Is Yoshi's Crafted World a Must-Buy?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I'm making a lot of these “Such and such is out now!” articles lately. Switch getting a lot of games?

Today, the game known as Yoshi's Crafted World has released for the Nintendo Switch. We covered the Yoshi's Crafted World demo here a month and a half ago, though when the article footer contains,

“If you wanted Ludwig's actual thoughts on the Yoshi's Crafted World demo in terms of gameplay and whatever, you could ask about those in the comments section, but who cares about details like how fun the game is when there are critical questions and concerns about Yoshi's morality at play?” 

that is likely a good sign that I didn't talk about gameplay in that article. (Still a very important article to read.)

That said, no one in the comments section asked about gameplay. Perhaps it's because it's the same gameplay in every Yoshi game. Exploration-based (for collectible purposes) platforming that sometimes involves babies and sometimes doesn't. Kamek and/or Lord Bowser (as an infant) are always involved. They usually have unique and appreciable art styles, or they're made by Artoon or Arzest and are horrible games.

Yoshi's Crafted World has one gimmick that tries to differentiate it from other Yoshi games. The launch trailer doesn't explain it but the description on YouTube does:

Notch Removed From Latest Minecraft Splashes

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - He doesn't seem to mind it, though I'm not so nihilist.

After Microsoft bought out Mojang for Minecraft in 2014, founder Markus Persson (referred to as Notch) has gone his own way, leaving the company and living the life as a rich guy, occasionally lending his mind on some minor game development projects to keep his Brain Age low.

Between before the buy-out and now, Notch has had his name on the splash in Minecraft's title screen. The splash is the yellow text that would appear diagonal against the Minecraft logo on the title. There are hundreds of these splashes and the one that appears is random. Now Microsoft has mysteriously removed Notch references from the title, and as of yet hasn't revealed why. Removed splashes include:

1. 110813! (Referencing the wedding date of Notch and his ex-wife, August 13, 2011. Sweden is one of those weird yy/mm/dd countries)
2. Made by Notch!
3. The Work of Notch!

I had to watch a lot of awful Minecraft videos like this one
in order to get a screenshot of one of the now-removed splashes.
Why did this kid record his screen like that?

How does Notch feel about this? Well... He's taking it well, actually.

A Discrimination Investigation Into Blue Screens, Inc and Director Lisa Basil

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A KoopaTV exclusive follow-up.

Recall the case of Glen Elg, a programmer working at California-based company Blue Screens, Inc, who was murdered in December of 2018. One fake trial and then a real trial later, the legendary Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright made it clear that Mr. Elg was killed by loan shark Furio Tigre.

But what happened later with Blue Screens? What do they even do? KoopaTV figured something was suspicious about the company. Little is known about it other than that they employ programmers and work in technology, specifically analysing data management systems used by industrial companies and delivering optimal source-level and operating system components. The details are a trade secret, but their end-products are in the form of compact discs, a rather outdated medium. Presumably these launch executable files that change the core of one's computer or server. Their clients must have a lot of trust in them to give them access to such highly-sensitive technology.

A woman named Lisa Basil is the director of Blue Screens. She herself is not a programmer, but she manages the company's programmers and presumably “handles the business side.”

KoopaTV found out something astonishing about Lisa Basil, and it relates to what Blue Screens did after Glen Elg passed away.

Final Fantasy VII: Finally on a Nintendo Console

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - This is Cloud the person known for past achievements, not cloud the future of gaming.

Fun fact: Rawk was going to write an article bemoaning Cloud's presence in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (and Super Smash Bros. 4). There's a lot to complain about there (total lack of music and World of Light/Spirits presence), but he had to rethink it, and ended up canceling it upon the announcement that Final Fantasy VII was coming out on the Nintendo Switch.

But this isn't like the Final Fantasy VII remake that will never come out. No, last month they released Final Fantasy IX and announced that Final Fantasy VII would come out today. And today, it's out.

And you can experience Final Fantasy VII for the first time on a Nintendo console!

It's only $16, too! Compared to Final Fantasy IX, which is $21. They're both PlayStation 1 games. Not sure what the price difference means. Did Final Fantasy IX take more effort? The ports already existed on previous systems. Who knows. Maybe it's an admission that Final Fantasy IX is better? 

There is a lot of symbolism and whatever about Final Fantasy VII being on a Nintendo console, since this was the game that took Final Fantasy off Nintendo consoles and to the PlayStation. The Switch is finally enough of a competent console, to Square Enix, that they'll bring these games back.

I actually did start playing Final Fantasy IX on Sunday. I'm already pleased. Especially with Vivi. He's precious. Much better than Ganondorf.

Black Mage is his race... and Vivi is my favourite character... I'm obviously not a racist!
White Mages, though? I don't know about those... Zidane stealing Potions is working out very well so far.

Ludwig has a big backlog of games on the Nintendo Switch, including Final Fantasy IX, so he's not going to be purchasing Final Fantasy VII anytime soon. He eventually intends to. If you'd like Ludwig to get through his backlog, then perhaps you'd also be interested in helping staff KoopaTV so Ludwig can play games instead of write articles? If that interests you, check out the Hiring page for more information!


These digitally-distributed ports don't violate Ludwig's boycott of Electronic Arts, which included the PlayStation version of Final Fantasy IX in the United States.
Ludwig really wishes that the Final Fantasy VII REMAKE would come to a Nintendo console as well.
FINAL FANTASY VIII Remastered also comes to a Nintendo console. ...It's basically the same as a non-remastered version.

Apple Arcade: New Subscription Service...?!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Curation. But it's not a big deal, really.

This article is about Apple, fair warning. Never wanting to be outdone by their immortal enemy and fellow big app store provider, Google (see last week's announcement about Google Stadia), Apple had a keynote address where they announced a bunch of initiatives we shouldn't care about, plus one gaming one called Apple Arcade. No, it's not like the Arcade Archive series where it's a bunch of old arcade games ported to a modern system. It's new games curated to a platform that spans your iPhones, your iPads, your Apple TV, and your Mac. ...Gaming on a Mac? Yeah, I guess.

Here's their trailer, which, uh, portrays this as a big deal (“everything is changing”), but not the “future of gaming” that Google was blabbering about last week. Interestingly, they'll be releasing around the same time: later in 2019. 
 

While the Apple App Store already exists, and I really dislike its policies and the people who use it, Apple Arcade is like a super-special version of the App Store. Instead of free-to-play ad-ridden micro-transaction nonsense, you pay a subscription fee (exact pricing unknown) and get access to however many games there are (>100) with no advertisements or in-app purchases. How developers get paid is unknown (100-way split?) but Apple is going to help fund development.

And no data tracking. You actually have privacy. (Unless you consent to not having privacy.) I guarantee that's a huge differentiator compared to Google's service, as well as other Apple products. I actually like that privacy is now something you pay for. See how much it's valued.

Unlike a streaming service and Super Mario Run, you can play the games while not connected to the Internet. Major positive.

Let's look at the games.

The Division 2 Doesn't Divide Critics: Except Variety

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Well, that's why they call it Variety...

Have you read Matt Paprocki's review on Variety.com of Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's The Division 2? Well, it's quite... interesting. You won't learn much about The Division 2 (rather unfortunate, since it's the first The Division 2 review I've actually read), but you will learn about how frustrated Mr. Paprocki is about Fox News host Tucker Carlson being on TV and defending conservative values and gun rights.

It's a kooky review, but Variety is culturally important (I didn't know they wrote about games—though games are part of the culture, so it makes sense) in the United States. And, importantly for the videogame industry, they have a seat as a Metacritic-approved reviewer.

The scores are positive for almost everyone... and Variety is the only negative one.
For a game about division, that's pretty good.

That means it's worth giving some attention to this review, since it affects the industry.

The reason for the review's... unorthodox style, according to the writer, Matt Paprocki:

Google Announced Stadia: The Cloud-based Streaming “Future of Gaming”

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - If this is the future, I don't regret picking Team Past.

At this year's Game Developers Conference, Google CEO, Sundar Pichai (not to be confused with Pichu), went in front of all of the game developers in attendance, declared he doesn't play games much, and then announced the Stadia. “A game platform for everyone.” It's not a console. It's a whole set of data centres that you can access from any Chrome browser-enabled device, be it a laptop or a smartphone.

Google has gone from organising the world's information and making that information accessible for everyone, to “making technology accessible for everyone.”

The whole presentation is here. I watched it all, and the rest of the article will be summarising what I find to be the key points, as well as key omissions:

Google makes a point to repeatedly classify the gaming industry as three groups of people: game players, game watchers, and game makers. Interesting that they put passive watchers on the same plane of importance as the people that make up the supply-demand relationship in the industry. And since it's Google, you can bet that the watchers all happen to be on YouTube. Not, say, Twitch or Mixer or DLive or any of those. That's important, since their use case is you watching a YouTube video about a game, and then being asked if you want to play the game right then and there, without a download. (Or without paying, apparently.)

Speaking of people, the gaming industry vets (since Mr. Pichai isn't a gamer) behind the Stadia are Phil Harrison (who Rawk used to stand with back when he was part of Microsoft) and Jade Raymond (former executive at Ubisoft), who is now the head of the new first party gaming studio that Google has opened to make Stadia exclusives: Stadia Games and Entertainment.

Nindies Showcase Spring 2019 Live Reactions!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Live in the sense that we're reacting to it hours after it aired. Still new to us!

We were just thinking, after publishing the guest post about Lord Winklebottom Investigates (which has 6 days left on its Kickstarter campaign), KoopaTV really should engage the indie gaming community more. Well, then Nintendo announced that they'd be showing a Nindies showcase today. Let's try it out by reacting to its contents as they happen! (Or as we watch them after the fact. 12 PM is a bad time.)

Here's the 25-minute Nindies (Nintendo Indies) Showcase of Spring 2019. Live-reacting to it are myself and Rawk. Wendy gets an emoji's worth of commentary at the end.

Splatoon 2: Free Demo, second Nintendo Switch Online trial, 20% off

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It's a special demo... it's not a test!

Right now until the 25th of March, Nintendo is offering an incredible and free offer that you can convert into a purchase-worthy discount: Splatoon 2 has a free, non-barebones demo of Turf War, Ranked Match, and the most important mode of all, Salmon Run. If you don't have Nintendo Switch Online, it comes with its own 7-day trial of it—independent of the already-existing 7–9-day free trial of Nintendo Switch Online.

Why is Nintendo offering this? 

1. Only one in four Nintendo Switch owners own Splatoon 2, but it was 1 in ~2.7 Wii U owners who owned Splatoon. There's definitely more potential for people to buy Splatoon 2
2. Nintendo is on a quest to have more people subscribe to Nintendo Switch Online. That's a strategic goal for them
3. This isn't anything new. They did a way-post-launch demo of Splatoon before on the Wii U, though they still called that a Testfire Demo. (That also predicted that Donald Trump would beat Hillary Clinton in the upcoming election)

The game is better than the official promotional art implies.

I encourage you to take advantage of this limited-time opportunity. A few tips and caveats...

• Story mode is not in the demo. Story mode/single player, viewed as a tutorial, is how new players are supposed to learn the controls and basic skills that would serve them well on the battlefield
• Use the map feature often in Turf and Ranked to know what's going on and what areas need your attention. It's not available in Salmon Run
• If you hear a Booyah!, please return the Booyah!
• Use a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller and set motion controls in the settings menu to your preferred sensitivity setting. Integrating motion controls is far superior than not doing so

Enjoy Splatoon 2 for free while you can! (And if you really like it, you can buy it for 20% off during the week the demo is available.) I'll be trying to get anti-Splatoon grouch RawkHawk2010 to give Salmon Run a try after he disliked the Turf War-only Splatoon 2 Global Testfire so much.


While you shouldn't expect much in the way of more updates to Splatoon 2 if you're just now buying it, the game already has more than $60 worth of content. Certainly more than $48. And it's even better if you use the savings to also buy the Octo Expansion! Ludwig hasn't actually downloaded the demo for the purposes of confirming assumptions made in this article, since he already owns the full game and administers the KoopaTV Family Group for Nintendo Switch Online.


Splatoon 2 already has a history of substantial demos, like the demo Splatfest they did.
Splatoon 2 does the same kind of demo a year later, but 30% off.

Fire Emblem Support System and the Inhumanity of Networking

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Just how much do you truly value your network of people?

I was reading Peggy Noonan's latest DECLARATIONS column in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, about the college admissions scandal going on in the news. (You can read it for yourself behind this paywall.) 

One of the morals of the column ended up being that you should strive to make friends, as opposed to just “networking”. Networking is a term that Ms. Noonan doesn't define, but it's commonly understood to mean that you're making shallow, quantity-based connections with random people you meet at events or gatherings, with the purpose of possibly being able to use them “as commodities” (her words) for your personal benefit later. (Such as getting a new job.)

How do you connect this to games? That's the whole philosophy of the Support mechanic in the Fire Emblem franchise! Supports have evolved over time and are appealing to the fans for a variety of reasons, which I'll cover in this article. How well does each Fire Emblem Support structure hew to the friends-not-networks philosophy?