The Gordo Halloween '22 PSA

By CAPTAIN STITCH - Essential Gordo info for the complete experience.

Halloween is the second most wonderful time of the year. Putting aside the risks of drug-laced candy, it gives our youth a chance to reenact the motions of the heroes (and villains) from yesteryear. Truly, it does bring a tear to one's eye, at the joy the children often have for the most vile and repulsive caricatures. A different tear is brought to the eye of the parents who bear witness to this event. Pirates, Vikings, Demons, and the very worst offenders, video game characters.

Ghost Gordos,
very spooky, a perfect costume choice.

This Halloween I must implore all of you reading this message to put an end to this annual circus of debauchery the only way I know how. By insisting the next generation dons the appearance of the Gordo this upcoming Halloween. It is the only way to keep the pure and innocent minds of our youth pure and innocent, whilst also enabling them to grow up through the reenactment of moral historical figures. Now some of you may say that what I've just said speaks to a lot of cognitive dissonance, and that Gordos are video game characters as well. To that I say, did you know that the Gordo hasn’t just appeared in the Kirby franchise, but also have cameos in Super Mario Land, Link's Awakening, and multiple Super Smash Bros. games. That’s right, we got a cameo before it was cool for everyone to do it ala Spirits. You may also have qualms about our actual morality but I can assure you the Gordo are patron saints.

Bayonetta 3 Released, and Hellena Taylor's Fourteen Recommended Charities

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A follow-up. As usual, the mob won't like my take.

Congratulations to character action game aficionados: Bayonetta 3 exclusively for Nintendo Switch has launched, and I see a lot of positivity around the game. Here's the age-restricted launch trailer, followed by a screen capture from it to get around that issue.

If I wore glasses and needed to push them up, I'd use my limbs, not my gun. (I think this one is called Orange Blossom, of the Colour My World set.)

I'm never going to get Bayonetta 3, since I'm not interested in the genre. Instead, I want to follow up with the story about Bayonetta's bitter former voice actress, Hellena Taylor. (Jennifer Hale is the new voice actress in Bayonetta 3—if you listened to the age-restricted launch trailer, Ms. Hale did a decent enough job that no one should be upset.)

As a quick timeline, she initially asked every Bayonetta fan to boycott Bayonetta 3 because she chose not to take the job to voice-act Bayonetta 3 out of an exaggerated sense of self-worth. My first reaction was skepticism of her claims (coupled with disgust at her clingy attack on Jennifer Hale and the weird Biblical condemnation of PlatinumGames and Nintendo), and the fact that even if they were true, boycotting the product still doesn't make sense. But many people who base their life views on hating corporations and supporting “the little guy” or “the struggling artist” leapt to Hellena's cause, without applying any scrutiny to her story, looking over any evidence, or hearing and evaluating the opposite point of view. (This, of course, meant that my skepticism and labelling as Hellena as having petty grievances that she wanted to weaponise through Bayonetta fans was... unpopular.)

Eventually, “journalists” who work at misinformation media outlets claimed they actually saw the details from anonymous PlatinumGames employees of Hellena's proposed contract and negotiations, and according to those, her sob story was filled with lies and lies of omission. Hellena Taylor rejected that she lied, but in the process, confirmed the journalists’ sources were correct, so she really confessed. (She also answered the question that I had e-mailed her on how much she was paid for the first two Bayonetta games, which is far, far less than what she was being offered for Bayonetta 3.)

Lost in this discussion was the line near the end of her first video (which currently has 11.1 million views on Twitter), which, by the way, is way more than the entire Bayonetta series has cumulatively sold in copies. (The subsequent video parts are all between 100,000 and 500,000 views, which is why my initial article published transcripts of all four videos. The people that didn't hear both sides of the story didn't even finish hearing one side of the story before making a judgment!) Anyway, the “I am asking the fans to boycott this game, and instead spend the money that you would have spent on this game, donating it to charity.” line. What charity? Well, nearly two weeks later, and after lots of people doubted that she would actually name any charities, she has named fourteen charities. I'm going to go over all of them and provide my thoughts. Note that I'm not a charity expert. I refer to Charity Navigator ratings when available, but since Hellena is British and Charity Navigator is for American charities (and I haven't been able to find equivalent rating systems for United Kingdom charities), they're often not available.

The Supposedly Spooky Capcom Halloween Sale of 2022

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It seems the same as any other sale.

Tonight, we're talking about CAPCOM, a company that will put anything on sale for any reason. Check out the latest Nintendo eShop sale:

“Capcom Halloween Sale
10/19 at 9:00 a.m. PT to 11/1 at 11:59 p.m. PT

Capcom is offering a handful of classic titles at a spooky price! Be sure to check out the Capcom Halloween Sale line-up and grab Capcom Fighting Collection, Devil May Cry and more! Up to 67% off for Switch games and 83% off for 3DS games!”

Are those classic titles truly at a spooky price? Well, that 83% off 3DS games means the three Ace Attorney titles on 3DS for $5 each, which has been the standard discount rate for a while now. Plus classic sales like The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for a mere $25, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy for $15, and the two of those bundled together in Ace Attorney Turnabout Collection for $35. (The only spooky thing here is NOT getting the entire mainline Ace Attorney series plus two spin-offs—for a grand total of eight amazing adventure games that'll collectively last you over 200 hours—for 50 USD.)

Other very familiar discounts include the Resident Evil games at 50% off, Devil May Cry at 50% off (and Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition at 40% off). That's all the same discounts as before. Even Capcom Fighting Collection at 25% off matches the previous sale, as well as 50% off Monster Hunter Stories 2. Monster Hunter Rise + Sunbreak is being sold for $50 instead of $70, which also ties the last sale from last month.

So... are these prices really spooky? (Are these games actually classic?) ...No, that's nonsense. But regardless of the irrelevant seasonal tie-ins (and I believe this is the first time they've made a sale specifically for Halloween), you should look to take advantage of them. Any opportunity you can get for LOWER PRICES in this economy is an opportunity you ought to take time into looking into, even if there's nothing new about these lower prices.

I guess they put some effort into the font for HALLOWEEN SALE.
Even if non-spooky games are also on sale.

These CAPCOM sales are also available in the United Kingdom, though the sales there last until November 16, 2022. Get The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles at 38% off for 20.45 GBP! Or other parts of Europe, still 38% off and sale still ends November 16, just in Euros.


There were two purposes to this article. One, to mock Halloween tie-ins. Two, to promote purchases of the Ace Attorney franchise, even if it's not one that's visually called out as spooky in CAPCOM's banner.


The last CAPCOM-involved sale was in the middle of September to celebrate Tokyo Game Show.
Predictably, Ace Attorney games are also on sale in November 2022.

Mehmet Oz vs. John Fetterman: October 25, 2022 Debate Write-up

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Pennsylvanians, are you informed having listened to your candidates directly?

It's a mess, but unfortunately for the United States of America, a very impactful mess. I'm talking about the very high-profile United States Senate race in Pennsylvania between Republican Professor Mehmet “Doctor” Cengiz Oz (formerly of The Dr. Oz Show) and Democrat John “Omega” Karl Fetterman (current Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania).

Prof. Oz has been trailing Omega Fetterman the entire time they've had polls, given accusations that he's a quack doctor and is also an opportunist carpetbagger from New Jersey who doesn't know Pennsylvania. (His fellow Republicans in the primary also attacked him for the same reasons, as well as that he's quite moderate for a Republican and changed many of his previously liberal opinions upon running for office.) Omega Fetterman has had an Alpha-level meme game on Twitter against Prof. Oz. Prof. Oz's rebuttal is that Omega Fetterman is a socialist (his middle name ain't Karl for nothin’) who is outside of the Pennsylvania mainstream. Despite having the word “meme” in his name, Prof. Mehmet Oz is also losing the meme game. And then Omega Fetterman got a stroke, and Prof. Oz's campaign pivoted to mocking him for that and questioning whether Omega Fetterman is fit for the United States Senate because he has a (pre-)existing condition that impairs his brain.

It's because of that stroke that Omega Fetterman has only agreed to ONE debate, which is quite a bit late in this election cycle, given that Pennsylvanians could have submitted mail-in ballots already. It's sort of the same idea for why Herschel Walker only agreed to one debate in the Georgia Senate Race—which KoopaTV also covered—because he has his own brain issues. As a result, outlets like Fox News have already panned the debate as “unwatchable” due to Omega Fetterman's performance. But was it really that atrocious? I decided to watch the video-on-demand below and offer my own thoughts in another debate write-up:

Greavard the Dangerous Ghost Mutt Pokémon

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Good-bye, life-force.

In a terrifying two videos, The Pokémon Company International once again dedicated time to revealing a new Pokémon found in the Paldea region. Meet Greavard, the Ghost Dog Pokémon. Here you can see it kill (?) a passerby by the end of the video:

For slightly more detail, here's a small trailer featuring Gastly somehow kicking a soccer ball without any legs:

I know this is about Greavard, but what the heck? I just had to make a .gif of this:

HARVESTELLA Demo First Impressions

By LHETICUS VIDERE - This article contains SPOILERS for the HARVESTELLA demo. Do not want, do not read!

Way, way back in the before times of...September 14th (okay so it wasn't THAT long ago but I've started a new job recently and had a lot going on even before that so it feels about two months ago to me), Ludwig wrote a response to one of my comments on this site, saying “Sounds like you should try the HARVESTELLA demo and let us know your thoughts.”

And well, the idea stuck in my head. I'd been toying with the idea of writing a guest article for KoopaTV for years, but never actually going through with it. What with aforementioned (and will continue to be un-elaborated upon) real-life events, I've been increasingly feeling sick of toying with the idea of doing so, so many things, of which writing an article like this was but one of, and never doing them. So, I figured I'd take this chance to cross this one off that list.

Re-Evaluating Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack Given Mario Party and Pokémon Stadium

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I think that's the tipping point.

The last thing I noted in the September 13, 2022 Nintendo Direct was that KoopaTV might have to reconsider our valuation of the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack. A year ago, when it was first released, I asked the KoopaTV staff if we wanted this (it's an $80 per year subscription, up from $35 a year for the basic membership), and no one said yes. Not even Paper Mario or Zero Wing have swayed us.

But it turns out that a combination of Pilotwings 64 (already out now), the first three Mario Party games, Pokémon Stadium and Pokémon Stadium 2, and GoldenEye 007 is what has tipped the staff over the edge to ask me to go for the Expansion Pack. (Note that all of those aren't happening until sometime in 2023.) It helps that list includes games that we actually want to play online multiplayer with one another. While Mario Party 2 certainly has been re-released before, the likes of Mario Party, Mario Party 3, and both Pokémon Stadium titles have not. ...And GoldenEye 007 has its own history, but... I've never actually played GoldenEye 007 before. And given my dislike of the genre, I don't really have any wish to.

Why People Don't Like Fandom Wikis

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The problem is the company.

I totally admit it's a genius business model, and it's obviously working: Fandom, a for-profit business, lets fans across a variety of media types (gaming, books, comics, TV, film, etc.) make free wikis with their software, also known as a wiki farm. Fans manage the wikis as a community. Specificity and detail are encouraged with as many pages on as many minute topics as possible in that IP. That gets a LOT of long-tail search keyword results on search engines, and that's why hundreds of millions of people visit wikis on the Fandom network. Fandom does have a staff that sometimes polices wikis (such as preventing duplicates that might divide communities and harm search results) and may have proactive outreach on things like search engine optimisation (SEO)... but for the most part, they just maintain the wiki software, set network-wide policy, and put up advertisements and profit from the work of fans who make content for them.

In an exciting development for the Zelda Wiki, they just regained independence from Fandom after Fandom acquired them a few years ago. The comments on the tweet have universal acclaim:

Our time has come to reclaim independence. pic.twitter.com/lFgXl7GTTe

— Zelda Wiki (@ZeldaWiki) October 19, 2022

There exist a group of Nintendo-based wikis that strive to be high-quality while being independent from corporate influences called the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance, or NIWA for short. These independent wikis often compete directly with Fandom counterparts and are often superior in quality and user experience, such as the Fire Emblem Wiki versus the Fire Emblem Fandom Wiki. Fire Emblem fans tend to know that the Fandom wiki is worse in quality, but the Fandom wiki is the one that tends to be first in the search results. Other household name Wikis have pretty clearly won their fight versus their Fandom counterparts, including the Super Mario Wiki, SmashWiki, and Bulbapedia.

But let's get specific using the Zelda Wiki as an example, and what may come for some of Fandom's recent and very aggressive acquisitions.

FIFA 23 Legacy Edition for Nintendo Switch has the Saddest Launch Article Ever

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I'm fairly confident there's nothing less compelling than this in press release history.

It is no secret that Electronic Arts (and EA Sports in particular) doesn't like Nintendo. This includes years of these “legacy editions” of their games that don't change things from year to year, including bizarre things like releasing games on the Wii but not on the Wii U... in 2014. However, they eventually did release FIFA on the Nintendo Switch, only to drop the exciting new modes of it with no sign of Alex Hunter.

However, for FIFA 23 Legacy Edition, they actually put together a press release that Nintendo published. I don't believe they did that for the previous games; if they did, it's no longer available on nintendo.com. It is the saddest press release for a new game launch I've ever read. Let's go through it together.

Hellena Taylor Wants You to Boycott Bayonetta 3 Because of her Personal Problem

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - You can do what you want with your money, but it probably shouldn't be because of her.

You may have noticed that Bayonetta sounds different in the upcoming (October 28!) Bayonetta 3 than she did in Bayonetta, Bayonetta 2, and the Super Smash Bros. series. That's because long-time voice actress Hellena Taylor is off the project, and Jennifer Hale is in. Yusuke Miyata, a PlatinumGames director, talked with Game Informer to say that Jennifer Hale is “the new [English] voice of Bayonetta”, and that she is “a good match for the character.” (Atsuko Tanaka remains as Bayonetta's Japanese voice actress.) And he really likes her performance. The Game Informer writer, Marcus Stewart, opined that Hale's voice-acting was “exceptional”.

So... where does that leave Hellena Taylor? Making unhinged video rants (in four parts across eight minutes) on Twitter about how she declined the role due to being given a bad offer by PlatinumGames, and demanding that Bayonetta fans should boycott it.

In case the video ends up, say, disappearing (though I did reupload all four parts put together here), or just so you don't have to watch her and you can concentrate on her words, I've transcribed the text of all four of her videos below. She gets nuttier and less sympathetic as they go on, and it's important to listen or read everything she has to say because according to video views, most people only watched the first video. I'm going to give my own opinion and analysis after the transcripts:

PART ONE

“Hello, my name is Helena Taylor, and I am the voice of Bayonetta, and I would like to explain to you why I didn't voice Bayonetta 3. Bayonetta franchise made an approximated 450 million dollars. That's not including merchandise.
As an actor, I trained for a total of seven and a half years. Three years at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) with voice coach Barbara Berkery, and four and a half years with the legendary Larry Moss in Los Angeles. And what did they think this was worth? What did they offer to pay me? The final offer to do the whole game as a buyout a flat rate was 4,000 U.S. dollars. This is an insult to me. The amount of time that I took to work on my talent and everything that I have given to this game and to the fans. I am asking the fans to boycott this game, and instead spend the money that you would have spent on this game, donating it to charity.
I didn't want the world. I didn't ask for too much. I was just asking for a decent dignified living wage. What they did was legal, but it was immoral.”