Fire Emblem Fates Ain't Censored, but Localised

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - There's no conspiracy at play.

There are a lot of people out there singing the praises for Fire Emblem Fates. I'm not one of them, but it's the fastest-selling Fire Emblem game ever in the United States: Over 300,000 copies in its launch weekend. But that Forbes writer I just linked to then states that even though it's selling so much, there is “controversy” over its “draconian” “censorship” by Nintendo of America and its Treehouse localising division.

Ugh. I already wrote about this in November. Nintendo of America cannot, by definition, “censor” what Nintendo in Japan produces when bringing it over to America. They can only localise. There's a nice chart in that article, too.

But it looks like people need me to run through Fire Emblem Fates specifically. Fine. I'll do it, especially since someone actually e-mailed me to talk about this over a month ago. (I didn't, because I thought an article about localisation would have the best information only after Fire Emblem Fates was actually released.) 

Before I start, I want to point out that the main force causing ruckus over this is #gamergate. Remember them? They're about ethics in videogame journalism, or so they say. I have absolutely no idea what ethics in videogame journalism has to do with Nintendo's localisation decisions. Someone please explain this to me.

Anyway, let's get started.. 

KoopaTV Live Reacts to 20th Anniversary Pokémon Direct

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Featuring a NEW ANNOUNCEMENT.

Here we are with the first game-related live reaction log of 2016! It's a Nintendo Direct! ...Sort of not really.

It's President Ishihara of The Pokémon Company. With a Ditto?

Looks like The Pokémon Company is using Nintendo's outreach channels to talk about something important. We better listen and react to it. I'm Nintendork 13 13, and Vortexica joins too as the other dude. Due to... the timing, we don't exactly react at the same time. It's an interesting dynamic, for sure.

The Pokémon Direct is embedded below. (Just click more!) You can watch along with our reactions, but we kinda do it twice so I dunno.

KoopaTV Judges the February 25 CNN Republican Presidential Debate!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's the debate before Super Tuesday.

Which states are voting in the primaries on March 1, 2016? Those are Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia for both Republicans and Democrats, plus Alaska for the Republicans. If you're a Democrat or leaning that way, please vote for Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton should not get the vote of anyone who likes videogames, which should be everyone reading this site. 

If you're a Republican, then... I'm not really sure what you should do. Donald Trump has won three of the previous four states and is still leading. Maybe this debate will help make your decision. My own guy, who was also KoopaTV's endorsement, isn't even running for president anymore. So I'm an undecided voter, and KoopaTV as a whole's only remaining endorsement is still for Bernie Sanders. That's pretty sad. So let's grade tonight's debate performance among Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and Ben Carson.

Final talking times, courtesy of NPR.

 

Japanese Players vs. Western Players: Better?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Or, why Westerners have such an interesting view of what the Japanese are like.

So, I'm an extreme mono-lingual individualist Westerner, and here I am going to drop some knowledge about the relationship of Western gamers vs. Japanese gamers in multiplayer environments. You're right to think I don't know what I'm talking about, and if KoopaTV ever filled its Japanese Marketing Manager position that has been open for over two years now, I'd ask the person in that role about this question. This paragraph has been your disclaimer.

At least I can speak for myself.

There is a lot of animosity between the Japanese and Westerners in multiplayer gaming. Westerners consider the Japanese to be SO MUCH better at games. The Super Smash Bros. Melee documentary (The Smash Brothers) was literally set up to portray the King of Smash Ken Hoang as dominating the whole United States (and Western hemisphere by extension), and then he went to Japan to really prove himself. Japan is portrayed as the final frontier/final boss, like it's another planet or the moon. People see Japan as some sort of utopia of super-skilled gaming robots.

Ken at around 21:54 in The Smash Brothers: Episode 4:

“When they play Smash, they play Smash. They play all day, all night, all day, all night. The weakest Japanese player was definitely like, as strong as our strongest player in America.”

There's no reason why Americans can't do the same thing.

Make Great Leitmotifs

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - You can reuse them. It sounds nice. It's less work. Whatever you do, just don't forget about music.

Something we want to let you in on: If you invest in great music in the first iteration of your franchise series, you can use it again in your next game. And in the game after that. You should probably remix it in some way, but it absolves you of a lot of the creative work. If you bang it out of the park your first time and don't reuse it, people will beg and may actually complain if you don't reuse the music. In terms of workload, your fans will whine if you don't do the lazy option.

It also makes for music that's practically guaranteed to please since it's already been pre-approved. It's much less risky. If you do your soundtrack right, you can reuse it forever. Too bad a lot of developers put music as an afterthought.

Our main example is the Kirby franchise, but it's a thing in every franchise, really. Consistent jingles or themes across games. But let's talk about Kirby.

Donald Trump Demands Apple Boycott — For the Wrong Reason

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's the correct position, but the wrong way to get there.

There is a huge debate in the public sphere right now that is sort of related to videogames — The FBI/United States government wants Apple to remove the encrypting privacy protections on iPhones and other devices. They wish to break the encryption so they can look at the work phone of ISIS-affiliated Syed Farook, the guy who committed an act of terrorism on over a dozen people in San Bernadino, California. The phone is an iPhone, which sounds like a horrible device for a work phone.

Apparently, if you fail the password enough times when trying to access an iPhone, it deletes all the data on the phone. That's what the FBI is concerned about. However, Apple doesn't actually know the password either... and they don't want to find out or develop a backdoor to find out.

Here's CEO Tim Cook's letter to the public on the matter:

“Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession.

The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.”
 

You should read the whole letter. It makes a lot of sense and spells out Apple's position. For all of the negative crap I give Apple on and off this website, they're on the right side here.

“Opposing this order is not something we take lightly. We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the U.S. government.”

How can I not side with that? Unfortunately, I don't represent the totality of public opinion. Enter Donald Trump.

The Additions to The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Featuring amiibo and better textures! Yay?

One of the first things we learned about how The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD would be different than its 2006 release was that it would feature less Tears of Light to collect in certain areas. That means that, at first news, the HD remaster would actually have less content than before. I didn't have any problem with how many Tears of Light there were to collect! Just because some were hard to find doesn't mean there's necessarily a quantity issue.

I could've published an article just on that a month ago berating the development of the HD remaster. It's developed by the Australian Tantalus Media and not Grezzo, the company that's done the 3DS remakes for the two The Legend of Zelda series Nintendo 64 games. Tantalus has been behind such games like SpongeBob SquarePants: The Yellow Avenger, Pony Friends, Funky Barn, Men in Black II: Alien Escape, and Pony Friends 2. There's nothing wrong with shovelware contract work in theory. After all, someone's gotta develop it, and if it pays well and you can feed your family, then what's the issue?

The hell? Is THAT supposed to be Agent J? What did they do to you?
Taken from Tantalus's own website, Men in Black II: Alien Escape on the Nintendo GameCube.

It pays well for Tantalus, but do these games play well for customers? According to game reviewers... no.

That'd be an easy story: Nintendo trusts remaster of beloved game in beloved franchise to bottom-tier developer, with Reggie Fils-Aime stating that Tantalus “has a great record with ports.” Said developer proceeds to gut the actual game by cutting content.

Super Smash Bros. 4 DOWNLOADABLE CHARACTERS Opinion Tiers

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Let's rate all the downloadable characters added after the game's release!

Folks enjoyed what I had to say for all of the Super Smash Bros. 4 newcomers back when the game came out. Since then, SEVEN additional characters joined the cast. They're the folks here:

Bayonetta, Corrin, Cloud, Ryu, Roy, Lucas, and Mewtwo. That's from newest to oldest. This article will go the other way.

 
I'll be employing the same criteria for the ratings and they'll work the same way as last time. Even better, since I saved the Excel sheet for the first iteration of this article, I'll share the NEW standings at the end!


Relevant KoopaTV article(s):
Thoughts on the character before reveal:
Thoughts on the trailer:
Thoughts on the character based on trailer:
Thoughts on the character after the game came out:

Nintendo Account Registration! Miitomo too.

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Opened February 17!

It's finally here: The long-awaited Nintendo Account. You can check out the page at accounts.nintendo.com. You'll get this if you aren't logged in:

Sign in with your NNID. The rest of those options are for people who don't have a Wii U or 3DS.
...Good to see that Google+ is considered centrally relevant, though.

No one is logged in at the start, because your Nintendo Network ID and your Nintendo Account aren't exactly equivalent. When you do sign in with Nintendo Network ID, you'll be brought to the Create a Nintendo Account with fields already populated for you, depending on what you registered into your Nintendo Network ID. There's nickname, e-mail address, date of birth (which you cannot change once it's auto-populated, so if it's wrong you need to call Nintendo or create a new account without associating it with your Nintendo Network ID), country (also cannot be changed), gender (it's binary plus you saying you'd prefer not to answer), and timezone.

PLUS a brand-new End User License Agreement! First thing that's there: “You must be at least 13 years old to use the Nintendo Account Service.”

You hear that, kids? Go away.

Anyway, it's not really brand-new. It's sort of a clone of the Nintendo Network Services Agreement, including the clause that you own User-Generated Content but you're non-exclusively licensing it to Nintendo. It's relatively short and actually has the word END at the bottom. It links to the My Nintendo Rewards Program Terms of Service, but...

Try Cleaning Your Closet

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - And then stop putting stuff in there.

I cannot count how many times I've read how people clean their closet, look under their bed or couch mattress, explore their attic/basement, or put their hands in their other pants pocket to find something they didn't even know they still had — or they didn't know they ever possessed it at all. These range from hentai VHS tapes (plus Pokémon 2000) to a rare $2 bill. One League of Legends player found a Nintendo Game Boy and 5–6 games after cleaning his closet for the first time in ten years. He mentions the games were stolen — it's grammatically unclear whether the League of Legends player was the thief or the victim, though you can perform value judgments as to which is more likely.

It's a lot better to be on top of your inventory. It's also weird that people claim to have never had these things to begin with and they just magically come into your possession. Is it the Minish at work, the tooth fairy, or some other nearly-invisible force just putting things in places we don't look?