About Pokémon Smile Version 2.0.0

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Johto! Hundred more! (Approximately.)

I REALLY feel bad for not writing about this before, but on the other claw... no one really cares about this. But on the week of June 1 2022, while everyone was talking about that new Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet trailer revealing the game's theme, multiplayer, cover legendaries, and Smoliv, Lechonk, and Pawmi, there was other news that I was more looking forward to: Version 2.0.0 of Pokémon Smile.

Understand: Pokémon Smile isn't a great experience. It's not even all that good at building habits, per my in-depth review of Pokémon Smile's habit-forming mechanisms.

I was waiting until I got a Miltank to publish this,
but I know someone who'll be happy I settled for Girafarig.

Still, the version is a big update, especially notable because the question on The Pokémon Company International's support site asking “Will more Pokémon be added to Pokémon Smile in the future?” has been given the answer “There are no plans for updates to add more Pokémon to the app.” since the start of the app, including to this day. They added all of the Johto Pokémon (though Smeargle was already in it as of November 2021), added new medals, stickers, caps, frames, given you the choice to pick Chikorita, Totodile, or Cyndaquil as your partner Pokémon (side note: I think I've recently decided that Chikorita is my favourite Johto starter, though actually using her in-game is a frustrating idea), given you the option to change your partner Pokémon (so I could actually see the animations of the other Pokémon and not only watch Squirtle use Bubble for all eternity), and probably most important of all, totally changed the app's soundtrack. The opening/menu theme went from this quirky bombastic score to a much more calm and subdued waiting room feel, which is much more appropriate for, say, brushing your teeth before going to bed.

But it's not just the opening. The music is all different. The visiting the Pokémon in their friend areas music is different. The music while battling plaque is different than version 1, and keep in mind that different environments have different music from one another. (Which is all wasted if you do what you shouldn't and cheat with an electric toothbrush, meaning you can't appreciably hear the phone's audio anyway.)

Anyway, I'll keep using this until I get all of the new Pokémon in it. Maybe they'll do Hoenn next. Maybe not. I like the character designs a lot, though.


Ludwig needs to keep using this until he gets Miltank, at the very least. He has a dentist appointment on August 5. He probably has a cavity that he needs to tell them about. It's not going to be a fun time. Pokémon Smile isn't fun, either, but dentists are a whole other level of terror, to the point that he brings plushies to his appointments.

LIVE A LIVE Relives on the Nintendo Switch; Out Now

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Surely you've heard about it by now.

Once upon a time, in a not-so-distant past (2021, to be exact), KoopaTV reader Captain Stitch wrote a guest article titled, “Live A Live — The best game you’ve never heard of”. A mere half a year after that was published, Nintendo and SQUARE ENIX announced a LIVE A LIVE HD-2D remake on the Nintendo Switch. Clearly, Captain Stitch thought very highly of LIVE A LIVE (though some aspects of its game design were notably outdated or frustrating). Now it's out on the Nintendo Switch for $50.

Before I go and sink in any such cash, I figured I'd try out the LIVE A LIVE free demo and share my thoughts. Captain Stitch shared that the full game has seven storylines plus two additional ones. The demo states that it consists of “portions” of three chapters: Imperial China (presumably the “Kung Fu Chapter”), Twilight of Edo Japan (I assume this is what he called the “Ninja Chapter”), and The Distant Future (Captain Stitch called this the “Space Chapter” if I'm not mistaken).

I started with the China chapter. I might be trying to boycott China nowadays, but I don't have anything against virtual ancient China. This featured an old man (I guess playing as an old man is actually unique in JRPGs), Earthen Heart Shifu. But he knows he's old, and he needs to find a worthy successor to his kung fu art before his years run out. I like that his level is maxed at 10 and he can't gain anymore experience points, but his disciples can.

In this economic environment, employers will hire any living person who'll show up to work on time and not steal company property.
...Unfortunately for Hong Hakka, he's at least failing that last qualification.

There is a toggle-able (read: optional) radar in the corner of the screen that has icons to lead you to where you need to go next to advance the story. I would have liked for there to be an actual map of the area. I also would've liked a party talk feature or at least some way to get dialogue from your fellow party members. Especially for that Imperial China chapter, where I guess you need to choose an ultimate disciple among the three party members you recruit. Though the demo for that chapter ends almost right after collecting all three and then... beating them all up for the Shifu's amusement.

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles One-Year Anniversary Sale

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Yeah, it's not officially called that, but I'm observing it.

You may recall that The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles released on July 27, 2021. It's almost been a full year, and to celebrate, CAPCOM has put all of the Ace Attorney games on sale on the eShop, with the sale ending upon the anniversary date. (The games are also on sale at the PlayStation store... though there are way less Ace Attorney games available there.)

Ace Attorney Turnabout Collection is 34% off (includes both Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy and The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, which are individually 50% and 38% off, respectively. Best to get them together, though, in the collection).
Also, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney–Spirit of Justice, and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney–Dual Destinies are all $5 each on the 3DS eShop. Get them before it's too late.

CAPCOM is advertising a “Resident Evil ‘Tales of Terror’ Sale” right now; and I guess Ace Attorney comes along for the ride? All of these games were on sale just three weeks ago. But if you didn't pick anything up then...how about... now?

I know several people who are currently in progress playing through Th Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, and they're having a blast with it. You should be one of those people if you aren't already. It was Game of THAT Year 2021, after all. As I said, it released last year in 2021... and beat out everything else that released in 2021. Now it's going to be one year old. You should consider yourself fortunate if you haven't had the story spoiled yet—but don't continue to test your luck. Get all of the Ace Attorney games you haven't played through on sale now and play through them!


It's probably just a coincidence that the game/compilation with the game that released on July 27, 2021 is on sale until July 27, 2022. Still, you should maximise your advantage whenever a fortunate opportunity occurs, regardless of why it's around. The series has Ludwig's highest possible endorsement.


With a year passed, Ludwig is now writing detailed plot-related articles about The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. Here's one about the second case of the game and how a central piece of evidence shouldn't be able to exist.
About three weeks later and these games were on sale again.

Nintendo Question & Answers: 82nd Annual General Meeting of Shareholders

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Telling you ahead of time... it's a mound of stupid and boring questions and answers.

My apologies for being over two weeks late on analysing the question and answer session at Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s 82nd Annual General Meeting of Shareholders. But there weren't much headlines out of it since it's kind of boring. (Also, I totally forgot it happened and to look for it, despite Nintendo scheduling these things long in advance. If I was an actual shareholder, they would've sent me a notification. But I'm not, so I didn't.) I'll try to at least write something brisk and interesting about each of the eleven questions so you won't fall asleep by the end of the article.

Question 1: How will these meetings happen going forward?

When you don't have anything interesting to ask at a meeting, ask about the mechanics of the meeting itself. Sheesh. Nintendo President Furukawa said that, due to the coronavirus and the increasing number of Nintendo shareholders, they might hold meetings virtually or with livestreams like other companies are doing. Nintendo might follow those other companies. Or they might not. Typical non-committal pointless answer. The actual meeting took place at Nintendo's Development Center in Kyoto, Japan (in the seventh floor conference room). Moving on...

Question 2: What's Nintendo's Business Continuity Plan?

Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is basically its own discipline, and an important one... that's usually overlooked and not discussed. Basically, how will the company continue to function after some kind of disastrous event? Like, what if a typhoon goes and destroys Nintendo's development headquarters? What does Nintendo do? It's a good question and I appreciate that someone's thinking about it.

Furukawa said that Nintendo does have one of these plans in the event of something like an earthquake or a highly contagious and dangerous disease. Furukawa (or whomever the current president will be) will make a committee and... then decide what to do. Well, that's not much of a pre-planned response. Still, Nintendo regularly backs up data for their in-development games (and presumably data of games already made) and stores that data in dispersed locations, so if one gets wrecked, others might be around and they can get back and running. Nintendo also has multiple contract manufacturers in case one manufacturer's facility is wrecked.

I'd like to hear more about Nintendo de-tangling itself from relying on China for its supply chain, in case of the plausible disastrous event of a war against China. Would Nintendo still be able to manufacture goods? But he didn't go into that.

New Donker and these Koopalings get a Switch Icon Element Before Me

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - There are some representation factors at play.

Since Nintendo introduced icon elements earlier this year (only to active Nintendo Switch Online subscribers), many people have been customising their Nintendo Switch profile icons with a range of characters that aren't represented in the middling default selection. A default selection that has not and very likely will not ever expand. If you want more, you better subscribe.

I myself have gone and changed my icon from Lord Bowser to a Blue Spiny Shell. Because... that could be me inside the shell.

But some of my brothers don't have to rationalise what might be inside a shell because they're featured outright:

Morton Koopa Jr. is featured here, but Larry Koopa is also in the background.

LEGO Super Mario: Character Pack 5, Iggy Koopa, and THE MIGHTY BOWSER

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Catching up on... pretty cool Koopa stuff, actually.

It's been a month or less (...I think?) since these three pieces of Koopa-related content were revealed, though none have been released yet. So I'm not totally late, right? Anyway, I'm talking about more collaborations between Nintendo and LEGO, all in the LEGO Super Mario series.

Character Pack Series 5, featuring Toady and Hammer Bro

Character Pack Series 5 was announced at LEGO Con 2022, featuring fantastic additions such as Hammer Bro. and Toady (Kamek's minion from Yoshi's Island—very nice to see him here); middling additions such as Nabbit, Blue Shy Guy, and Purple Toad; and uninspiring additions like Red Yoshi, Baby Yoshi (yellow), and Waddlewing.

For whatever reason, Purple Toad insists on winking. Purple Toad isn't a notable Toad figure. One of them runs the purple half of the Crazy Cap store in the Mushroom Kingdom. It's the Toad with the best throwing arm (not saying much) in the outfield of Mario Superstar Baseball, but he's also the slowest of the Toad variations. He does have the pop fly Star Swing like Red Toad, though.

The colour evolution of Purple Toad, from Mario Superstar Baseball (top right) to Super Mario Odyssey (Mailtoad) (top left) to LEGO Purple Toad.
I promise the rest of the media in this article will only consist of Koopas!
By the way, Mario Superstar Baseball's Purple Toad is the closest to actual “purple”,
which is the colour in the bottom corners (RGB 128, 0, 128).
Though when I tell people purple is my favourite colour, I'm thinking of the shade of purple that LEGO Purple Toad has.

You'll be able to get a character pack for $6 per character starting August 1, and you will hope to get Hammer Bro. or Toady. That's one dollar more than the price of Series 4's character packs. As an Anonymous commenter pointed out to me last month, LEGO has gone from packaging the Character Packs in baggies to packaging them in boxes. With baggies, you could presumably try to feel which character was inside before purchasing. With boxes, you can't do that.

Dynamo Pictures Acquired; to be Nintendo Pictures

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - What is (or was) Dynamo Pictures?

Announced via their investor relations section (and... I totally missed a shareholder meeting, so I need to do a write-up on that soon), Nintendo will fully acquire Dynamo Pictures, Inc, a Japanese visual content company of about 100 people specialising in computer-generated animation. They'll be renamed to Nintendo Pictures and instead of making content for a wide range of companies, they'll obviously be making content just for Nintendo stuff.

What have they done? Well, let's look at their website before it might disappear. Among the works includes a 20-year anniversary Ace Attorney case released last year in... VIRTUAL REALITY (逆転裁判 VR20号事件, or Ace Attorney VR20 Case?). And it's a multiplayer (1 to 2 players) game. That's not their only CAPCOM project; they did a Mega Man Virtual Reality game too a year before that where you enter the virtual world and shoot things to stop Dr. Wily, along with a Resident Evil “Valiant Raid” game at CAPCOM Plaza.

Is this... Gaspen Payne? What's up with his hair now?
How come the Japanese text here (検事 宇武砂 典界 ウブスナ テソカイ) doesn't correspond to Gaspen's Japanese name (亜内文武)?

Besides a long list of work (mostly CG) unrecognisable anime-looking stuff, Dynamo Pictures also did motion capture work for Death Stranding, Monster Hunter World, the first Monster Hunter Stories. As for their previous work specifically with Nintendo, they worked with Shigeru Miyamoto doing full CG animation for those Pikmin short movies. And back in 2016 it was reported that Nintendo would look into filmmaking as a standalone business. That didn't actually happen. Maybe it will now. Or maybe Nintendo will just not be outsourcing as much work for making detailed game cutscenes or cinematic trailers and they'll be taking that visual content more in-house.

Bayonetta 3 To Release October 28 2022...Really!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Featuring some newbie with dislikable character design.

For some reason, fate decided that this week there needs to be more Nintendo news this week than I have time to cover. Hopefully the news drops stop so I can catch up.

We've known for about ten months that Bayonetta 3 would come out sometime in 2022. Unlike many other Nintendo games that still haven't come out yet, 2022 does NOT represent a delay for Bayonetta 3, since it never had any other release timing.

And now... we have a time in 2022. It's October 28. I was pretty concerned with that Nintendo news release since it said October 28 but declined to provide the year, but according to my fact-checking (and making it to the end of this non-embeddable age-restricted Bayonetta 3 trailer), it's October 28 of 2022. Since evidence is everything, I'll embed this image and hope that this should pass for appropriate-for-all-ages content:

Prime Day 2022 Buys (and wanted-to-buy)

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Normally, no one should care. But maybe you can offer feedback.

I apparently skipped writing about Amazon Prime Day 2021 last year; the last I wrote about it was Prime Day 2020, which took place in October. Now Prime Day(s) is July 12 and 13, 2022. (Maybe Prime Day 2021 didn't happen? Or I just totally missed it given how much the date fluctuates year to year?)

This year, Nintendo wants me to know that “Hot deals coming to Amazon Prime Day”...featuring things like the spyware-ridden Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit for $60 (as opposed to $100). There are also several goofy deals where they're bundling first-party Mario-based games with a 12-month individual membership of Nintendo Switch Online.

In what does not appear to be marked as a “Prime Day Deal” but is still a discount, is a physical copy of Triangle Strategy at 17% off ($49.94 from $59.99). Meanwhile, a digital code from Amazon is still $59.99. ...Sure, I'll buy Triangle Strategy (I really liked the last demo and I've already vowed elsewhere to get it). On Prime Day. Does that still count as a Prime Day 2022 buy? I think so. I titled the article as buys, not deals.

I put in a real effort to research wireless extenders and/or wireless mesh network products. Some of them are on sale for Prime Day... many are not. My castle is in dire need of one, since the router is in the first floor and the bedrooms are far above that. That's a major reason why I moved my Nintendo Switch to the same room as my router (where it shares one of the monitors with my desktop computer). I used to do online play just fine from my bedroom with the Wii U and Wii, but the Switch for some reason is a lot weaker in picking up wireless signals. So I'd like to do something about that (and for all of the other devices up there).

But as of publishing this article, I didn't purchase anything. It's difficult to research and know what's right to do. A lot of reviewers, like the New York Times Wirecutter, obsess over giving high marks to whatever is compatible with the Wi-Fi 6 protocol, which right now basically nothing uses but they want to future-proof your investment. (The Switch, for example, only goes up to Wi-Fi 5.)

And then there are fly-by-nighter companies like Luma Home, which are lying scumbags and (not coincidentally) are also out of business. Some companies are (allegedly) in the business just to collect all of the data that passes through your network and...do...something...with it. (Such as Google and Eero... or so I've read. Dunno if it's true!) So it's hard to know who to trust and make an important purchase decision in the span of how long Prime Day lasts. Maybe next year (or, I dunno, Black Friday).


Ludwig no doubt made a good choice getting (a physical copy of) Triangle Strategy, but do you have any thoughts about his Internet problems and how to resolve them? Any brand/product recommendations? He'd really like to hear them! He also asked other staffers if they got anything for Prime Day. The answer was no.

Kirby's Dream Buffet—Kirby's Land Roll?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Someone already asked me to get it and play it with her when it's out. Too bad it's not online.

In a surprise trailer drop today (but in-line with Nintendo stating they'll put effort into having lots of ways to celebrate Kirby's 30th anniversary), Nintendo Switch owners can download Kirby's Dream Buffet this summer from the Nintendo eShop:

It seems like the premise of the game is to roll through courses—such as giant cakes (I ate ice cream today in protest)—while eating strawberries and growing big from them. These must be special strawberries, since ordinary food in the Kirby series tends to not make Kirby grow in size. What appear to be Master Hand and Crazy Hand (from Kirby and the Amazing Mirror) snap their fingers in a countdown for Kirby, Kirby, Kirby, and Kirby to start rolling and nomming.