The Last of Us: TV Series and Remake

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I don't know the business value of this.

I'll be very upfront about this article's gimmick: This article is a low-effort remake of my 2014 article, The Last Of Us: Movie and Port. I believe this is appropriate because Naughty Dog released a low-effort remake of their 2014 remaster of their 2013 original game, The Last of Us.

When people were talking about there being a The Last of Us remake, I thought they've been referring to The Last of Us Remastered on the PlayStation 4 the whole time. But, no, they really went and remade it to something called The Last of Us Part I, releasing this Friday (September 2, 2022). Why does this exist? I don't know. You can currently get The Last of Us Remastered, which was the subject of KoopaTV's 2014 article, on (or playable on) the PlayStation 5 for $20. Meanwhile, The Last of Us Part 1 is a full $70. Both claim to feature improved graphics and improved gameplay over the 2013 version. There are no discounts or data transfers for going from one version to another.

I grasp that the left and right are different, but I don't accept that the right picture is better.
Like, Joel's shirt looks like it has more texture on the PlayStation 4 here.
But regardless of the differences, I don't care.
And if you care enough about the graphic differences to pay $70 for the right in addition to the left, yes, that's your money, but I think you're an idiot.

The movie in my original article got cancelled, but instead they're working on an HBO TV series. I don't have any extra information on it besides that the first episode should be in 2023, but I figured I'm obligated to follow up on that. Maybe it'll have better production values than this remade game:

Watching Yong’s review for Last of Us “Part 1” showing this tiny moment of Joel kicking open a door. The original kick is impactful with screen shake and a bursting open sound effect. In “PART 1” you hear a gentle doorknob turning sound and have no screen shake. Very immersive.🤭 pic.twitter.com/EwWx4vDigR

— Suzi Hunter (@TheSphereHunter) August 31, 2022

Ludwig still has never played The Last of Us, but it's not like he needs to. He's definitely not going to watch the HBO series. This remade article actually has more effort put into it than initially scoped, which also means there was more effort put into it than The Last of Us Part I.


Ludwig still won't watch the HBO series, but it's popular enough to get parodied on Saturday Night Live.

PlayStation 5's Price Should Increase in the USA, Too!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - C'mon, man. Who are you trying to impress by making it seem like America doesn't have an inflation problem?

A week ago, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced an effective immediately price increase in basically every region that matters—with the exception of the United States of America. It's even in Canada and Mexico! They blame high inflation rates. These price increases are around 10-ish percent, depending on where you are. This is on top of premium PlayStation 5 titles already being more expensive than previous generations.

Apparently, Sony doesn't believe that the United States is suffering high inflation rates right now. I can tell you that the United States Dollar has a higher inflation rate right now than several of the countries that are facing a price increase due to high inflation, especially Japan, and the dollar's inflation is about on par with the European market. It doesn't make sense.

It's also bad economics. Sony in the same announcement said their “top priority continues to be improving the PS5 supply situation so that as many players as possible can experience everything that PS5 offers and what’s still to come.” And I can confirm that supply problems continue to be an issue with a bit of quick research I did:

Splatoon 3: Splatfest World Premiere Gameplay and Splatfest Impressions

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I had a really good time and am looking forward to the game!

Last week, I wrote about the “Splatoon 3: Splatfest World Premiere” demo/online stress test that would take place at the end of the week—it was a pre-release Splatfest for Splatoon 3 revolving around its new three-way Splatfest mechanic (as opposed to the two-way Splatfests from the previous two Splatoon titles). You basically couldn't do anything besides play the Splatfest after choosing a team and playing a very short controls tutorial. The vast majority of my article was dedicated to why, of the three sides you could choose, you should pick Team Paper over Team Rock or Team Scissors. It turns out—predictably—that Team Paper was the least popular of the three teams. I'll get into my thoughts on the Splatfest and its mechanics a little later in the article, but first I want to write about my impressions of the base Splatoon 3 gameplay.

Splatoon 3 Gameplay Thoughts

At first glance, you might say that Splatoon 3 is very similar to Splatoon 2. But after spending most of my Saturday playing Splatoon 3 and then going back to Splatoon 2 right after, it feels quite different. Splatoon 3 has tighter (motion) controls and more fluid movement. You might not think much about Squid Surge (hold down the jump button while on a wall to unleash a charged jump with minor armour on the way up) or the Squid Roll (while swimming through ink, jump in the opposite direction to do a slightly armoured flip in the air and shift momentum) on footage, and I'm still not sure about the competitive applications of these, but when playing, they're just fun to do as movement options. Splatoon is a third-person shooter that historically has had great movement feel and expression (like action platformers like the Mega Man Zero series), but Splatoon 3 improves that even more.

Plus, with the Squid Spawn, instead of having the same spawn location every time, you can select where you'd like to land (within a certain range in your base) and there's a short little momentum boost right at the start. It feels great.

Listen to the Kirby 30th Anniversary Music Fest Before it Disappears August 31!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - More limited-edition listening.

As part of the Kirby 30th anniversary, Nintendo brought a live Kirby 30th Anniversary Music Fest to existence on August 11. Its video-on-demand is available until August 31, when it will disappear. (If you don't, say, save it yourself for non-infringing purposes.) Supposedly, this is time-limited all because Nintendo will make the concert available on Spotify after it's taken down, where you can pay for it there. It doesn't make much sense to me why they'd do it this way.

Feel free to skip the first 94 minutes of this. It's just a generic filler (but still very nice) jazz loop, with trailers for currently available Kirby games like Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Kirby Star Allies, Super Kirby Clash, Kirby Fighters 2, and Kirby's Dream Buffet.

The stream then goes to the performers getting on stage and warming up their instruments, and then playing the Green Greens theme to start things off, going to the Kirby and the Forgotten Lands theme. Most of the songs are medleys of some sort, going through much of Kirby's history.

Rock, Paper, Scissors: SPLATFEST! Our best option is...

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I think my choice is... obvious.

I am super excited to be writing about Splatfests again! If you haven't been around KoopaTV for several years now, we've been writing about and covering Splatfests for quite a long time now, since the first Splatoon.

The dedicated Splatoon 3 Direct earlier this month had a big highlight: you can now download (and be guaranteed to play since a seven-day free trial of Nintendo Switch Online is included) the “Splatoon 3: Splatfest World Premiere” and get a feel for Splatfest gameplay and excitement on the following question, which is now, for the first time, providing three options:

This article will give an answer to WHICH OPTION IS THE BEST.

Reviewing "Catland: The Soft Power of Cat Culture in Japan"

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I'm on Team Cat, after all.

Reviewing books isn't normally what I do on KoopaTV, but a fan of mine provided me a copy of Catland: The Soft Power of Cat Culture in Japan. This individual asked me how I liked the book, and I refused to actually answer this fan's question directly. Instead, I said I'd review the book on KoopaTV, and they can wait and read that to get the answer. ...Somehow, that didn't go over poorly. And here we are! I mean, the book is about cats and about Japan, and I think those are two topics that the participants and lurkers of KoopaTV like.

Fast Facts

Title

Catland: The Soft Power of Cat Culture in Japan

Author

Sarah Archer

Publisher

The Countryman Press

Year Published

2020

Subjects

History, cats, Japan

Page Count

180, plus bibliography, credits, and index

Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price

19.95 USD

It's very important to note upfront that Catland is a very quick read—it took me about two nights to get through—because a very large chunk (perhaps even a majority) of its pages are cat photos or reproductions of cat art. Here's an example of a given page:

The unclear story of the Sonic Frontiers story trailer

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Allegedly the highlight of gamescom 2022.

To be upfront, I didn't watch the to-consumer developer presentation stream portion of gamescom 2022, which is a large and annual videogame tradeshow in Germany that stylises itself with all-lowercase letters, which means I already have a bad impression of it. I was doing some more important and entertaining things with my time, and it was also hosted by horrible human being and hype-killer Geoff Keighley. According to two random GameFAQs users, the highlight of the presentation was this story trailer for Sonic Frontiers, which stood out among a whole bunch of boring and generic content (and Hideo Kojima apparently plugging a podcast he's doing—in unrelated news, Masahiro Sakurai now has a YouTube channel that I should write about separately). Let's watch this trailer, then:

I suppose my problem with this story trailer is that there isn't much story in it. “A mysterious stranger” for sure, that calls Sonic the Hedgehog someone who does reckless actions that endangers the world. Sonic taps a mysterious panel and warps away, and ends up seeing his friend Amy Rose (or someone who looks like Amy—Sonic had to ask if it was Amy, and he never got an answer from her, so maybe it's an impostor), who is trapped in a red crystal. There are lots of robots for Sonic to fight that seem pretty easy to dismantle, but when he tries to jump up and punch the mysterious stranger, it kinda just puts up a shield and warps away. And, um, that's the story. There are missing Chaos Emeralds and Cyber Space involved somehow, too, as well as a mysterious voice in Sonic's head that sounds different than the voice of the mysterious stranger that wants Sonic to shoo.

It's unclear if, as Sonic is being accused of being a reckless person, Sonic actually knows the nature of that red panel that he's touching. I mean, he looks pretty confident. Or maybe it's bluster and he is, in fact, actually reckless.

Sonic the Hedgehog doesn't seem to mind endangering the world. Just look at him.
That mysterious being (I'll call it cyber-Rosalina) can only see out of one eye anyway; they might not have the best judgment.

Sonic Frontiers is releasing November 8, 2022. That's a similar release timing of also open-world (or open borders) Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet. (November 18, 2022.) Neither of those I'm interested in for gameplay reasons, though I wouldn't say the stories of these are riveting either. You'd think a story trailer would do that, but no. I see comments on the YouTube video gushing over the production quality of the cutscenes presented in the trailer, but that doesn't do anyone any good if what's being produced is nonsense.


Ludwig's never actually watched gamescom streams or content in his life, and he sees no reason to start. gamescom itself continues for several days, but as far as Ludwig knows, that's it for streamed game announcements. And if there are more, they probably won't be interesting.


Cyber-Rosalina is named Sage.

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet “Competitive” Play Trailer... and Cyclizar

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I just wanted two articles in a row with “competitive” in scare-quotes.

At the end of the Pokémon World Championships (VGC 2022), The Pokémon Company showed us this trailer of Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet that it claims caters to competitive players... though there's clearly things here that every Pokémon fan will want to see:

That trailer doesn't represent everything they had to share, however. To be specific, what we learned about yesterday was:

1. Cyclizar, the Mount Pokémon. A common form of transportation among Paldeans for many generations
2. Shed Tail, a move Cyclizar learns, which sets up a Substitute and then Baton Passes with it on the same turn. Unlike a normal Substitute's 25%, the user loses 50% of its max HP
3. Mirror Herb, a new held item that acts as a one-use Psych Up upon the opponent using a stat-boosting move, such as Belly Drum or Quiver Dance
4. Covert Cloak, a held item version of the Shield Dust ability, which protects the holder from extra effects of moves like flinching or Body Slam's paralysis
5. Loaded Dice, a held item version that makes multi-strike moves like Bullet Seed and Fury Swipes “be more likely to hit more times.” A chance-based item version of Skill Link
6. Tera Blast, a new TM move that is normally a Normal type, but when used by a Terastallized Pokémon, becomes the same type of move as the user's Tera Type, using Attack or Special Attack depending on which is higher, like Photon Geyser
7. The Battle Stadium exists, and there are Ranked Battles, unranked Casual Battles, Online Competitions, and Rental Teams.

“Competitive” Multiplayer Discovered in Super Punch-Out!!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Nintendo isn't in a hurry to acknowledge it, and I don't blame them.

On August 8 earlier this month, news broke out that shocked the gaming world: A series of debug codes were discovered for the first time for Super Punch-Out!! (which released in 1994). These work on all releases of Super Punch-Out!!, including the SNES release and the Nintendo Switch Online emulation. This makes Super Punch-Out!! go from a single-player action puzzle game to a player vs. player fighting game.

Instructions screenshot from zallard1's August 8 Twitch stream.
(He's a Punch-Out!! series speedrunner.)

First, hold Y+R on the Player 2 controller, while Player 1 advances the title screen. You can get to the above menu where you can pick to fight any of the sixteen characters. If you're playing on Nintendo Switch Online, you should make a save state at this screen. Second, the second player holds B and Y on their controller as the first player picks their character. Then it'll go into one fight with Player 1 vs. Player 2, and Player 2 has 12 possible inputs. (A, B, X, Y and neutral, up, or down on the direction pad.) After that is over, it'll go back to the title screen. (Which is why you'll want a save state at the fighter select screen to skip having to do the first debug code.)

These... clearly aren't fair and balanced fights, like the multiplayer head-to-head Little Mac vs. Little Mac fight of Punch-Out!! Wii. For example, the fighters in this game can dodge infinitely with apparently no active hurtboxes in-between dodges. Narcis Prince auto-blocks any attack and the only way to deal damage to him is to counter-attack. But if Narcis Prince never attacks under control of a human, or any character just spams dodges, Player 1 can't win. Because there is a three-minute timer to every match, and Player 1 will automatically lose the match once this timer reaches the three minutes, regardless of whatever happened leading up to that. And Player 2 can buffer their attacks so they come out, uh, instantly:

Embracer Group to Acquire Limited Run Games, LotR, and way more

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Hey, they've now earned the right to be in a headline without quotes around their name.

You may remember the Embracer Group back several months ago this year when SQUARE ENIX sold off Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Interactive to them. Read KoopaTV's article on that if you want a quick premier on what they are.

Per Embracer Group's press release from August 18 for their first quarter financial disclosure, they are giving a “happy” “welcome” to their new from-SQUARE ENIX acquisitions, and the transaction will close soon. They then described a “strong funnel of [merger & acquisition opportunities]”, but also said they are “increasingly selective” on who they choose to invest. Otherwise, their press release was all about “organic growth” and their projection of an impressive (but widely varying) 20–35% “overall organic growth” for the rest of their fiscal year.

If you don't understand what “organic growth” means—maybe you don't read financial reports often—it's a concept that means how much a company would grow in a time period by itself. As in, without having the growth rate of an acquired company added to it. Growing by acquisition would be “inorganic” growth. Of course, eventually the acquired company's growth becomes part of that organic growth base. But Embracer wants you to know that they don't HAVE to keep acquiring companies to be impressive. ...And yet on the same August 18 day, they announced all of these new acquisition agreements: