KoopaTV's August 2016 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A month of variety and amazing content.

I have heard that you younger set of humans are starting school again right about now. Don't let that take over all of your time and your life. We won't at KoopaTV, although none of us will be in any school setting next month. So we should be fine. Just looking out for all of you fans.

We had a great month in August, full of provocative, focused, original gaming content. We'll be broadening a bit of what we cover in the months ahead, given the political landscape of the United States. You'll still get awesome gaming content (such as tomorrow's reaction log on the Nintendo Direct at 10 AM Eastern!), but we also need to let you know how events going on in the world will affect your life. And what the proper courses of action will be to wade through that. Just looking out for all of you fans.

Anyway, let's talk about that content.

Top Five Recommended Articles Of August 2016

All of KoopaTV's articles are worth reading, but here are our staff's top five picks for the MOST recommended from the month, in chronological order:

1. Pokémon Sun and Moon: Alola Forms, New Pokémon, Trials, Z-Moves, Riding!
2. Team Koopa Officially Backing Out Of the Rio 2016 Olympics
3. The Electoral Map of the Splatoon Summer Splatdown!
4. The Real Explanation of Shinzō Abe and Mario
5. Paper Mario: Color Splash — Episode 3: Infiltration! 

Paper Mario: Color Splash — Episode 3: Infiltration!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Secret Base on the Blue Sea!

We would like to interrupt the introduction to this article to point out how handsome I look.

Now that we've finished (personally, I've just started) appreciating that, Nintendo and Intelligent Systems would like to present the third episode in the Rescue V series. This one features Rescue Blue, as you can see from the thumbnail.

...More importantly, it features YOURS TRULY, so pay attention, because this will probably be my last time starring in a video on Nintendo's channel in a very long time:

Now, very quickly, let me summarise the non-me parts: Rescue Blue and his squadron passed themselves off as a pack of stealthy ninjas. They infiltrated the Secret Base in the Blue Sea, alongside Mario, though it's not entirely clear how helpful they are to him. However, they did find the secret weapon in the secret base, and its weak point, which they communicated to Mario.

Meanwhile, Rescue Purple was enjoying Ocean Fest and the Five Fun Guys by taking a nice break after the work his squad supposedly did last episode. Rescue Blue got angry that Rescue Purple was having a nice time at the beach, and became so angry that his hat turned purple (blue + angry red = purple).

GUESS WHO HAD THAT SECRET WEAPON IN THE ENEMY BASE? No, not Andross... but another insane guy! ...ME! MWAHAHAHA! ...Oh, you guessed that correctly? Thought it was too predictable? You think Paper Mario: Color Splash has a bland story without even knowing what it's like? Well, I will prove you wrong!

No Man's Sky is Few People's Game

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - “Has there ever been a game fall from grace faster and more dramatically than No Man's Sky?”

Do you remember that awful waste of time known as VGX 2013? Terrible event, but it's where No Man's Sky from independent gaming studio Hello Games was formally introduced to the world. Here were my impressions of it from that event:
 

“So this game is just scenery porn?
    (dat ain't Star Fox)
    "No Man's Sky"
    Ain't Fox McCloud's sky either.
    So is this indie guy just pissing money?
    He already sold his house.”

Continuing that theme, after we saw it at Sony's E3 2014, I described it as “pretty” in the post-E3 wrap-up.

Here is what the developer describes it as:

“At launch though, it’s an infinite procedural sci-fi-space-survival-sandbox unlike anything you have ever played before. [...] It’s a weird game, it’s a niche game and it’s a very very chill game.” [Emphasis theirs.]

Chill? This game is one of the most hyped up indie games ever. A GQ headline read, “Why No Man's Sky Is the Most Hyped Game of the Last 3 Years”. Part of that might be sensationalist, but it's not that far off.

See Poll 5751 from GameFAQs in early January 2015. No Man's Sky beat out KoopaTV favourites Splatoon and Tom Clancy's The Division.

Paper Mario: Color Splash — Episode 2: Move Out!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Sheer Cliffs on a Red Road!

Welcome to KoopaTV's continuing coverage of the Rescue V (we pronounce it “Vee”, and also “Ex-Nauts” if you're wondering), the real protagonists of the hyped game, Paper Mario: Color Splash! We first covered them here on their first episode where it was the whole group, and now is their second episode.

This one is focusing on Rescue Red. Uh... just go ahead and watch and we'll talk. Yes, I'm embedding Nintendo's Skye on Miiverse embedding the YouTube video. Her parenthetical observations are key to dissecting the video:

Do Yourself Wright: Play the Spirit of Justice Demo!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We learn some more things about Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Spirit of Justice by PLAYING it!

Two weeks ago, we let you know about amazing Ace Attorney sales, and the existence of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Spirit of Justice demo that would be releasing on August 25th. Well, that's today. I've played the demo. What are my impressions?

...Positive, of course. It's Ace Attorney after all. It has to be good. ...Well, that's not actually true (Turnabout Big Top, anyone?), but the folks at CAPCOM curated this cut-up version of the first trial of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Spirit of Justice for our playing pleasure. It's free on the Nintendo eShop, is 890 blocks big (not much), and has 30 uses! Not that you'll need all 30, since the game comes out in two weeks from now anyway. 

The demo takes place in the Kingdom of Khura ’in, a magical place of excessive apostrophes and lovably bad puns. In the Khura’inese legal system, defence attorneys don't really exist because they will execute defence attorneys alongside their guilty clients, bringing a whole new meaning to loser pays litigation. Here's the instruction manual for the game on the role of defence:

The Khura’inese society treats lawyers like America should be treating politicians such as Crooked Hillary.

You have to defend your guide, Ahlbi Ur'gaid (my gosh, I STILL have to keep checking to see how these names are spelled), in court. She apparently is a thief and a murderer. And a boy, but I'll always dispute that. Ahlbi is also allegedly only nine years old.

ANYWAY. Ahlbi hates you because you're a lawyer, and lawyers are shunned by society, as the above screenshot explains. This is in spite of you being there to defend her.

Gen 7 or Bust

By MIZUKI - Will Gen 7’s newly released designs forecast gold, or ruin the future of Pokémon?

A new generation of Pokémon can bring many things: Nintendo's stock rising, a new generation of young Pokémon fans, the reliving of childhood for some, and the never fucking ending hell of debating whether new Pokémon designs are the harbinger of the franchise’s doom or it’s just people with shit taste expressing their shit taste.

Friday, Nintendo officially revealed four upcoming Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon Pokémon and we will be looking at the quality of each design to weed out the daft and dolt of the Pokémon fanbase.

Crabrawler

First is the Boxing Pokémon Crabrawler, a pure Fighting type boxing crab. There is a long-standing tradition of Pokémon that people look at and think the Pokémon has two types, yet in reality they only have one. This has been going on since kids hurt themselves in confusion when they thought Psyduck was Psychic. While it's respectable for some Pokémon such as the mimicking tree, Sudowoodo, it falls short with a seafood item that has a blue/purple color palette and (so far) no reason to not be Water-type. Deduction of points here.

The Real Explanation of Shinzō Abe and Mario

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A Closing Ceremony ReCAP.

Allow me to first say this: No matter what was going to happen in Sunday's Rio 2016 Olympics Closing Ceremony, we were going to publish it. I mean, we published the Opening Ceremony, and the only thing THAT was notable for was being really long. All of these mainstream gaming news and Nintendo news websites — which I won't hyperlink but you know who they are, and they know who they are too — are only talking NOW about the Olympics because they're opportunists. They weren't committed to it before. Meanwhile, KoopaTV has been covering the Rio 2016 Olympics since 2015 in great depth and from every angle, especially since multiple staff members were going to be participants.

Some people wondered why this site would do that. Why would we do something so out-of-step, so out-of-line with our media competitors? Heh. First of all, you never want to be identical to your competitors anyway. And second, you can now see the benefits of KoopaTV's authenticity in its coverage of topics. This extends to some of the other so-called “questionable” topic choices we've covered. They all ultimately have tied back to gaming, and we've had the subject body knowledge and expertise that no one else has had. 

With all of that said, and as we all know by now, there were extremely interesting things happening in our Closing Ceremony log starting at 9:26 PM. Because National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is taking down every video it can of the interesting Tokyo part, we have to embed this tweet which has it:

Can't wait for Tokyo Olympics
in 2020!#TokyoOlympic2020#Tokyo2020 pic.twitter.com/F1cRtvk125

— 『S』 (@inosena7uver) August 22, 2016

 
Aside from Pac-Man showing up for no good reason (in his usual inevitable fashion), it appears as if Japan's Prime Minister and upstanding right-wing conservative (Liberal Democrat, in Japanese terms) Shinzō Abe... transformed into Koopa Kingdom's Public Enemy #1 and evil terrorist Mario! And then showed up in Rio de Janeiro.

Yes, he did transform. However... we will make the case that it was not voluntary. In fact, it's an extremely concerning event that we should all brace ourselves for!

KoopaTV's Live Reactions to Rio 2016's Closing Ceremony

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - WH-WH-WHAT IS HE doing there?!

I cannot believe it. What can I not believe? Read our log. (Or wait for tomorrow's article, which'll be dedicated to it.) This isn't clickbait. Seriously.

KoopaTV's staff (or, three of us — myself as Nintendork 13 13, RawkHawk2010 as RawkHawk2010, and Kamek as Ultralink1) live-react to the CLOSING CEREMONY of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

The part controlled by Brazil's culture? Well, mediocre. But then they hand off the Olympic stuff to Japan midway. And...that is where things get DRAMATICALLY more interesting. And important.

...And even Nintendo-related. And not just from us making tangents, but the SOURCE MATERIAL does it. So, here's the log:

Crabrawler's Punch-Out!!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - No, this isn't KoopaTV's 2016 videogame, but that'd be cool DLC, wouldn't it?

You know, I remember at the end of the Team Skull article eight days ago, I wrote, 

“That's about all the info worth commenting on. What do YOU think? We'd love to hear YOUR comments in the designated comments section. Talk to you guys next Pokémon news release! ...Just kidding, I'll actually talk to you tomorrow on www.KoopaTV.org. (Unless those are the same day, with how frequent these releases are getting.)”

So, like, that was totally a joke and not something serious, but it turns out my levity had some truth to it. Yesterday I wrote about Turtonator being discovered in Alola and he's great. And now today? I'm writing about four new Pokémon also discovered that you can use for the first time this November in Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon. Take it away, The Pokémon Company International:

Turtonator Joining the Shelled Pokémon Family

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Our pro-turtle stance continues.

It may feel filler-y to dedicate a whole article to the announcement of only one new Pokémon, but this particular Pokémon makes it worth it. Who was revealed today for Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon, and why is it special?

Meet Turtonator. It's explosive. Its trailer says so:

Turtonator is the Blast Turtle Pokémon, with the Shell Armor ability. Turtonator are Fire/Dragon types, the type combination that people say King Bowser Koopa would have if he was a Pokémon. He sports the same posture of hiding his belly as Blastoise, and for good reason: Turtonator's stomach is its weak point!

Turtonator has a special move, Shell Trap. It's basically a hotter version of Counter that probably has a base power (with a Fire type) instead of just doing double-damage. Turtonator uses this move a lot in its native environment, the volcano, as it pretends to be a rock while other Pokémon presumably try to eat rocks. I don't know.

Regardless, Turtonator now brings us to six discovered fully-evolved turtle Pokémon. You can now have a full team of them. Here's a group photo of this spectacular, hypothetical line-up:

Left-to-right: Turtonator, Torterra, Carracosta, Shuckle, Torkoal, and Blastoise.
The only generation not to contribute was Generation 6, which has some explaining to do.

We strongly support this all-turtle lineup, and hope that there are more to come in the future. Generation 7 has filled its quota, though.

...And if Turtonator isn't already fully-evolved, then we'll issue a correction to this article and a new picture.


KoopaTV feels like it has a special connection to turtle Pokémon. Maybe you can guess why. Are you excited about Turtonator? Will you use one? You're definitely getting Pokémon Sun or Pokémon Moon right? Do you think it's weird there have not yet been any details on the differences between the two besides the cover Mythical Pokémon?


KoopaTV just celebrated World Turtle Day back in May. It was a sombre celebration.
The turtle Pokémon lineup is proportional and to-scale, similar to Ludwig's art of Alolan Exeggutor to Exeggutor.
Check out the Pokémon news released a week ago about Team Skull!
The very next day, FOUR new Pokémon were revealed! No turtles.
Torkoal are going extinct, and we gotta save them!
Generation 6's explanation? Avalugg is the generational turtle.