as Wii Sports; and then attempted the same engagement with Nintendo Land for the Wii U so parents can play together with their children. However, Nintendo was losing customers quickly so at the end they really only catered more to individual buyers again like in the GameCube days and before. Despite that, these individuals are moving towards other video game companies and fast. Nintendo is really trying to retain those who grew up with Nintendo and who consider themselves hardcore Nintendo fans, but even they are starting to get tired of Nintendo's antics and leaving Nintendo behind. So what is Nintendo to do when their potential customers are dropping out?
 
Why not try the family friendly approach again, but this time have potential new fans be introduced from the cradle and maybe even before birth?

I commissioned an artist for the shirt image and used Zazzle.com to use the image on a maternity shirt.
This is me at seven months pregnant.

How To Be A Good Consumer of Media

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - With all of the bad sources and articles out there, how do you know what to trust?

It has become a very prominent mainstream concern: How do I know what sources to look at? How do I know if I should trust this article or this author? I get asked this, and KoopaTV has dealt with the issue many times over when we write about bad media sources and particularly bad reporting.

For over two years now, we've maintained a list of good and bad media sources. It's not only for our own use in finding things to commentate on, but since we've made it public, it's for the benefit of our readers. It's one of the more popular pages on KoopaTV (and surely not for the affiliates part of it, considering how few of those we have). However, we simply can't make it exhaustive. Not every bad source is on there, and not every good source is on there.

Now we're at this point of mainstream controversy where certain sore people out there are blaming “fake news” sites shared on social media (not KoopaTV, given how anti-viral the social media ecosystem is towards us) for influencing the presidential election. Everyone is scared of being mislead.

Good! So you're hopefully reading this because you're wondering how to be skeptical. Well, just yesterday, KoopaTV published an article called Trump Transition Team Considering Reggie Fils-Aime?!. This article exists to serve as a test case. Oh, and it was REALLY fun to write. Well, using that, this article will serve as a guide on how to be a good consumer of media.

Trump Transition Team Considering Reggie Fils-Aime?!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Will Reggie leave Nintendo of America to make America — no matter one's console — great again?

Current Nintendo Executive Officer Reginald “Reggie” Fils-Aime, and the Donald Trump presidential transition team are discussing a role for Mr. Fils-Aime within the President-elect Donald John Trump administration, say sources with knowledge of the interactions. According to these sources, speaking exclusively with KoopaTV under the condition of anonymity, Mr. Fils-Aime is seeking a position within the White House or United States government for one of:

• Federal Communications Commission
• Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission
• National Science Foundation
• Pacific Salmon Commission

Mr. Fils-Aime purports to have a wide variety of talents and passions, ranging from his current job's exposure to the unique intersection between the arts and the sciences, to fish.

President-elect Donald John Trump and Mr. Fils-Aime, according to sources, have some level of personal familiarity, having both been involved with Pizza Hut marketing around the same time — Mr. Trump in a commercial for stuffed-crust pizza, and Mr. Fils-Aime as Senior Director of National Marketing.

Pokémon Sun & Moon: The Release!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Generation 7 is upon the world! (Except Europe and Oceania.)

Surely you don't need the likes of me to tell you this: The long-awaited Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon versions are now released by Game Freak. We've been publishing articles on it very consistently for several months now, and it's the last major release for a Nintendo system for 2016.

The next big Pokémon adventure is now available for the Nintendo 3DS family of systems!
Image source: The official site for Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon. KoopaTV has covered every bit of content on that site, by the way.

Like Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, players will not be able to post screenshots of their adventures on the games’ Miiverse community. Huge bummer and missed opportunity. However, given the opportunity to take in-game screenshots and photos, you can send them via the just-released Swapdoodle communication application.

In case you haven't followed our coverage at all, if you're wondering what version I'm getting (note the use of “getting” — as of publishing, I don't own the game, and I don't really know WHEN I plan to get it), it's Pokémon Moon. And I'm going to choose Rowlet as my starter. It seems like more people will get Pokémon Moon than Pokémon Sun, according to today's GameFAQs Poll of the Day and my small straw poll posted in my Pokémon Online channel, Fullmoon Island.

(I'm running something called Fullmoon Island, so you should expect that I'm getting Pokémon Moon.)

If you have any comments as to your experience with the game so far, or you want to keep this article nice and active with comments throughout your play experience, I'm fine with that. Don't expect much more Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon articles on KoopaTV after this.

I don't know if I'll cover my experience on a Planet Koopa thread like I've done for all my other playthroughs of Pokémon RPGs for the past several years since SoulSilver, or if I'll do it on Miiverse. No screenshots either way, but in terms of archival purposes Planet Koopa seems better. Miiverse might go and disappear once the Nintendo Switch is released, anyway!


This will not be the last notable game released this year. Don't forget: KoopaTV still has not released its 2016 videogame, and since it's called the 2016 videogame, that means KoopaTV has until tonight to December 31st to do so! Stay tuned! (KoopaTV is aiming for before December 31st, if you're wondering. Don't want to repeat last year.)


Super Mario Run does not count as a major release for a Nintendo system, and it's garbage anyway.
KoopaTV's 2016 game, which is heavily based on Pokémon's Super Contest system, was released on December 23rd!