Super Smash Bros. Ultimate June 2020 Fighter Usage Stats: Last Before the Min Min Era!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The state of the online metagame before Min Min.

As revealed at the start of this week, Min Min from ARMS is going to be a part of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate at the start of next week. That will not only introduce Min Min, but there will also be balance changes. I'm looking forward to those, especially after the concern that patches wouldn't be implemented anytime soon due to the Chinese Communist Party Virus making it difficult for developers to work.

All of that means that the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate metagame—especially online—will change forever beginning on June 29–30, 2020. You should recall the existence of the official Nintendo-sponsored Super Smash Bros. Ultimate North American Online Open May 2020, with the majority of it taking place in June 2020. Right after that concluded, Min Min got presented. That makes it one of the last Super Smash Bros. Ultimate events before Min Min, and since there are a ton of available stats with a large sample size, it's interesting to see the last snapshot of the metagame.

Congratulations, by the way, to Sumgai (Pichu player from the Northeast USA/Region 7, and perpetual pwner/eliminator of me in these tournaments), The Mighty Dialga (Bayonetta player from Southeast-ish USA/Region 6), Nerysacio (Isabelle player from Mexico/Region 4), and Nessboy12 (Ness player from California/Region 2). Also, congrats to me for being appointed as the only non-tournament-staff moderator in the Discord server for the tournament series. That's a far cry from being banned from every other official Nintendo location ever made.

I'll talk more about my thoughts on the tournament later on in this article, but first, USAGE STATS. Who is being used the most of the cast? Who is being used the least? And how have those numbers changed since we last looked at them in March 2020? Take a look:

Why Cybersecurity is an Important Issue for the eSports Industry

By JACK WARNER - Beware of the cybersecurity risks you are exposed to.

ESports, the center of entertainment for gamers everywhere. Whether you’re into watching a Smash player eradicate the will of their opponent or witnessing a professional Counter-Strike player clutch a match, eSports has it all.

And while I could go on about the intrinsic nature of the eSports industry, I’d talk about the issues plaguing it. I speak of the cybersecurity issues that haunt fans and professional players alike.

The first cybersecurity issue haunting the industry is that of cheats. There are just so many cheats in competitive games. You don’t have to look too hard to find videos of wallhacks in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or aimbots in Call of Duty.

Them being everywhere ruins the sanctity of the concept of eSports. I’m sure professionals have used them before. As a matter of fact, according to Polygon, a Counter-Strike pro did get caught using cheats, causing his entire team to be barred from future games, killing the team entirely.

But there are far more problems in the eSports industry than just cheats. Let’s take a moment to talk about the act of stealing/selling accounts.

Pokémon Presents: Pokémon UNITE Live Reactions!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Yeaaaaaah this is laughably bad.

Last week, The Pokémon Company had a presentation covering several new Pokémon projects. The Pokémon Company asked us to tune in this week for “more news” to “please look forward to”.

And so, myself and Heavy Lobster are tuning in today to...this. Warning, as of publishing, the Like:Dislike ratio is 39K:55K.

Update as of July 10, 2020: They Private'd their upload that was embedded here and uploaded it again, so the Like:Dislike ratio is reset. Now it's 144:396.

[8:51 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0meaWFXuTzc
[8:52 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Well, it's set to YouTube "for kids".
[8:52 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: So it's probably not something like Pokkén.
[8:55 AM] HeavyLobster: Sounds lame. Pokken 2 would be amazing.
[8:55 AM] HeavyLobster: Please no Let's Go Johto garbage.
[8:55 AM] HeavyLobster: Dumbing down Gen 1 was bad enough.
[8:58 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: ...uggh.
[8:58 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: I'm more worried about Let's Go Sinnoh.
[8:59 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Johto can afford to get ruined!
[8:59 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: It already got a fantastic remake.
[8:59 AM] HeavyLobster: Any spinoff outsourced to a quality studio is hype, any annualized release made by Gamefreak is not.
[8:59 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: inb4 spinoff outsourced to a poor studio
[9:00 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: BEGIN

Was Billy Mitchell Vindicated? Guinness Records Turnabout!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Most everyone else disagrees.

Back in early 2018, KoopaTV reported that Arcade-era record-obtaining legend and hot sauce mogul Billy Mitchell was accused by members of the Donkey Kong Arcade forum of lying and cheating with his records and using a MAME emulator as opposed to an authentic Arcade machine of Donkey Kong. Shortly after that was published, all of Billy Mitchell's records were stripped from the Guinness World Records and gaming leaderboard organisation Twin Galaxies. (Even the ones not directly related to the instance in question, due to him being banned entirely.)

Billy Mitchell failed to provide public counter-evidence in the allotted time span, but instead threatened defamation lawsuits. (Billy Mitchell being seen as a cheater would harm his personal brand and hot sauce business.) Last week, all of a sudden, Guinness reversed their decision and reinstated Billy Mitchell's PAC-MAN and Donkey Kong scores.

According to Craig Glenday, Guinness World Records Editor in Chief, in a video statement,

“Billy Mitchell has made various appearances in the Guinness World Records books since the 1980s, but in 2018, some questions were raised about the technical aspects of his gameplay, and we therefore took the decision to disqualify his records. Mitchell then appealed that decision, and we subsequently reopened his case and re-examined the evidence. This involved reviewing both the existing evidence, and newly-sourced eyewitness testimony, plus some new expert gameplay analyses and hardware verification. In the end, we found that there just wasn't sufficient evidence to support the disqualification across the board. In cases such as this where there is debate, we would typically defer to the original contemporaneous adjudication, and this is the case here. So the result is that the records management team has decided to reverse the decisions made, and reinstate all of Mr. Mitchell's records for PAC-MAN and Donkey Kong.”

Twin Galaxies, however, maintains their ban, and Billy Mitchell is going to take them to court soon (there is a hearing on July 6 at 9 AM, apparently). Many forum posters on the Donkey Kong forum and Twin Galaxies board believe that Guinness World Records is corrupt or paid off somehow, and at no point was this new evidence/analyses/testimony actually presented to the public, which makes things seem very suspicious.

There's two tangential points I want to discuss that don't involve my personal admiration of Billy Mitchell's character and charisma, relating to eSports and my personal experience with Guinness World Records:

KoopaTV Live Reacts to Mr. Sakurai Presenting Min Min from ARMS

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Fair and balanced LIVE coverage.

The public has known for three months now that the next downloadable character to be added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate would be a fighter from Nintendo's 2017 Nintendo Switch title, ARMS. However, they didn't specify WHO from ARMS would be featured, leaving Super Smash Bros. fans in yet another agonising several months of speculation.

Joining KoopaTV's live reaction log are Heavy Lobster—who actually really likes ARMS and is happy that it's getting attention—and myself, who despises ARMS and has been writing prophetic articles about how it's unfortunate that the Super Smash Bros. development team keeps making characters with ever-longer attack ranges, as well as lamenting the fact that the ARMS stage will have significantly more music than the Punch-Out!! stage.

Watch the reveal presentation with us here to follow along:

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:

Pokémon Smile's “Let the camera see your face!” Made Me Pokémon Frown

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Can you help? ...And would my dentist even approve?

The announcement that I found to be the most hype from yesterday's Pokémon Presents was Pokémon Smile. Why? Because I already am on the record (and photographed it) as a supporter and practitioner of integrating Pokémon and oral care. Pokémon Smile was made for me. (Well, besides the whole “it's for little kids assisted by their parents” bit.) Even better, it's full of cute artwork, which is another thing I really appreciate.

Here are the Starter Pokémon you can choose from.
I, of course, went with Squirtle.

 

Do you think little kids only care about the first generation?
(From left-to-right row-by-row:
Pikachu, Snorlax, Slowpoke, Pidgey, Lapras.
Vulpix, Onix, Exeggutor, Psyduck, Jigglypuff.
Meowth, Scyther, Dewgong, Gengar, Charizard.
Electabuzz, Metapod, Poliwag, Aerodactyl, Sandshrew.)

Here's the downside. The game didn't even work. (Scroll to the bottom of the article for an update.) I get stuck at this screen:

Pokémon Presents (June 17, 2020) Live Reactions!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Ludwig versus his dentist.

The President and CEO of The Pokémon Company, Tsunekazu Ishihara, has almost 11 minutes of Pokémon information to share!

And KoopaTV is here to react to it. Well, just me. No one else bothered to show up. No one else ever shows up to these Pokémon Directs (branded as Pokémon Presents). Oh well, I can handle it. Here we go:

[8:47 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEVctuQTeaI
[9:00 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: I'm not sure if I'm even supposed to live react to this or I should just do a write-up of it.
[9:00 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Depends how long this'll go.
[9:00 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: It's started. With a two-minute countdown.
[9:02 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: BLACK PIKACHU
[9:02 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Ishihara from The Pokémon Company.
[9:02 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: "I hope the titles shown today"
[9:02 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: PLURAL
[9:02 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: what
[9:02 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: excuse me
[9:03 AM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Pokémon Smile?

What or Who is a BOOMER BILL?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - OK Boomer Bill.

Yesterday, I wrote about Zoomers. Today, I'm going to write about Boomers. (Though unlike the Generation Z demographic, Baby Boomers are a minuscule fraction of KoopaTV's audience, so I'll end up offending much less of my audience today.)

Specifically, I'm here to question the existence of the Boomer Bill. What's a Boomer Bill? Well, at first glance, it's a made-up variant of the Bullet Bill, only seen in the troubling collaboration between Nintendo and LEGO that KoopaTV has been covering for months. Indeed, today they announced, on top of the costume packs from last month, there will be ten total expansion packs. Note that the base product still isn't even out yet. Here's the full expansion set list, per LEGO press release: 

1. LEGO® Super Mario™ Guarded Fortress Expansion Set (49.99 USD/EUR) 
2. LEGO® Super Mario™ Desert Pokey Expansion Set (19.99 USD/EUR) 
3. LEGO® Super Mario™ Whomp’s Lava Trouble Expansion Set (19.99 USD/EUR) 
4. LEGO® Super Mario™ Piranha Plant Power Slide Expansion Set (29.99 USD/EUR) 
5. LEGO® Super Mario™ Boomer Bill Barrage Expansion Set (29.99 USD/EUR) 
6. LEGO® Super Mario™ Mario’s House & Yoshi Expansion Set (29.99 USD EUR) 
7. LEGO® Super Mario™ Toad’s Treasure Hunt Expansion Set (69.99 USD/EUR) 
8. LEGO® Super Mario™ Bowser’s Castle Boss Battle Expansion Set (99.99 USD/EUR) 
9. LEGO® Super Mario™ Thwomp Drop Expansion Set (39.99 USD/EUR, available only with select retailers) 
10. LEGO® Super Mario™ King Boo and the Haunted Yard Expansion Set (49.99 USD/EUR, available only with select retailers) 

On top of all of that, there's a gacha-esque set of character packs (or “blind bags”), where you don't know what's inside of them, but one 4.99 USD/EUR pack can contain one of:

The Year is 200X: Ludwig Von Koopa Versus ZOOMERS!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - HOW DO YOU DO, FELLOW KIDS?

Alright, you may remember Bringing Back the '80s. You may also remember Hailing from the '90s. These were so-called Event Tourneys in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that restricted character usage (and stages) and were playable online for a limited time. Unfortunately, a major theme of those was that I, Ludwig Von Koopa, was not available as a playable character, despite me being around back in those days. (Look up Super Mario Bros. 3.)

Well, over the weekend, Nintendo held yet another Event Tourney: The Year is 200X tournament. And... strangely enough, I'm somehow available in this one. It's described as:

“This time-limited tourney is for fighters and stages created between 2000 and 2009!

The further you advance, the better the spirit you'll win!”

But before we get to talking about myself, let's note that the Mii Fighters are also available, and that results in witnessing (and fighting against) disasters such as: