KoopaTV's June 2016 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Our fourth June, and the first time the June newsletter is within June.

We heard there is supposed to be an official release from The Pokémon Company on July 1st, so we decided to have our June newsletter on the last day of June rather than the first day of July. Hope you don't have a problem with that.

For June 2016, we published a massive 35 articles (including this one)! That's only behind or tied with June 2015 and June 2014, at 36 and 35 articles, respectively. You can thank the massive amount of Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) coverage that KoopaTV did starting June 12! We had a great E3, and we hope you guys did as well.

But KoopaTV's June wasn't just that one E3 week. Nah, we had consistently fantastic content throughout. Everything was totally worth reading. Here's just five of our most recommended articles from June 2016, in chronological order. None of them from E3's live reaction logs: 

1. A Plea From Bernie Sanders: Your Vote in California
2. Voting? User Participation? Elections? RIGGED. 
3. E3 2016: Company Conferences Tier List 
4. Brexit Strategy: The Good Ship Britain Enters Uncharted Waters 
5. After E3 2016, Color Us Splashed 

Well, that's my list. Other KoopaTV staffers disagreed with some of it, which, again, speaks to the strength of our exclusive content.

It's Troubling That Sepia Go! is Considered “Impressive”

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - What standards do mobile trash bootleggers get?

If you're already around social media or Splatoon places, then maybe today you've learned about a Chinese mobile trash game on Android called “Sepia Go!”, which doesn't deserve being italicised. It's a rip-off of Nintendo-developed Splatoon, from the maps to the characters to the music to the gameplay. According to Twitter user ZhugeEX, who made this game's existence apparent to the rest of the world, even gamers in China think it's not cool.

The widely-distributed YouTube gameplay video of “Sepia Go!” was blocked by Nintendo on copyright grounds (they can control YouTube, but not China), and that's where some of this article's screenshots came from. Here is an alternative video you can watch, but I'd rather you use this time to read the rest of this article.

It looks like a disgrace and a disaster to me. Hopefully, you agree.

Here's what the title screen looks like:

After E3 2016, Color Us Splashed

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We're non-ironic about our pro-Paper Mario: Color Splash stance.

We at KoopaTV had no expectations regarding Paper Mario: Color Splash going into E3 2016. And I don't mean that in a “if you purposefully lower your expectations on something, you'll get more out of it! Consider this a life philosophy!” sort of way. It was in a, “The initial trailer for Paper Mario: Color Splash from March 2016, compared to other Paper Mario games, made us believe that this game was dead-on-announcement.”

Of course, we didn't have any expectations for Paper Mario: Color Splash going into E3 2016 because the official word for a while was that we'd only see The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It's a good thing Nintendo backed off from that. We were dying from half a day of just that game. Imagine two days.

By the end of when Nintendo Treehouse Live was finished with Paper Mario: Color Splash, our opinion of the game did a total reversal within that one hour. How could that happen? (And does it mean that KoopaTV should no longer judge games based on trailers?)

Before I hit the page-break for this article, I want to get this out there: There are no dudes on the Internet more understanding of why people hate Paper Mario: Sticker Star and adore Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door than KoopaTV's staff. Among our staff is literally Rawk Hawk. Personally, I have a very close attachment to several original characters from the series, such as the Crystal King and Doopliss the Duplighost. And that's not just because of my fan-fiction Events of Star World, though that was a major contributing factor.

Activists Want Captain America To Be Gay — The Slippery Slope is REAL!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The slippery slope is also loaded with lubricant. Be careful down there.

A little non-ironic content warning: This article talks about upsetting things and may have upsetting imagery. It's safe-for-work, but, uh, I'm disgusted. And upset. I'm frowning, and if I wanted to put effort into this article, I'd have a special frowning 65x65 avatar for this. ...But, then again, most of KoopaTV's articles have me angry or ranting about something, so it's best not to go down that path.

With that out of the way, June 2016 is apparently “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month”, as declared by President Barack Hussein Obama. That includes activities such as a gay club in Orlando being shot up by an Islamic terrorist, and activists and weird people across the Internet demanding that Marvel's Captain America be gay. It went viral on Twitter at the end of May, just in time for it to still be getting a ton of tweets throughout June.

Rawk told me he watched Captain America: Civil War and said there are no hints of any homo-romantic overtones or undertones. But since that movie came out before the campaign, perhaps the activists are targeting the next one? (Or the on-going comic series.)

The question is: Why are they trying to pair Captain America up with Bucky, who happens to be his best male friend? Is it a message that all same-sex friendships must be romantic? Or is it something even more insidious? 

Brexit Strategy: The Good Ship Britain Enters Uncharted Waters

By VORTEXICA - Britain says “no thank EU.”

Yes, it's me again, once more summoned to fill my foreign correspondent boots. Back to talking about the political goings-on of this Sceptred Isle.

...Look, it's like getting an injection. It'll be over before you know it.

Anyway, last year I wrote a little something about the UK general election, and a month after that I wrote a follow-up criticising the Labour Party's unwillingness to hold a referendum on European Union membership. See that article for my views at the time, and see here for a handy-dandy guide to everything referendum-related you could ever want to know, since this article's gonna be long enough without me stopping to explain things for laymen.

I promised I'd have more to say when this referendum was held, and we don't go back on our promises at KoopaTV (no matter how much we might want to)! Well thankfully, Labour lost last year's election, and democracy is denied no more! The referendum went ahead yesterday, 23 years after the EU's political inception and 41 years since we voted to stay in its predecessor, the European Economic Community (EEC). The British people have finally had their say, and we've voted to...

Shufflegate: Exposed!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The imagined headline is real. (Content Warning: Zoe Quinn swears in a picture below.)

Did you know it is indisputable that Nintendo hates women? You cannot argue with that. Or you will be blocked, by, among others, former Nintendo Treehouse employee Alison Rapp:

KoopaTV's Twitter account has been following her for years, but we couldn't take it anymore after this.
(Tweet order re-arranged so it's chronological from top to bottom.)

 
What are current events and “the Paper Mario screens”? Well, it's a new scandal called Shufflegate, and it exists in the mind of Depression Quest developer (and other games, I hear) Zoe Quinn:

After this, she is vowing to take a major hiatus from Twitter.

Okay, okay. Let's back up.

Who is Zoe Quinn? Well, she was the impetus for many people to start the #GamerGate movement, which, if you may recall, is supposedly about promoting “ethics in videogame journalism” and therefore they are against KoopaTV. According to #GamerGate, she had intimate relations with five men (Five Guys) in exchange for positive reviews on her games. This blew up into a whole big thing going against a lot of feminists but at the same time still being about ethics in journalism. Whatever.

Zoe Quinn's fledgling career was ruined due to being the target of a lot of anger on the Internet, and she was on the receiving end of many threats. The movement was called #GamerGate. Therefore, Five Guys + career-ruining + Something that ends with the -gate suffix = Nintendo purposefully is making a joke about Zoe Quinn's suffering in the upcoming Paper Mario: Color Splash.

Let's unpack that.

The Team Koopa BR-Exit: Brazil Exit

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - After we left, the country turned to a disaster. Now's the opportunity for some to return...

This week, select members of Koopa Kingdom's Olympics team, Team Koopa, are returning to Rio de Janeiro. I won't be among them. I am never, ever, EVER going to step foot in Brazil ever again. Or South America, for that matter.

Hopefully everyone is familiar with How Team Koopa Escaped Rio, KoopaTV's original non-fiction epic drama written over six parts. If you're not, click that hyperlink to read a very well-put-together table of contents. To recap, the gist is that back in March, Koopa Kingdom brought eight representatives to Rio de Janeiro to form Team Koopa, to attempt to win gold medals from teams such as Team Mario and Team Sonic. It was just a training session then, but we got stranded in Rio because I got the Zika Virus. Through fun adventures, we got out.

It's a training session this time, too, since the actual Rio 2016 Olympics don't begin until the start of August. Team Koopa will be training to coincide with Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games for Wii U, coming out June 24.

As I said, I'm not coming. Neither will Roy Koopa. Neither will Dry Bones. Team Koopa is now reduced to five members: King Bowser Koopa (now in every event), Bowser Jr. (now in every event), Larry Koopa (Equestrian only), Wendy O. Koopa (100m Freestyle Swimming only), and Dry Bowser (Javelin Throw only... I still don't know why he's different than actual Bowser). That means that while Wendy, Larry, and King-Dad-who-needs-Vaseline are retaining all of their responsibilities and gaining no more, Bowser Jr. and King Dad will be picking up the slack from everyone else going.

When Kickstarters Get Kicked In The Ass (Part 3)

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Mighty No. 9 came out! And it's a disaster, surprising no one.

I told you so. Two and three-quarters years ago, I said regarding Mighty No. 9:

“But this just serves a target market of embittered Mega Man fans rather than doing something new or innovative, as a brand-new IP should be doing. ‘Oh, Capcom has to pay for its abandonment of my beloved childhood series! I'm going to support Keiji Inafune because he cares about us! Stick it to Capcom!’

You can stick it to Capcom all you want, but the game needs an identity besides that.” 

It turns out that Mighty No. 9 has developed an identity besides Comcept sticking it to CAPCOM. The problem is that the identity is having the reputation of that kid who sits in the back of the classroom that doesn't shower, is covered in acne, and always farts. Meanwhile, Mega Man is that popular kid. Dude plays soccer, which is a lame sport, but let's say this is Europe and everyone loves FIFA. (Funny, because Europe barely even knows who Mega Man is.) Everyone wants to be Mega Man's friend, while Beck tries his hardest to emulate the popular kid so that he too can have friends.

It worked for a little while, but as time went on, people saw Beck's true colours. And now?

Monday morning, it was at 62. As the days go on, the Metacritic score gets lower and the release problems grow greater.
...Also, that User Score speaks for itself.

He has failed, and gets wedgies to the point where he wears a condom outside of his pants. That spectacular failure has extended to Mighty No. 9's release, which was officially today. For most consoles.

Are You An Early Bird or a Night Owl?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Alternatively: Which would you RATHER be?

When you rise and shine (or fall off your bed — assuming you sleep on a bed, and not a couch, a car seat, a futon, the floor, or a pile of hay), is it early in the morning or sometime right before noon? ...Or even later than that? When do you go to bed? Before the night's KoopaTV article is actually published, or many hours afterward?

The basic question for the Splatoon Splatfest starting this Saturday (25th at 12 AM Eastern time) is: Are you an Early Bird, or are you a Night Owl?

EARLY BIRD vs. NIGHT OWL!

 
I am firmly on Team Early Bird. Not because I really am much of an Early Bird, but because I want to be one.

E3 2016: Company Conferences Tier List

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - These should've been easy for you to guess, but I'll explain them anyway.

The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) for 2016 is finally over. This has been the week we've been planning our whole year around — a special time in our lives.

We've covered the events of seven companies over the course of seventeen live reaction logs for E3 2016. Through our completely, um, objective voting process (the criteria involved is a trade secret), we've decided which companies won E3, and which lost. Which were the best, and which were the worst. And whatever's in-between. What those words actually mean is also a trade secret.

Sorry we can't be more transparent, but I hope you understand that this site relies on intellectual property to survive. Gotta protect it. We have no choice.

Behold the list, from best to worst:

1. Ubisoft
2. Nintendo (Day 1; Day 2)
3. Microsoft
4. Electronic Arts
5. Donald Trump
6. Sony
7. Bethesda

I hear this list goes against common opinion, so I'm obligated to explain each company in detail. And I will, for I am not a troll who merely leaves incendiary material without anything to back it up. Let's start from the bottom of the list and make our way to the top: