Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 52: Fighting Super Pet Contest Rejects

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - If I actually played every week consecutively, I'd be doing a one-year anniversary now.

Welcome to the 52nd KoopaTV Fitness Friday! (I suppose to be fair, not every Fitness Friday ended up being published on Friday, but I'll call it that anyway.) Being at good fitness and wellness is important to general life happiness, which is why I want to reiterate this week's earlier bemoaning of Daylight Saving Time and clock-switching. That puts your body in a funk. It's not good for your health. It turns out I have other problems going on as well...

This week I'm playing Ring Fit Adventure's World 52: Extra Fitness Lv. 301 on the max difficulty of 30. This world is based on World 29: Extra Fitness Lv. 195, and it's supposed to be a miniboss rush of the Four Masters’ pets. In the normal story, we'd see all four of the Four Masters as they introduce their pets and themselves. Last week, we only saw one of the Four Masters, Armando... since we had to fight the guy. I'm very interested in what twists, if any, World 52 will bring. ...And having no story or characterisation whatsoever isn't the kind of twist I want to see.

Fortunately, all four of the Four Masters were in World 52's dialogue intro. Allegra didn't think I'd show up, though she didn't give an explanation as to why she thinks that. Abdonis knew I'd come. Armando said it'll only get harder from here, so I better be prepared. Lastly, Guru Andma likes the opportunity for us to train together... provided we clear the miniboss rush of everyone's pets.

There's been a Pokémon Super Pet Contest held. None of the miniboss pets here got to become a finalist.
(Though none of the pets that I advocated for did, either. Will they become monsters, too?)

The Evolution of the Fire Emblem Soldier

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - From LOL GBA Soldier to a respectable class.

The Fire Emblem series has seen many Soldiers employed throughout its history... and they've had a very spotty reputation that is only relatively recently being repaired. They were so bad that they were mocked for years among Fire Emblem players... which isn't very nice. This article will examine the Soldier class throughout history and the pressures they have to deal with... and how they eventually became seen as equals.

The Role of the Soldier

Depending on how cynical you are, you'll either define the role of Soldiers as defending their country and its way of life from threats... or you'll define it like how this Grado Soldier did to a new Recruit:

Koopa Kingdom's Troopas aren't pawns in our games!
They're patriots and we're committed to their development.

I'll get to this later in the article, but Soldiers are what happens when an army needs a lot of warm bodies to accomplish something and at relatively low cost. They're Lance wielders, which are cheap and can be effective and even simple to lethally poke people with. Soldiers won't be the boss or head of any army, and it'd be wrong to really call them critical to success. They often have abusive superiors that want to kill them when they screw up. They're the epitome of quantity over quality. As Fire Emblem games get past midway and beyond, Soldiers stop appearing. Perhaps they died out, leaving only the elite troops behind.

Despite all of this dismal talk about them, Soldiers have gotten better over time, too. Let's explore in detail.

Ramanas Park: Sinnoh's New Legendary Pokémon Gathering Place

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Why does this keep happening?

Today was a really bizarre news day for Pokémon Shining Pearl and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond. First, we learned about the existence of Ramanas Park:

Next, we learned that those games are getting a massive 3 GB update tomorrow—Version 1.1.0. ...Keep in mind that the games release on the 19th. (However, some people do have it already. Like certain videogame journalists... along with a few people who aren't supposed to have the game yet.) Both of these news items got their own separate Nintendo press release!

Let's talk about that update first. For one, it enables things for after the Hall of Fame, such as Ramanas Park. It will also add communication features for places like the Union Room and the Underground, as well as Mystery Gift, which makes sense if you... really want to restrict pre-release copies. But it also adds the opening animation movie to the game. Why isn't that shipping on the physical game card in Version 1.0? Like, if I'm playing the game for the first time on a plane ride or something and haven't updated it to 1.1.0, I'm just going to get a title screen and no opening animation? Because the original games—and not just Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl but the very first games in the franchise—had an opening cinematic, too. Even if it involved a Nidorino or Jigglypuff trying to use what's surely a Normal-typed attack against a Gengar but they did this cliffhanger kind of cutaway on the surely anti-climactic result. Even notoriously rushed Super Smash Bros. Melee had one. And it's beautiful to this day. And 3 GB? That's bigger than some entire other games. What the heck happened in the development of this?

September 30, 2021 Nintendo Quarterly Financial Update

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Plus, a couple of sales notes about a third-party company's games.

In the last week, Nintendo released financial disclosures and a lengthy presentation for the first six months of the fiscal year (April 1 2021 to September 30 2021). Today, they released a six-question Question and Answer session that I don't find important or interesting enough to warrant its own article.

In terms of financial highlights, the total number of Nintendo Switch hardware units is at 92.87 million, and software has climbed to 681.00 million. Compare that to a quarter prior when it was at 89.04 million and 632.40 million, respectively. However, Nintendo has cut their annual Nintendo Switch hardware forecast by 1.5 million consoles to a total of 24 million consoles to be sold by March 31, 2022, due to the semiconductor shortage. (However, they have projected they'll sell 10 million more games from 190 million to 200 million, retaining their overall net sales forecast of 1.6 trillion yen.) They've also revised their exchange rate for Euros to yen to be from 1 Euro = 120 yen to 1 Euro = 125 yen. I'm mentioning these things because people at the 81st Annual General Meeting of Shareholders were questioning why Nintendo assumed that Euro exchange rate to begin with when other Japanese companies assumed differently (and more accurately), and in earlier Question & Answer sessions they wondered why Nintendo was pretending there wasn't a semiconductor shortage.

All of the year-to-year numbers are way down because of how much Nintendo outperformed in the second quarter last year, back when everyone was buying tons of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and staying at home playing a lot of videogames was considered socially acceptable and was generally normalised due to Chinese Communist Party Virus-induced lockdowns. By late 2021, that's considered weird again. That's perhaps a reason why Nintendo is doing a bunch of out-of-the-home initiatives, like planning to open a new Nintendo Store in Osaka, Japan by the end of 2022. Super Nintendo World will have a Donkey Kong area sometime in 2024, and the next theme park will open in Hollywood in... an undisclosed year. And maybe to go along with being outside the home, Pikmin Bloom exists. ...No one has explained how it makes walking more fun, however.

I re-added New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe to this just to laugh at how Ring Fit Adventure surpassed it.
That said, Ring Fit Adventure is literally in the top 10 now, so it's not below-top-tier anymore. That makes this chart even more misleading.
Though I'm sure (unfortunately) it'll be kicked out of the top ten by the next financial disclosure with the new Pokémon titles.

Daylight Saving Time 2021 Update

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Priorities...

Back in March of this year, KoopaTV published an article that was a detailed contact list for members of Congress who could get the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021 passed through Committee. If this legislation would pass, it would keep the United States on permanent Daylight Saving(s) Time, and end biannual clock switching. While my personal preference would be constant Standard Time (and I got jumped by a bunch of Standard Time activists on Twitter for promoting the Sunshine Protection Act), I'm willing to advocate for constant Daylight Saving Time since that would also achieve my goal.

Time switching is terrible. Adjusting all the clocks is a pain. The effect on sleep is loathsome and unhealthy. Trying to coordinate events and things at specific times is confusing. Did you know that timezones actually change their name? Eastern Standard Time (EST) turns into Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), for example. It gets particularly messy when working with people from other countries. This includes things like livestreams, as noted by Fire Emblem YouTuber Mekkah who had to put out this post because lots of people were confused:

“If you're seeing my videos or streams go live an hour earlier than usual, that might be because Europe ended Daylight Savings Time this weekend while your part of the world did not! Two times a year, timezone math between Europeans and Americans especially becomes more complex than it already is because these two continents start and end Daylight savings time a week apart.”

I've listened to stories from friends and fellow KoopaTV staffers about how the change has personally affected them. Staffer Witch Princess says that she didn't bother fixing clocks from a Saturday power outage because they'd have to be changed again on Sunday anyway, so she didn't know what time it was. (Probably why she doesn't come to any of our reaction logs anymore because she keeps missing them from time differences.) I've had another friend describe how Dragon Quest Tact screwed over their stamina because Daylight Saving Time ended and free-to-play games have time-based stamina systems that act like you're trying to manipulate the system when the system clock changes.

Anyway, there are updates to the Sunshine Protection Act. Well... the process of getting it into law. Since March 15.

Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 51: Ring Ringsplains Dragaux

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Armando takes the stage.

Welcome to another KoopaTV Fitness Friday featuring Ring Fit Adventure for the Nintendo Switch! I've been playing through this game for a long time now, and this is the 51st week—that's enough to be on my third playthrough of the game, which is officially known as “Fitness Master” mode. Unfortunately, Nintendo's designers have put in very little effort so far, resulting in my pretty short Week 50 log about how bored I was because of the lack of in-game dialogue and events.

For this week, I'm playing World 51: Fitness Master Lv. 298, which is based off World 28: Extra Fitness Lv. 192. That Fitness Log was very notable because this world features all four of the Four Masters in some capacity at various points in the world, plus a Dragaux boss fight. You can look at the length of that article and see that... it's quite long. It's because it featured so many important characters who had dialogue and interesting things happen. That means I'm... really interested to see if Fitness Master just sucks all of that away or if some of it is retained so I can not only be personally interested in this game, but I can write interesting things for you to read.

At least the world opened up on Sunday by saying that Armando really wants to help train us, and I better head to the Arms-Race Gym for that. Ring was fired up about it. First, we crossed Exertion River, which reintroduced the Naughtylus enemy type. I could ORKO it by hitting it super-effectively with a super-effective one-range Fit Skill with reps to spare. But a Mountain Climber (five-range Fit Skill) barely didn't have the needed power. More level ups needed. Or a smoothie. Or an attack-boosting outfit. And I don't mean a Strength Drink, which was in a Treasure Chest in the level. Because that only increased my Attack stat by one point... up to 1905 points.

Ring is all fired up. You can see it in his eyes.

After the river, I headed to Fitness Master's first Fitness Gym: the Leg Set. If I get an A rank (above 90 points), I'll clear it and get a Citrine (which I'll sell for money). The difficulty of the Leg Set is directly connected to my chosen difficulty level being 30 (the max). This involves:

What is the NintendoVS US Challenge Cup Fall 2021?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A miserable, horrible experience. Coming twice!

It's approaching: the Nintendo-sponsored NintendoVS US Challenge Cup Fall 2021! Happening in two events: Event #1 is this Saturday, November 6, from 6 PM Eastern to 9 PM Eastern. Event #2 is two weeks later on November 20, also from 6 PM Eastern to 9 PM Eastern. So... what is it? It is an entirely in-game anti-competitive Super Smash Bros. Ultimate event open to Americans. Unlike in previous events, you can only register starting now, as opposed to much earlier before it occurs. Unlike the last time they had this in December 2020, there are no character restrictions.

The in-game rules are two stocks and a five minute time limit... with the Final Smash Meter on, and Low Items featuring the Smash Ball, Container, Star Rod, Home-Run Bat, Fire Bar, Killing Edge, Ray Gun, Drill, Bob-omb, Green Shell, Mr. Saturn, Pitfall, Banana Peel, Unira, Boomerang, and Screw Attack items. Any stage's Omega or Battlefield forms can be randomly selected.

Extremely dangerous items include the Screw Attack, Drill, Bob-omb, Home-Run Bat, and of course, Smash Ball.
The Hammer should not be highlighted, but Green Shell should be.

Players will repeatedly match-make themselves in the temporary in-game mode to acquire Tourney Score, an anti-transparent and awful system because you have no idea what your score means or where you stand in relation to other people.

Pokémon's Super Pet Contest: Who to vote for, and following the rules

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I have some unused votes, you know...

In order to build up some kind of excitement around Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl without actually talking about the game itself, The Pokémon Company International two weeks ago opened up the Pokémon Presents Super Pet Contest, where people submit their pets (or “bestie”) to three categories inspired by Sinnoh's Super Contests. To enter the contest, pick one of three categories (Clever—for talented or genius animals; Cool—for stylistic animals or Cute—for being adorable... omitting Tough and Beauty from what Sinnoh has), upload your photo and make sure it follows the guidelines (although the Terms and Conditions call them Rules and not mere guidelines), fill out a form with your information and your pet's information, and acknowledge that only residents of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France can win a prize. (Prizes include a copy of Pokémon Shining Pearl, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond, a plushie, and a Nintendo Switch Lite Dialga & Palkia Edition.)

You can only have one pet per photo (no humans allowed, and no human pets either), the photos should avoid doxxing anyone and avoid obscene things or portray danger to the pet, as well as not having pets resemble Pokémon characters or any other branding. If you happened to have named your pet after a Pokémon, that is also ineligible. You are allegedly only allowed to enter one photo per pet. Photos are vetted by contest admins before they can appear on the site, but they obviously don't do a good job.

Perhaps the admins believe that Remy, Remmy, and Remington are all different animals?
And Dinah & Reagan are conjoined twins and are one animal?

Anyway, people can vote for their favourite entrants, and get up to 10 votes per day. Here are the pets that I'm personally voting for:

Post-Sora October 2021 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Online Fighter Usage Stats

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Did Sora clinch it?

Just two weeks ago, KoopaTV published the very last possible look at Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's online metagame BEFORE the last downloadable content character, Sora, was added. Sora, with his... unique playstyle (along with version 13.0.0's other balance changes), would no doubt change the metagame and which characters people would use.

But how can that change be measured? Well, Nintendo provided the opportunity: their NintendoVS US Fall Open 2021 tournament was divided into two events: one on October 15–16 right before Sora released, and the second on October 29–30 right after Sora released. By comparing the character usage stats collected from the tournament before and after, we could gauge the effect that Sora—and the other balance patch changes—had on the metagame.

By the way, the finals were streamed. No one used Sora in those, though there were plenty of other DLC characters:

While all eight of the players featured on that stream are getting some kind of prize, congratulations are in order for the four GRAND PRIZE winners: Jake (Enderman / Mario) of Region 8, Xerzal of Region 6 (Min Min), MarkSDKing (R.O.B.) of Region 1, and Avarice (Ridley) of Region 3. Nintendo promises to mail out your prizes within sixteen weeks.

As a result of the thousands of games and hundreds of players for the tournament, I have aggregated the fighter usage stats for Event 2 of the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate NintendoVS US Fall Open 2021. Below is a chart, along with a text-based list and my commentary—commentary on both the stats and the tournament itself (which is also commentary on the flaws of the data):

KoopaTV's October 2021 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Now with a different complaint at the top!

Welcome to November. Only two months left in the year. Let's kick it off by reviewing how our October 2021 did!

We'll write about the October's articles, your comments, updates on the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program... and to start, a complaint that has a big impact on KoopaTV:

Google is screwing over KoopaTV's image searchability

For the past several months, I've had my Google grievance at the top of the newsletter be that they promised to murder the FeedBurner RSS to email subscription thing a while ago now, yet it's still going long after their drop-dead timeline. There's been no communication, so as far as I know, Google just isn't aware that they never turned it off.

But my problem now with Google is significantly more important: They basically ruined how images are uploaded and stored with their Blogger content management system that KoopaTV uses. Starting after late September 2021, they went from uploaded images retaining their file name stored to https://1.bp.blogspot.com to being some gibberish that doesn't even end in .png or .jpg or .gif or anything stored to https://blogger.googleusercontent.com. This isn't just a KoopaTV thing but has impacted everyone who uses their content management system. There are a couple of threads on the Google Product Support community about it. As I noted there, Google's own Best Practices guide notes that their bot helps judge images by their file name, and so my-new-black-kitten.jpg is better than gibberish like IMG00023.JPG. (It's not the only factor, but it is important enough to have been noted.) And yet that's what KoopaTV is stuck with throughout October and beyond.

There are actual implications to being sub-optimal. According to Google Search Console, we had several articles published in September 2021 with thousands of impressions when people do Google Images searches. But when I looked for Images-based impressions for articles published in October 2021, nothing even shows up. For normal Search-based impressions, yeah, there isn't a change there because that's looking at text on the page. But Images published under Google's new system have been dealt a bad hand. Imagery has been an area that KoopaTV has actually excelled in (ironically, I'm not putting any images in this newsletter), so this is a very bad, ominous thing. Like, enough for me to say screw Google and move to WordPress or something like the rest of the world.

Top Five Recommended Experiences of October 2021

KoopaTV articles definitely deserve to be widely found by people. As evidence, here are my top five recommended KoopaTV experiences published in October 2021. Consider these the “must-reads”, presented in chronological order: