Kirby Star Allies is RELEASED! Poyo!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Plus, some additional miscellaneous Kirby-related loose ends!

Today, we welcome the official release of Kirby Star Allies, which marks the conclusion(?) of the most Kirby coverage in a short time period to ever be on KoopaTV.

It was a good time. Let's do more of that, shall we?

Don't look at the professional critic reviews of Kirby Star Allies. Reviewers don't understand this franchise. They don't like it. They have never liked it. I won't link to it or talk about it further.

I'm going to be getting my claws on a physical copy as soon as I can. Not today, obviously. Let's aim for Sunday.

In the meantime, Nintendo released an update to the Nintendo Switch earlier this week: Version 5.0.0. It doesn't do anything important and I'm not sure why it warrants a whole new version number, but it did get Kirby and some of his (Dream) friends as possible profile pictures. Not enough to displace my purple-background Bowser, though.

Also, ew, most of the update was burying the Kirby stuff with icky ARMS people.
Plus, the Waddle Dee in here isn't even Bandana Waddle Dee. Strange?!

By the way, I did some investigative journalism. While I can't find records that Nintendo of America ever knew the Friend Bounce existed in Kirby Super Star, I unearthed evidence in HAL Laboratory's Japanese-only Flash-based old site for Kirby Super Star Ultra that they knew:

Alternate Mode of Entry to Post Cereal Sweepstakes: Win a Nintendo Switch!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Already have a Switch? Get another. It's FREE.

You may recall this remarkable passage from an article at the end of 2017 about Post Cereal and their Nintendo Switch giveaway contest. The article went into very deep detail about the contest, which involves buying certain Post Cereal brands which contain a code that you submit to Post's sweepstakes page for the possibility of winning a Nintendo Switch. The article's main topic was about how the contest discriminates against people with Celiac Disease, but there is another method of entry where you don't have to buy any cereal or consume any gluten and you can still win:

“Oh, I forgot to mention. There is an AMOE, or Alternative Method of Entry, that opens March 16, 2018 and lasts for two weeks. Simply go to this website and request a code, which you can do three times a day. No purchase necessary! Assuming that winning times of entry are equally distributed over time and that the competition is equally distributed as well (which are BIG assumptions), this is a 15-day window out of the 212 days the contest is open. That's 7.075% of the contest is open during a no-purchase-necessary time window. That leaves around 35 Nintendo Switch systems up for grabs during this time! We'll remind you in March to take advantage of it, as a benefit to being a KoopaTV reader. (...Just remind us to remind you.)” 

..NO ONE REMINDED US TO REMIND YOU, but I reminded myself because I'm responsible. You can thank me in the comments section.

As of writing, the Alternate Method of Entry site still looks like this:

“We're almost ready to play! The AMOE code request site will begin at 12:00am ET on March 16, 2018.”

I guess this article would be a little better if I published it after the alternate method of entry was made available so I could tell you what “the information” you need to fill actually is. I'm going to guess it's your name, physical address, e-mail address, perhaps a phone number, and Post will ask for your date of birth to confirm you are over 18. I'll edit this article after the fact and let you know if there's anything I didn't guess ahead of time.

That said, since you can get three codes a day for the duration of March, I figured it's better to publish this information now rather than later. (Besides, March 16 itself is a product release day; a product we're looking forward to.)

I just wish the company was named something better than Post. This article would be so much easier to write and understand!

Update 3/16/2018: After you fill in your information (I was spot-on in terms of what they ask for), they e-mail you a code. You'll get an e-mail from noreply@prizelogic.com with the code. You then go to https://nintendoswitch.postsweepstakes.com and enter your code after re-entering your personal information. Then you're given this screen and I guess I lost because I'm clicking the question-mark block like a buffoon and nothing is happening.

I'M TAPPING. BUT THERE'S NO FEEDBACK. Did I lose?!
It seems like I can try three times every day, SO I'LL BE BACK.

If giving out your personal information is a problem for you, or you're not 18 or older, don't fret: You can still win valuable Nintendo prizes FOR FREE! It's called the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program, and you can be completely pseudonymous when entering it. Unlike the Post contest, it is 100% skill-based. You can enter simply by commenting on this article, though as mentioned, since it's skill-based, you'll have to out-comment and out-activity the other participants in the contest to be able to win.

My Nintendo's Worthless Gold Points

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - At least you're currently on a website with a good loyalty rewards program...

This was announced a while ago, but we've just been so busy we couldn't get around to it. Nintendo's underwhelming player loyalty program, My Nintendo, has implemented a “Gold Points” system with the intention of making people actually get excited about the Gold Coins they are collecting. (Platinum Coins are still worthless.) It was a criticism that for a year, this program was in place but you could only spend the Gold Coins on 3DS and Wii U content. Not anymore!

Starting March 5, 2018, you got 5% off any digital Nintendo Switch, Wii U, or 3DS purchases you made converted into Gold Points. If you buy any physical Nintendo Switch games (which is how I prefer to buy my games), you only get 1% of the purchase price converted into a Gold Point. Each Gold Point is worth... one cent. A $60 digitally downloaded game will get you 300 points, or 3 dollars back. A $60 physical game will get you 60 points, or 60 cents.

These add to however the hell we got Gold Coins before, which was an even worse conversion rate.

Just so Nintendo can be jerks, you have 12 months to use your Gold Points before they expire. That means if you want a free $60 game, you'll need to spend $1,200 in digital purchases in 12 months, and still have another 21st game you're interested enough in to do all of this purchasing for. By the way, in order to qualify for points, you need to have bought the game within 12 months of its release date.

President Trump and the Roundtable on Videogame Violence

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Fortunately, it doesn't seem like anything is going to come from it.

After we regretfully told you that someone is feeding anti-videogame crap into President Donald John Trump's ear as it relates to videogame violence and shootings, the President last week decided to take the “very complicated and very big deal” and listen to people who know what they're talking about in a room with people who... do not. Basically, that means you put a room together with anti-gaming politicians and interest groups with industry lobby organisations like the Entertainment Software Association and the ESRB.

Then you listen.

Unfortunately, the roundtable was closed off to the media, so we don't actually know what happened. That makes writing commentary on the meeting difficult, doesn't it? Accounts described it as a listening session, and it seems the people more likely to talk about the experience were the anti-game people rather than the pro-game people, who either said nothing or put out meaningless statements.

One thing we know for sure is that the meeting began with this 88-second video montage (compiled from clips of YouTubers, without asking permission because FAIR USE) of very violent, M-rated moments. Just letting you know that it's embedded below after the page break, and I wouldn't watch it if you don't want to see, you know, gory content. Even the thumbnail is... unsettling. It also has one of the most lopsided (in the negative direction) Thumbs-Up to Thumbs-Down ratios on YouTube.

All Time is a Bad Time

By RAWKHAWK2010 - Shall we kill some?

Ludwig is a big-time hater of Daylight Savings Time. He says it ruins sleeping patterns and makes people waste valuable time changing clocks. He also believes that the government simply has no right to regulate something as sacred as Time, especially when its boundaries continue to change at the government's behest. Arizona doesn't even follow the damn thing which only leads to absolute DISASTERS for whoever may be traveling through, and I don't just mean ones involving pink underwear.

Well, I'm here to say that ALL time is bad. EVERY LAST SECOND OF IT!

#YesAllMin

We Don't Know Yet If Super Smash Bros. For Switch is Original or Not

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Anyone who thinks we know for sure is wrong, and I'll discredit their points.

Yesterday was an amazing Nintendo Direct. No one denying it. My favourite part, the Splatoon 2 portion, isn't what has everyone talking. No, people are talking about Super Smash Bros. for Switch (that's what I think the name will be: “Super Smash Bros. For Switch”), which is currently named “Super Smash Bros. (Title Pending)”.

There's currently a debate going on where people are wondering whether or not this Switch Super Smash Bros. is an enhanced port of Super Smash Bros. For Wii U or it's a real sequel. From social media polls I've seen, most people are going with the sequel. It's all speculation on both sides, but the power of wishful thinking (and a little FAKE NEWS) is getting more people than not on the sequel side.

Two of the claims I see I can debunk in one screenshot. First of all, people claim HAL Laboratory is developing the Switch version. I don't see how pro-sequel people think that makes sense as an argument (are you forgetting that they have been working on a full set of games over the past year, including Kirby Star Allies, Kirby Battle Royale, Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, and whatever the hell that BoxBoy! series is?), but it's there. Second, people think that since the website and trailer say the words “original game”, well, that means it's Nintendo's way of saying the game is original.

Well, look at this side-by-side, which you can verify for yourself with one minute's worth of curiosity instead of believing idiots/FAKE NEWS from social media:

KoopaTV's Live Reactions to Nintendo Direct March 8, 2018!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - How long after this will social media be spamming for a new Direct?

Before we get to the reaction log, I want to address something. The past several months have been nothing but obnoxious Nintendo fans spamming every marketing material Nintendo has produced with “DIRECT WHEN?” or “Cool, but this isn't a Nintendo Direct.” It's annoying. You are getting continual news and great marketing content from Nintendo all the time (I can't prove this, but I think there's more Nintendo-produced content now than ever before per time period). You're complaining just to be annoying.

Of course, KoopaTV readers are intelligent folks, for the most part. I'm sure y'all ain't the same idiots constantly begging for a Nintendo Direct. I mean, if we had people like this on the site, the comments section for every article would just be people beginning for Episode 2 of KoopaTV Adventures. (Which is something that SHOULD be begged for.)

People were making up weird myths about historical patterns for when Nintendo Directs should be made available, as if Nintendo itself is a videogame boss doomed to doing the same attack patterns for eternity. They can do whatever they want.

ANYWAY, I'll get off my tangential soapbox so you can get to reading the soapbox you came here for.

I keep forgetting Mario Tennis Aces existed.

I'm here to give you my live reactions. Vortexica is here as well. (He's the one you need to bother to get a new episode of KoopaTV Adventures.)

Watch along with us:

The Kirby Star Allies Demo is FANTASTIC!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - My enthusiasm is higher than it's ever been.

Good news, y'all: All of those Kirby articles that have been appearing on KoopaTV lately won't be in vain. Kirby Star Allies really does deserve the attention. Count me among his allies (or helpers or friends or whatever)!

On March 4 (or a few days earlier in that horrible continent called Europe), Nintendo released a two-level demo for Kirby Star Allies. One is an easy grasslands tutorial with Whispy Woods at the end, and the other features is in a “hard” cave that someone winds up with Buff Dedede (alternatively known as Rawk Dedede on this site) as the boss.

There are SO many amazing things to share about Kirby Star Allies that I might have put as their own individual articles on a slow news week, but... all of a sudden, stuff is happening. Therefore, I'll be packing this article with goodness. I haven't been this excited for a game since, what, Splatoon 2? ...No, probably Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice.

Splatoon 2 Splatfest: Which Came First? CHICKEN or EGG?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The chicken.

There is a Splatfest coming up this weekend for both North America and Europe (and Oceania): Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

Pearl: “WE 'BOUT TO GET ALL PHILISOLOPHICAL UP IN THIS!”
Marina: “Which do you think came first? The chicken or the egg?”

 
I don't know what “philisolophical” is supposed to mean or what that is supposed to be a pun of, if anything (philosophical with solo in it? ...And that accomplishes what, exactly?). In terms of philosophising, that's sort of what we've been doing for many of the Splatfests that have already happened for both Splatoon and Splatoon 2. Just put in a Splatfest topic in the search bar and you'll see our take.

Let's be clear. This Splatfest does not ask whether we like chickens or eggs more in terms of cuteness or taste (the winner is clearly the chicken in both cases). Rather, it is asking how that species began, and then it tries to cheat a bit by having the egg's picture be a cute chick rather than just an egg. Typical Marina.

Before I tell you why I believe the chicken came first, I'll give some historical polling background going back to the Wii: The United States Everybody Votes Channel asked this question in April 2007, and Chicken beat Egg, 57.1%–42.9%. However, the United Kingdom Everybody Votes Channel also asked this in April 2007, and the Chicken  vs. Egg score had Egg winning, 46.4%–53.6%. Canada's version was a 50.0%–50.0% split. The world seems rather divided on this.

The Nintendo Switch — Out on the market for ONE YEAR!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Good console. You know it. I know it.

I really don't like dedicating article space to anniversaries of things, because it's boring and there's no story. Unfortunately for me, Nintendo themselves are strongly pushing, along with everyone else in the gaming media because Nintendo's resurgence is a big narrative now (just remember these same people were calling for Nintendo to be a third party developer a few years ago), the whole Nintendo Switch turned one year old thing. Recall how it was released back during the beginning of March 2017, and how it suffered from lots of supply shortages.

Among other things, Nintendo put together this artwork, because this also coincides with the one-year anniversary of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Can you believe it’s already the one year anniversary of #BOTW and #NintendoSwitch? Celebrate with this new piece of artwork from the developers! pic.twitter.com/vhltWgVEld

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) March 3, 2018

Nintendo also put together this HORRIFIC press release on their website. So horrific, I'm going to link to an archived version instead of the live one. You won't see any other gaming site's Nintendo Switch anniversary article talk about this press release as their main content, so you're about to witness the KOOPATV EXPERIENCE!