The False Nintendo Marketing Spin on Team Kirby Clash Deluxe

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A fun game that doesn't deserve disingenuous marketing.

Just a few days ago, Nintendo sent out a push notification to everyone who allows themselves to receive those on their Nintendo 3DS. It was about Team Kirby Clash Deluxe!

This free-to-play Kirby game is all the rage on the Nintendo eShop, and Nintendo just wanted to make sure everyone else got in the action. After all, it's a better experience when people on your Nintendo 3DS friends list are playing the game actively instead of just being stuck at Level 2 forever. (Looking at you, Ray and Nandin.)

However, this Nintendo-sent Team Kirby Clash Deluxe push notification made a variety of... duplicitous claims about the game's content and feature set.

This Miiverse guy got the push notification and is wondering where the new challenge system is.
(There is no new system. There is no update.)

There's poor people confused on Miiverse about this push notification, so let's clear the air about it. First, I transcribed the whole thing verbatim below. 

Leaked First Look At Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - After I called it fake news for months, Ubisoft apparently confirmed it somewhere.

I want to keep any and all Rabbids content on this website to a minimum. Unfortunately, Ubisoft and Nintendo are going to make that difficult over the next several months. Back during Ubisoft's E3 2013, RawkHawk2010 exclaimed:

“I can't believe the Rabbids are still around.”

The year after in Ubisoft's E3 2014, RawkHawk2010 said:

“Rabbids are hideous characters.”

Meanwhile, during E3 2015 I didn't know what the Minions were and thought that Electronic Arts made them up as their version of the Rabbids.

That's basically KoopaTV's Rabbids history, but it looks like there will be more to come. Ubisoft apparently has confirmed the existence of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle after rumours and leaks were swirling in dark corners of disreputable media outlets. It's some sort of weird RPG...thing, featuring Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, and four Rabbids dressed up as those four characters.

The Wonderful 1237 Strategy Guides: Chris Christie

 By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's pretty obvious that Chris Christie is on Team Burgers.

Welcome to another edition of the strategy guides for KoopaTV's amazing browser-based Flash game, The Wonderful 1237! The Wonderful 1237 features seventeen unique minigames, all from each of the seventeen Republican presidential candidates you will be competing with.

(We had a brief break last week due to...important things to cover.) 

As explained in the Wonderful Wednesday article about those minigames, I'll be writing these strategy guides — one for each candidate, in a specific order. This one is about the guy who destroyed Marco Rubio, only to drop out of the race to serve as Donald Trump's henchman and lock-her-up chanter: Chris Christie. Unfortunately for Chris Christie, all of his servitude to Candidate Trump didn't help him in real life, and like real life, he is, on his own, a pretty weak candidate in The Wonderful 1237.

Candidate Stats

Base stats and growth:

Beauty: 0 + (1–2)

Cool: 0 + (0–3)

Cute: 1 + (0–3)

Smart: 0 + (0–2)

Tough: 0 + (0–5)

Average untouched stats after 14 rounds:

Beauty: 21

Cool: 21

Cute: 22

Smart: 14

Tough: 35

Average likelihood of surviving Iowa if untouched:

Less than average likelihood. (Chris Christie will have 10 delegates on average; need 11 to clear.)

“Versus CHR-R-R-R CHRIS CHRISTIE! ...Fight.”

Terror in Manchester, UK! ...Hey, Where's Vortexica?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - If only we could talk with him ONE LAST TIME...

Tonight, United Kingdom prime minister Theresa May raised the terrorist threat level of her country to CRITICAL, up from SEVERE. Another attack, not counting the Manchester Arena terrorist attack (done by a guy named Salman Ramadan Abedi — I wonder which church he goes to?) that you'll hear about if you turn on the news (i.e. not KoopaTV), is IMMINENT. Scary. It doesn't get any higher than CRITICAL. Just because critical hits got nerfed in the Pokémon series a few years ago doesn't mean this is any less serious.

At the same time, this doesn't affect KoopaTV happily sitting by at our Sierra Leone headquarters.

Wait, what's that? KoopaTV staffer and British correspondent Vortexica hasn't shown up at our quarterly meetings? Well, WHERE THE HELL IS HE? ...Oh no... Oh no...

GameFAQs Best Year in Gaming: Round 5 — THE FINALS!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The death match between 2001 and 1998.

Throughout this month of May, KoopaTV has been covering the GameFAQs Best Year in Gaming contest. This contest sought to poll the Internet (this year, mostly just GameFAQs users — but in previous years there were rallies have caught Internet-wide popularity and massive vote totals) on which year in the gaming industry was... THE BEST.

After getting through a Wildcard round, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, and Round 4... we're finally at Round 5. In a 32 + 4 entrant 1v1 tournament, that's the final round.

Our gratuitous banner has the propaganda directly put on it!

It's 2001 vs. 1998. Vote for 2001. Please? Right here, today, on Monday.

I'll convince you why.

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valencia... is Still Fire Emblem: Gaiden

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The same Fire Emblem: Gaiden that is really weird and no one appreciated.

Today, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valencia came out in North America. (Recall the Fire Emblem Direct.) This game is a pretty faithful remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden, also known as the second game in the Fire Emblem series that came out on the Famicom and was exclusive to Japan. Like many NES-era sequels, it was weird and really different from the first game (think Zelda II: The Adventure of Link), and it was less a sequel and more of literally a side-story. And then the third game in the Fire Emblem series included a remake of the whole first game in it, and it's weird how that whole thing turned out.

Anyway, I've been around many Fire Emblem discussions and message boards prior to the release of Fire Emblem: Awakening. I've come across lots of forum topics along the lines of, “Rank all the games in the Fire Emblem series from best to worst.” Now, random forum-goers can have lots of bad opinions, but Fire Emblem Gaiden tended to be in a lower-tier or some sort of question mark tier.

Many Western Fire Emblem fans, not having access to many of the Fire Emblem games through legal localised channels, played the “missing” games through unapproved methods. Favourites of these included Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade (the one with Roy, and the closest to Fire Emblem 2003 which was in America), Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, and for the really hardcore, Fire Emblem: Thracia 776.

Not many people sought out Fire Emblem Gaiden. But now, with faithful remake Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valencia? There's revisionist expectations.

Sonic Forces: Custom Hero — Brilliant, or Disaster?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The logical response versus the gut, emotional one.

The world is ending! Oh no!

...Unrelated to that: You can play Sonic Forces (releasing Holiday 2017 for Xbox One, the PlayStation 4, the PC... and even the Nintendo Switch) and create your own custom hero. 

There's a lot to analyse and consider in that 96-second trailer, and also some things not in it to analyse and consider. In summary, leading up to this trailer, people thought the following about Sonic Forces: It would feature, much like Sonic Generations, “modern Sonic” (the thinner, taller one), “classic Sonic” (the chubbier one), and an unknown new hero. It would take place in a darker future, with the Sonics and new dude (the hero the world needs) being part of “the resistance”, which places the game as SEGA's interpretation of a near-future featuring President Donald John Trump as Doctor Eggman, and hedgehogs as Hillary Clinton's resistance.
 
Hell, Hillary Clinton even speaks of “the resistance” as not just against President Donald John Trump, but also against robotics and artificial intelligence, which are things that Doctor ROBOTnik is known for. (I'll use whatever name of his fits the puns better.)
 
However, this new dude isn't just Hillary Clinton. It's you (...she's not reading this site, is she?)... or whatever your imagination has (possibly including Hillary Clinton)! And you can put them in seven different species, according to IGN and a bunch of other sites:

KoopaTV's Live Reactions to the ARMS Direct!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Featuring North Korea launching nuclear arms on Nintendo's Japanese headquarters. ...Just kidding.

Another Nintendo Direct is here, this one focusing on the new Nintendo Switch game, ARMS! Plus, Splatoon 2 for good measure. I'm Ludwig, and joining me is RawkHawk2010, in our [Koopa Keep] AIM Blast (running in Pidgin).

Follow along with our log here:

GameFAQs Best Year in Gaming: Round 3 & Round 4

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Also known as the quarterfinals and the semifinals.

Less than six hours remain in the first match of Round 3 of GameFAQs's Best Year in Gaming contest, and I don't know what year to pick for the first match. I guess we'll get to that discussion after the page break.

It's been a rough Round 2, coming off an easy Round 1. Round 3? Treacherous. So my write-ups will be painstaking.

Based on the...schedule, Round 3, being four matches, will go from Tuesday to the end of Friday — one match a day this time. Round 4 (semi-finals) will take place Saturday and Sunday, with Round 5's FINALS taking place on Monday. In terms of publishing schedule, that means I must attach Round 4 to this article. That makes the gratuitous picture look like this:

...And then I realised that I saved it without rewriting it to be “Rounds”, so that's why the article title is “Round 3 & Round 4”.

Now you're gonna get write-ups FROM THE HEART for most of these. GameFAQs now has eight pictures for each year for eight games, but in case that ain't enough, here's a Wiki with notable games from each year. Also, as of publishing, we don't know what's in Round 4. This article will be UPDATED when we do know, and Round 4 will get write-ups at that time!

Nintendo's E3 2017 Plans

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Knowing Nintendo, it's better than it sounds.

Last week, Nintendo announced their plans for E3 Week 2017, going from June 13 to June 15. Ever the quick-paced and agile shelled creatures we are at KoopaTV, we're just discussing it today. (Hey, we were celebrating an ANNIVERSARY.)

Here's Nintendo's E3 2017 plot, according to their press release:

• 12 PM Eastern on June 13, 2017 — Nintendo Spotlight: E3 2017 video presentation
• This will be available at e3.nintendo.com (and KoopaTV will be on top of the coverage) and deal with Nintendo Switch games, including Super Mario Odyssey, releasing in 2017.
• Nintendo Treehouse: Live at E3 throughout June 13, June 14, and June 15
• Subjects will be all sorts of Nintendo Switch and Nintendo 3DS titles, played at depth with your favourite Nintendo Treehouse localisers. KoopaTV will cover this, too!
• The night of June 13, 2017: The 2017 Splatoon 2 World Inkling Invitational
• Four teams, representing the four regions of the United States, Japan, Europe, and Oceania, will compete. KoopaTV will cover this with variable effectiveness.
• The night of June 14, 2017: The 2017 ARMS Open Invitational
• It being “open” implies something here, but that “invitational” also implies something... KoopaTV will be sure to cover this, though we might be a little bored.

What's the ultimate analysis here?