You Could've Written Real Switch Reviews On Nintendo's Website!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - As opposed to those fake ones from the eShop. But... not anymore.

Once upon a time, being a couple of days ago, Nintendo opened up a reviews section for all of the released Nintendo Switch games available on Nintendo.com.

The only other reviews that have existed for Nintendo are those stupid 3DS eShop reviews where you give a rating out of five and then say if it's for core gamers or everyone, and if the gameplay is casual or intense. Quite useless, and core + intense and everyone + casual tend to strongly correlate, so consider those one metric. ...Oh, and the written reviews back on the Nintendo NSider Forums, which were sometimes featured if written by Nintendo's hand-picked group of Sages.

For an incredibly limited amount of time this week, if you played a Nintendo Switch game for two hours or more, you could write a review. The screen looked like this:

A five-star rating, a variety of tags, and then actual COMMENTS!
(Unfortunately, text formatting like line breaks did not appear in the actual review, so everything was a wall of text.)

It isn't an unstructured review like you might find on KoopaTV if you look in the reviews section (you're very unlikely to just accidentally come across a review here because they are quite rare), but the presence of a headline and comments gets it a lot closer to the forum post review format that was on NSider that is, quite frankly, a lot more useful.

And now they have removed them. Why? Well... blame KoopaTV staffer Rawk.

KoopaTV Live Reacts to Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We chose it for our Pokémon Day activity.

For whatever reason, The Pokémon Company International declared today to be Pokémon Day. We thought there would be some big announcement coinciding with this or at least something interesting to talk about, but no, it's pretty underwhelming.

Since we have some kind of obligation to do something with Pokémon Day per trying to get attention on social media, we uncovered the most notable part of today is that they are showing Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You! for free at pokemon.com for a LIMITED TIME ONLY. Since limited time only might end tomorrow, we decided as a staff to watch it, and because of deadlines, we'd publish our experience as a reaction log instead of writing out a review.

You might remember this as the Marshadow movie we foreshadowed in our Sinnoh article from last year.

Joining you on the reaction log experience are myself and RawkHawk2010, along with Kamek who is...going at his own pace.

KoopaTV's Live Reactions to the PyeongChang 2018's Closing Ceremony

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The Olympics was underwhelming, but will it close with a bang?

It feels like we just covered the PyeongChang 2018 Opening Ceremony, and now we have the Closing Ceremony. This is the big moment that we've been leading up to since... well, Friday where we said we'd cover this.

Due to scheduling confusion and conflict, this log is just me and Rawk, with Wendy making a cameo appearance sometime during it. Still, that's enough KoopaTV staff reaction power to judge the likes of South Korea and NBC, and the always-omnipresent Thomas Bach.

CURLING Up in Kirby...oh and the Olympics end this weekend and that had Curling too

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Assuming we can actually find out the time of the Closing Ceremonies.

Well, this weekend, the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics will end. Thank you for choosing KoopaTV as your source for 2018 Olympics coverage. You know, between the Olympics Opening Ceremony and...well...that's it. But man, what a reaction log that was.

We'll be doing a reaction log for the Closing Ceremony as well, though we have one problem. We don't know when the hell it'll actually be broadcast. Thanks a lot, NBC. According to CBS Sports, it'll broadcast at “6 a.m. ET OR 8 a.m. ET (tape)”, and that capitalised OR makes me feel like no one knows what the hell is going on.

CBS Sports's video on that page is about the sport known as CURLING, which is a sport I know nothing about, but apparently it's some kind of meme and it got a respectable third place in the recent GameFAQs poll of favourite winter Olympic sport to watch. 

Update 2/24/2018: They will re-air the Closing Ceremony (with NBC commentators) at 8 PM Eastern, and the United States won the gold medal for Men's Curling.


Per CBS, the United States is actually in the finals for Men's Curling this year, which is significant and rare. I won't watch it.

But you know what is Curling-related, significant, and something I will not just watch, but play? Kirby Star Allies, which features multiple Curling Friend Abilities. Check these out, courtesy of Nintendo Minute:

Don't Touch (Violent) Videogames, President Trump

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - If you do that, you will literally be no better than Crooked Hillary as a Senator.

It should sort of be a no-brainer that this article would be written on KoopaTV. There was a shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Lots of kids (seventeen) died. People are blaming guns. Other people are blaming mental illness and the FBI for knowing this guy was a threat and ignoring their tips. Not many people are actually blaming the shooter himself, a creep named Nikolas Cruz. (No relation we know of to former videogame competitor and current United States Senator Ted Cruz.)

Originally I wanted to write a non-gaming article about the shooting, but President Donald John Trump changed KoopaTV's plans, as usual. 

For whatever reason, the President of the United States thinks videogames might have something to do with the situation. I'm not going to say that he's BLAMING videogames, because all he did was ramble one sentence about them and then provided several more about movies and how they need a rating system (that already exists). Here's his gaming-relevant quote, excerpted from a CNN video that lacks context and is titled that President Donald John Trump is blaming videogames for violence because CNN is FAKE NEWS:

Phoenix Wright in Puzzle Fighter; Ace Attorney Anime Dub Part 2; Secret eShop Sale?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Ace Attorney news collection.

Hey, if an overall irrelevant news item gets its own article yesterday, then THREE irrelevant news items for the most important franchise on this site should get one, too. It's Ace Attorney!

There was an Ace Attorney eShop sale at the start of February

We're supposed to cover all of these. Whoops. Well, literally no one promoted it. Not Nintendo, not CAPCOM, no one. How am I supposed to know if there is an Ace Attorney sale on the 3DS eShop if no one mentions it? (Maybe if I read news sites?) Would've been really nice to know since Kamek could've gotten on-sale Ace Attorney on his birthday since the sale was February 1. Don't know how long it lasted, but it's no longer there. Meanwhile, the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Franchise Sale last year started late February around this time. And it got promotion!

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney was 25% off ($14.99 from $19.99), which represents its first-ever eShop sale since it was released on Nintendo 3DS back in November 2017. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Dual Destinies was 66.67% off ($9.99 from $29.99) and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Spirit of Justice was 50% off ($14.99 from $29.99), which are at parity from their all-time discounts back in Cyber Week 2017. Unlike Cyber Week 2017, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy was also on sale, also at 50% off ($14.99 from $29.99). It's been at 50% forever now, which is the maximum it's been discounted.

You know what else happened at February 1 for Ace Attorney but WASN'T used as a tie-in to promote this sale?

Friend Bounce Returns to Kirby Star Allies!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's unclear if Nintendo knows that the Friend Bounce ever existed.

Today, Nintendo of America announced some news about Kirby Star Allies via this tweet:

Kirby helps his pals get to the next level with the Friend Bounce in #KirbyStarAllies! This Friend Ability helps your allies high jump and lets them strike enemies from above! https://t.co/KkT4JRAjln pic.twitter.com/SJMlZBRs0P

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 20, 2018

You see that, right there? They proper noun Friends, but refer to them as allies. What are these guys actually called?! Anyway, here Kirby apparently carries around a portable trampoline made out of a spider web, and the friends/allies/helpers/partners can jump off that and be able to get a good lift from it with some invincibility/damaging frames.

Much like Kirby having Copy Ability-based Helpers to assist him coming from Kirby Super Star, the Friend Bounce concept also comes from there. Observe this video filmed by me from Kirby Super Star Ultra:

So why does the header question if Nintendo knows this feature comes from another game, and what is with that video's quality?

Details on the Nintendo Labo Kits!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Do these more details generate more Labo interest?

I told you in my Nintendo Labo announcement analysis article that I don't particularly care about Nintendo Labo, but I don't hold anything against you if you care. (Normally, I'm more judgmental.)

At the end of last week, apparently to distract from their Bayonetta re-re-release, Nintendo released three (3) new detailed, longer-form videos on the Nintendo Labo. These answer a lot of questions I've had about what exactly you'd be getting if you commit to the Labo's purchase prices, and the value the Labo imparts on its players and builders.

I think the most logical way to present you my thoughts is to just go through each video one-by-one and give commentary. I've embedded each of the videos under their respective header, of course. It's the least I could do. As you watch the videos, don't pay attention to how the Nintendo Labo music is basically a remix of the gym theme from No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle.

Bayonetta On Switch; Bayonetta Off Smash?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - She's out of control, and now on a Nintendo Switch near you.

Last weekend's Michigan-based Super Smash Bros. For Wii U major tournament, Frostbite 2018, featured a lot of Bayonetta in the top ranks. I'd know; I spent that weekend watching the tournament. Here was the top 8:

Source is PG_Spike of Panda Global Stats.

 
Meanwhile,  today Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2 were re-released (or re-re-released), now for the Nintendo Switch. A lot of Super Smash Bros. fans were quite unhappy when Nintendo announced Bayonetta, Bayonetta 2, and the new and upcoming Bayonetta 3 at The Game Awards 2017 (I was upset just having to watch The Game Awards at all). Many were mad ever since Bayonetta won The Smash Ballot via an asterisk, and then were mad when she finally became purchasable for $5.99, which they saw as pay-to-win.

Less than a month later, the developers released a balance patch targeted at nerfing Bayonetta. And yet... the Bayonetta metagame has furthered much farther than I anticipated after her release, back when I thought Ryu had more combo potential than Bayonetta. Now Bayonetta is unanimously considered the best character in the game. People want her banned, and they personally hate her, to the point where they are upset that her series is staying alive.

Reviews in Review: Get Rid of the Number Score?

By LITTLE FRUINI - Numbers don't tell the full story. On a scale of up to 10, do you agree?

Numbers can be used for everyday activities: the date, the time, and of course, the score. As it’s the new year, it’s typical to look back on the many successes and failures of the year, and of course, I can’t neglect reviews, the very things people look back to give a product a number, typically between 1 to 10.

These scores given can easily be outdated in a matter of time. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is pretty much known for having highly-rated scores. What point am I trying to make out of this? Its Metacritic score is a fantastic 97! This pales to a score within the 70s, which should be considered the average for video games. However, a 97 is not a 100, so there should be some games with a higher score…