Yoshiaki Koizumi Talks Toad's Top and Mario's Love Life

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I have an issue with the questions and answers...

It looks like Nintendo decided it would be a good time for some softball interview questions with Super Mario Odyssey producer Yoskiaki Koizumi. Just for fun, I guess. Little did they seem to know that they would cause quite a stir.

Take a watch below, as Mr. Koizumi continues to be captured by Cappy as he has been in all of the other times we've seen him. Cappy just has a lock on Japan, doesn't he? Yeah, don't try to convince me that Japan is such an awesome place.

This thumbnail is especially horrifying:

Rawk's Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Experience

By RAWKHAWK2010 - Ace Attorney, Versed by Mii!

Hey dudes.

After being moderately impressed by Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies but then finding myself so totally lost in Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney that I stopped during the butler chapter and would return every few months only to make it past another two lines of dialogue, my 2013/2014 foray into the franchise probably didn't last as long as Ludwig would have hoped. What happened to the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy I bought on sale three years ago with the intention of starting? What happened to the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice I bought over one year ago during release week that I also had the intention of starting? Well...I dunno, actually. Had I really been that turned off by that one obnoxious Layton witness who wouldn't stop playing his stupid minstrel guitar while testifying? (Because he can totally take that G-string and shove it.)

A combination of three factors finally got the ball rolling, in which I booted up the series and played through THE ENTIRE LOCALIZED THING in less than half a year. I was basically inspired by 1) the Ace Attorney anime opening and my covers of it, 2) Ludwig telling me to do something with The "Miracle" Never Happen for Trump's impending doom (in which the "Miracle" actually DID happen), and 3) Trump's dismissal of James Comey from the Federal Bureau of Investigations which got me in the mood for some legal drama.

Once things started they never really fell off, and thanks to Miiverse I'm now in possession of hoards of archived commentary (covering the original trilogy, SoJ, and parts of whatever else was Miiverse-able) that I can now subject the entire world to! (MWAHAHAHAHA!) I call it "Rawk's Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Experience." We at KoopaTV think it's a good implementation of a Miiverse post archive, and shows what happens when Nintendo doesn't pull an NSider and delete everyone's shit. After all, I probably spent just as much time treading through Miiverse's gruelingly-slow UI on my non-New Nintendo 3DS as I did on my non-bannable NSider posts.

Oh yeah, and after at least half a year of me thinking Funimation canceled/forgot they were doing it, Part One of the Ace Attorney anime English dub finally landed last month. You should go watch it somewhere real fast so that you can have certain voices in your head as you read. Courtesy fragment:

So without further ado, part one of Rawk's Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Experience!:

Sleep Kirby With The Best Pillow You'll Ever Own

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - All about Sleep Kirby.

While it looks like Nintendo does not want to write a press release for this result like they did the first round, it is official: Sleep Kirby has won Round 2 (the final round) of the 25th anniversary Kirby Copy Ability poll, after finishing third place in Round 1.

Weird meme people apparently managed to coalesce and make this result happen, which I see as a referendum on Eating vs. Sleeping. Kirby represented Eating in that (there's a Kirby-Jigglypuff picture, and Jigglypuff is literally wearing Sleep Kirby's hat), but if the fans prefer when he's sleeping, then perhaps Kirby should reconsider his identity.

Sleep Kirby is now playable in Kirby Battle Royale, sporting a pillow-based moveset that is supposed to evoke a pillow fight. In Kirby's normal games, this pillow didn't exist and all Sleep Kirby did was put on a sleeping cap and harmlessly sleep in place, taking a nice rest.

Kirby's newfound pillow expertise leads to a word from KoopaTV's newest sponsor:

Mario & Sonic NOT at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The North Koreans are, though, which requires an update from us.

The fact that Where Is Mario & Sonic at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games? is the second-most read KoopaTV article of all time tells me that you all really, really want to know why “Mario & Sonic at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games” does not exist.

The PyeongChang 2018 Olympics start this week, with the Opening Ceremonies this Friday, and you bet KoopaTV will live-react to it like we did for the Rio 2016 Opening Ceremonies. Unless there will be a last minute change, you should now refer to it as “Mario & Sonic NOT at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games.”

Earlier, I had accused Cappy, through Mario, of trying to start a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula and East Asia, by stirring up a lot of bad blood with all of the nations by causing Dennis Rodman to act stupidly in North Korea. Since then, North Korea will be allowed to participate in the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics, and there will even be a unified Team Korea Women's Ice Hockey team. Why is North Korea allowed but not Mario (and Sonic)?

The Billy Mitchell MAME MEMO

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - No matter what the evidence says, Billy Mitchell is still my hero.

Today, a MAJOR memo that demolishes the “evidence” behind the much-debated actions of a heavily respected institution dropped:

The Billy Mitchell MAME memo, published for all to see in the Donkey Kong Forum. (Not to be confused with Donkey Kong series fan forum DK Vine.) 

For those not in the know of one of the three only good things to come out of the Video Game Awards 2013 (VGX 2013), Billy Mitchell is an amazing arcade game high scoring professional, notable for getting the first perfect score on Pac-Man. He also has records in other games as well, including Donkey Kong. There was a whole documentary of it (one of the best movies of any kind of all time, King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters), and it continued ever since.

Well, Billy Mitchell was portrayed as a villain in the documentary (see embedded video below for why he's so awesome at that role, and is an awesome person in general that I want to be like), and people have long believed that he was using controversial/rule-breaking methods for his high scores, which brings us to the memo.

KoopaTV's January 2018 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Welcome to KoopaTV in 2018. How do you like it?

We have officially ushered in 2018 here at KoopaTV. Good start, right? For those who haven't been with us since our founding years ago, KoopaTV is a wonderful place on the Internet ran by Koopa Kingdom's finest. We publish awesome gaming articles and art, and reward your participation in the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program. Yup, we are all-in on you, the reader, being a part of this special place. That'll be more clear as you check out this newsletter of what happened in January.

Oh, let us know what you think of the new text-decorations for the headers. They're supposed to make it more obvious that they all have anchor text you can append to the url to link specifically to that section, if you hover your mouse over it.

KoopaTV's Top Five Recommended Articles of January 2018

If you HAVEN'T been reading all of KoopaTV's articles as they've been published (look here for all the ways you can make sure you don't miss our articles!), then this top-five section gives you the KoopaTV staff's personal recommendations. Here they are in chronological order:

1. New Years Celebration in New Donk City — The people of New Donk City are celebrating the new year 2018, as well as Pauline's re-election. But there is Crazy Cap-related trouble afoot...
2. Saying eSports Are Sports is NOT a Liberal Conspiracy!  — A fill-in talk show host to the Rush Limbaugh radio program, Todd E. Herman, made statements connecting the eSports are sports movement to the liberal plot to take away your liberty. We counter this notion.
3. The Big Bang Theory Is TERRIBLE! (Action vs. Comedy Splatfest) — We side with Team Action in the January Splatoon 2 Splatfest, on the basis that The Big Bang Theory is associated with Team Comedy.
4. Mirror Kirby 3DS Home Theme Released! ...Oh, and Kirby Battle Royale — Kirby Battle Royale has released, but we'd rather talk in great detail about the origins of the Mirror Kirby 3DS home menu theme instead.
5. The Merits of Having Callie vs. Marie Determine Splatoon 2's Story Mode — A deep analysis into how the multiplayer Splatfest component of Splatoon directly affected the single player part of Splatoon 2, and how this was genius.

All articles on KoopaTV are worth reading, believe me. And now for a NEW section to the newsletters:

CONGRATULATIONS Super Mario Odyssey; 9 Million Sold Units?!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Plus, other news from Nintendo's nine-months-into-the-year ending March 2018. (Fiscal year 2017–2018, Q3.)

After years of being called “beleaguered” and jerks deeming its ecosystem to be irrelevant, Nintendo is suddenly being referred to with words like “powerhouse” by the press. This is helped out by its 2017–2018 Quarter 3 (October 1 to December 31) results, released today-ish. It got Nintendo's stock to pop 7%, which makes anyone who sold it when the Nintendo Labo was announced (*cough*Rawk*cough*) look like an idiot.

So, what's in those results? Spoiler alert: Nintendo doing fantastically in the biggest shopping period of the year helped a lot.

First of all, remember when it was FAKE NEWS to declare that the Nintendo Switch outsold the Wii U in one month vs. the Wii U's first year? Well, when the comparison is the Nintendo Switch's first year (or first eight months) versus the Wii U's lifetime sales, then, yes, the Nintendo Switch has already surpassed the Wii U in hardware, as seen here:

KoopaTV Live Reactions: SOTU 2018

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - President Donald John Trump's attempt to start his work year with positive coverage?

While we are getting ready to review Nintendo's newly released earnings statement, President Donald John Trump was horrified to learn that KoopaTV, one of his biggest backers in his presidential run, gave him precisely middle-of-the-road coverage in his first year as president.

As such, he is taking over every TV station in the universe, which apparently includes us, to give an hour-long (?) address to try to get this year off to a better start. It's the State of the Union, 2018, brought to you by the White House.

Plus, to be Fair & Balanced, we react to Representative Joseph Kennedy the III's Democrat rebuttal.

Our staffers are ready to react, so let's go. It's me, Kamek, Rawk, and even Vortex!

Help Ludwig Learn How To Use His New Gaming PC (Windows 10?!)

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Don't worry, I won't suddenly become a PC master race weirdo.

I didn't tell anyone but my closest confidantes, but... my PC was failing. Big-league. I did get it as a birthday gift in 2011, which is... a really long time ago, and it showed by failing to properly play even the most basic of games. (Still managed to play and develop all of KoopaTV's own videogames just fine, including 2017's Best PC Game, Soviet Missile Run!)

In late 2017, I was getting scary hard-disk drive failures on start-up. That was fairly indicative that my hardware wasn't going to be around much longer, and Ludwig without his desktop means you won't see him around. He'll also be quite unhappy. Unfortunately, suddenly switching to the third person still won't make it so someone else would solve the problem for me, so since my favourite console manufacturer did nothing I cared about for Black Friday/Cyber Monday, I got a new PC on sale. And it's not immediately outdated, I don't think.

Say hi to Ludwig's Dell Inspiron Gaming Desktop.

Dragon Ball FighterZ Is Out... But Not On Switch (YET!)

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Since we joined the Dragon Ball FighterZ for Switch movement, the game has released, but no Switch announcement has been made.

The Dragon Ball franchise's latest production has been released on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 — Dragon Ball FighterZ. High-production anime-style animation and graphics with fast-paced combo-heavy carnage is what people think of when they watch and play Dragon Ball FighterZ, but why isn't Dragon Ball FighterZ on the Nintendo Switch, like we've been calling for?

I mean, it's on the PC, but no one should be playing fighting games on a mouse and keyboard. Bad experience. Meanwhile, the Switch lets you play this on the go. A good feature to complement what is the most critically-acclaimed Dragon Ball game. Ever.

Part of the problem is that Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 came out on the Nintendo Switch recently, and a while ago on the other systems. I don't know anything about Xenoverse 2 other than that it was unnecessary, but Bandai Namco decided to use it as a barometre for if they should bring Dragon Ball FighterZ to the Nintendo Switch. If they released FighterZ now, no one would've bought Xenoverse 2. Cannibalisation and all that.

Well...