Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 33: Older and Stronger

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Getting new Game Gym minigame high scores and ranks.

This week on KoopaTV's Fitness Friday series, I've logged my experiences with World 33: Extra Fitness Lv. 211 in Ring Fit Adventure. This retreads World 10: Grandminion Gauntlet, which is basically a big compilation of Ring Fit Adventure's minigames.

I'm mentioning this upfront because the reason I'm doing this training is to compete in the formerly Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games (it's officially still called Tokyo 2020, but let's be real, it's Tokyo 2021) for Team Koopa. You may remember Mario & Sonic at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games as a (bad) minigame compilation. Assuming that the Tokyo 2021 Olympics are most like a minigame compilation, then doing the world based on a minigame compilation seems to be the most effective test of my skills. Therefore, I'm cranking it up from difficulty level 29 to difficulty level 30! That's the highest one! (...Note that the game's difficulty level doesn't impact the minigames in any way.)

On Sunday, the first thing I did was run to General Store Number 29 to buy the Game Machine II, which has the set bonus of increasing experience point gains by 5%. This replaces the much weaker Galactic Jogger set I've been making my go-to outfit for that same set bonus. Or... I tried to buy it, but I need four total Topaz stones and I only have three. (The store also offers the Shadow Jogger II outfit, which requires another Topaz, but it has no set bonus and has the same stats as the Game Machine II, so why would you ever wear it? ...Well, it does have neat aesthetics.) The second thing I did was not start World 33, but run back to World 15: Quizton, to pick up the Persimmon Smoothie recipe I missed on the North Road level. How did I know it's there? ...I looked it up. The Persimmon Smoothie doubles your experience points in a fight when you drink it. It takes four Persimmons to make, and there's no other use for the ingredient in Ring Fit Adventure. (Incidentally, there are Persimmons available to collect in North Road.)

I embedded above how to get to the chest. The reason I missed it to begin with is because of bad game design. Sometimes I compliment Ring Fit Adventure's game design, but in this case, if you skip the blue hook and keep going, you'll go to an orange hook with an alternate path. Only the blue hook has the chest. Games often reward you for being patient and going for the second option, but in this case, you're rewarded for jumping off and going for the very first option presented. Of course, you have absolutely no way of knowing what's behind the other option unless you replay the level, and you have no way of knowing it was something important like a missed smoothie recipe and not just something trifling like money. Bad.

Alright, time to tackle the Game Gyms. First is Gluting Gallery (Advanced), which has a Topaz! And I got in splendid S rank fashion, which I already had. I should note that one of the Grandminions, which are little kids that Guru Andma takes care of (Armie, Gutso, C-C-Calvin, Buttercup, Abigail, and Armanda), are upset that the standards for clearing the Game Gyms are higher in Extra Fitness than Adventure Mode (reflecting they require an A rank for a bonus instead of a mere B rank), which is a nice gameplay-story integration addressing the increased difficulty.

Super Mario Bros. 35's Last World Count Challenge ISN'T a Genocide. Just Hyperinflation

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Though Nintendo is finding other ways to promote Goomba genocide.

After a dual-article intense “NEVER AGAIN” lobbying campaign from KoopaTV (and you)—specifically the article condemning the general genocidal Super Mario Bros. 35 1st World Count Challenge (that disproportionately affected Goombas) and the article condemning the genocidal Super Mario Bros. 35 2nd World Count Challenge (that specifically targeted Goombas), Nintendo's third and final World Count Challenge is...for players to cumulatively collect 350 million Coins to win 350 My Nintendo Platinum Points by March 30, 2:59 Eastern. In other words, the goal isn't murder. It's just inflating the Mushroom Kingdom's currency to general uselessness on a scale far more than the millions of coins that Mario was tasked with creating for New Super Mario Bros. 2.

Quite frankly, the very poor monetary policies of the Mushroom Kingdom government doesn't bother me anywhere near genocide does, given how life is of greater importance than international economics. Yes, it makes it extremely difficult for them to be a viable trading partner, despite their abundance of natural resources.

I was supposed to write a detailed article on the Mushroom Kingdom's inflation woes many years ago and still haven't done so, but this isn't that article. This article is just happy about the lack of widespread incentivised genocide.

Well... that's speaking too soon. Look at this video Nintendo uploaded today:

Our Virtual Tour of Super Nintendo World, Now Open!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - #We Aren't Mario.

Once upon a time, the Nintendo-Universal Studios collaboration theme park Super Nintendo World was supposed to open February 4, 2021. That didn't happen. But, hey, it's open now! (And has been for the past week.) If you got 7,800 yen (after tax) (about $72) lying around for a one-day stay, you can check it out. It's about $141 for a two-day stay. Not my sort of thing, honestly. But I am willing to go on a virtual tour of the place courtesy of the website. At least that's free.

There are a few details we didn't already get from Shigeru Miyamoto's trespassing of Lord Bowser's domain in Super Nintendo World back in 2020. Not only was he trespassing, it turns out that Shigeru Miyamoto vandalised some expensive artwork of the King of Koopas himself. Apparently in the spirit of vandalising Koopa property, the theme park website boldly declares, “#WE ARE MARIO!!” (By the way, hashtags break when you put a space. Dunno if they know that.) But let's look at what's in the park...

Do Yourself a Favour: Listen to "Line Them Up! A Paper Mario Concert"

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Nearly 40 minutes of beautiful renditions of already-amazing music.

While it's not unheard of, usually I don't write articles that are just, “Go listen to this game music.” HOWEVER, since KoopaTV went and gave the Best OST of 2020 award to Paper Mario: The Origami King, I think it makes plenty of sense to promote this concert for that game's music, since it deserves waaaaaay more views and attention than some other recent “viral” fan works:

Line Them Up! A Paper Mario Concert was a collaboration by vgmtogether, a three-day online gaming music event (that happened already ten days ago) made by gaming music fans. The concert had over 160 musicians involved (including guest stars like Rare Ltd.-associated musicians Robin Beanland, David Wise, and Grant Kirkhope), and a LOT of production effort as well, directed by Laura Intravia. I enjoyed it big-league and you will too. If you pay attention, you'll probably find some musicians that you weren't aware of that seem likable and talented enough and maybe follow them.

Covered songs include the main theme, Red Streamer Battle, Event Battle, Picnic Road, Autumn Mountain, Stage Play, Shy Guys Finish Last, Vellumental Battle, Scorching Sandpaper Desert, a Yellow Streamer medley (including Snif City), Singer Spotlight (the Elastic Entertainer and other vocalised themes), a medley of the Legion of Stationery boss themes, Exploring the Great Sea, and final boss music. ...So there may be some music spoilers, if that's a type of spoiler you don't like. (Very minimal visual spoilers though!) Very far from all of the songs in the game, of course, and not even all the best ones. ♪

I received a reader request, and I intend to do it... sometime in 2021... to write a full review for Paper Mario: The Origami King after I wrote the review of Paper Mario: Color Splash four years ago. You already know I love the music. As for the rest of the game? You'll have to wait and read my eventual review.


Ludwig's opening paragraph throwing shade on recent viral fan works includes the reimagined Sinnoh remakes trailer that he likes less and less as time passes. He hopes the concert video-on-demand doesn't get cease-and-desisted or something like the links on his article for the Kirby Café soundtracks did.


Ludwig wrote the review of Paper Mario: The Origami King in the last week of 2021.

"Making Walking Fun": Nintendo + Niantic Team to Create Mobile Pikmin App

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Who is against walking...?

Tonight, Nintendo and Niantic announced they're teaming up to create a mobile app based on the Pikmin series due for release later this year. It's being developed by the mysterious Niantic Tokyo Studio, which was founded in 2018 but has publicly accomplished nothing up to this point. (It seems the reason for that being the challenge of trying to hire enough quality people to make augmented reality-based smartphone games.)

This is the first real collaboration between Nintendo and Niantic, since Pokémon GO notably doesn't count due to being more of The Pokémon Company. (Which Nintendo still has a part of.) Shigeru Miyamoto was quoted in the short announcement as saying that the theme is “making walking fun” and “We hope that the Pikmin and this app will become a partner in your life.” Then they want you to give them your email address so they'll tell you when there's news.

Are... there only going to be Pikmin? No other creatures?
Either they're saving that for one of those future news drops, or they're wasting an opportunity.
(And after they added the Piklopedia to Pikmin 3 Deluxe! ...Which, uh, exists, by the way.)

That's the whole gist of it, so my question is... what do people have against walking? Walking isn't like brushing your teeth, which is inherently unpleasant (and Pokémon Smile, which has a very similar theme of making brushing teeth fun, doesn't actually make it fun). Walking is... a necessity. If you want to be fit, play Ring Fit Adventure on the Nintendo Switch. But maybe this is supposed to incentivise walking into the woods (and getting bit by mosquitos) or walking aimlessly on the streets of your city (and getting ran over by cars and bicyclists like Shigeru Miyamoto)?

Like, look at the picture above. If that art is supposed to be accurate and representative, then that means the Pikmin are as small as you'd expect them to be. What's that mean in practice? You'll constantly be looking down on the ground (through your phone) to see the Pikmin. Where do you want your head to be when walking (or any other method of travel)? Forward in front of you, so you can see where you're going without hitting into something, taking a bad turn, or falling down a ditch. That's a sure way to make walking NOT fun.

Consider me a skeptic. In any case, I'm curious on the “gameplay activities designed to encourage walking and make the activity more enjoyable.”


Ludwig wonders who is against walking, but he himself stays in his castle and doesn't go on recreational walks. If he did, he'd be mentioning them on his weekly KoopaTV Fitness Friday logs. ...So maybe he would benefit from this, until he bashes his face against a sign post or something because he wasn't looking where he was going.


A big reason that walking wouldn't be fun are all of the barking dogs.
The mobile app has launched, and it's called Pikmin Bloom. Ludwig doesn't comprehend how it's supposed to make walking fun.

Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 32: F.L.E.X. System

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - With spicy relationship drama!?

I'm pleased to present the 32nd week of KoopaTV's Fitness Friday series! This mostly features my playthrough of Ring Fit Adventure for Nintendo Switch, but sometimes there's other things in the log for you to read as well.

I'm playing through the Extra Fitness mode, which means I've already gone through the main story and its worlds. Extra Fitness's shtick is that I'm going through all of those worlds again, but now with brand-new dialogue to reflect we're training our bodies to be even stronger (which applies to me in real life, since I'm keeping fit to prepare for the Olympics this summer for Team Koopa), as opposed to saving the world.

This week, we're in World 32: Extra Fitness Lv. 207, which is based off World 9: Flex Dojo. This is Armando's world, and he's the master of... arms. Also, I get the impression he really likes fellow Nintendo Switch game ARMS, since he's constantly talking in ALL-CAPS about ARMS.

The world opens up continuing Armando's character development he got from the end of the normal Adventure Mode, so here's my obligatory spoiler warning to stop reading this if you care about Ring Fit Adventure's story and characters and don't want to read about their character development and don't already know about it...

CAPCOM Publisher Sale of March 2021!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Ubisoft and SQUARE ENIX join in too.

You didn't expect me to be writing about another CAPCOM sale a month after the mid-February sale “themed” after Lunar New Year 2021, did you? ...Eh, you probably did. CAPCOM loves to have sales.

This time, closer to their whole library on the Nintendo eShop is on sale until March 31. Why? I don't know, but it probably has to do with the release of Monster Hunter Rise on the Nintendo Switch on March 26.

Annoyingly, the first Monster Hunter Stories for 3DS is not on sale.

CAPCOM's games on Steam and the Xbox aren't on sale, but some of their PlayStation Store games are on sale, like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy and Mega Man X Legacy Collection (ending March 24), but not Mega Man 11, ŌKAMI HD or Mega Man Zero/ZX Collection. (But all of those games are currently on sale on the eShop! Along with all the Ace Attorney games on the 3DS.)

Lying Twitter Trends Brigades Attack on Republican Congresswoman for Nonexistent Hypocrisy

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - “I get my news from Twitter!” is a bad sign.

I'm told this sort of thing happens all the time, but I want to document it in an article so I can reference it for the future.

On March 14, mainstream social media platform Twitter had this on their trending sidebar (that you can't hide, to my knowledge) for users in the United States:

So this seems like a horrible case of hypocrisy, right?
“YOU VOTED AGAINST IT: Many point out that Rep. María Elvira Salazar voted against the
$1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, after she called it 'my bipartisan relief bill'”

The problem is that this summary by the Twitter trending team (and it's written and curated by humans who work for Twitter) is a complete fabrication and disinformation, and by writing the event in a factual tone, they caused the millions of Twitter users who were in the United States at that time to digest FAKE NEWS, with a sizable percent of them brigading (an online harassment tactic where a bunch of coordinated people swarm in on you) Rep. Salazar (her then-recent tweets were all “ratio'd”, which is an obnoxious Twitter cultural thing phenomenon that has its own toxic culture associated with it) as well. A lot of people apparently believed this to be true information because Twitter, the company, said so.

Here's the true story:

Explaining the Fighters of Many Faces Event Tourney (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate)

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I got one face, but it's a good one. (Actually, almost everyone has one face but different accessories.)

Last weekend (the one with Daylight Saving Time and Marie Day—which made the tourney last one hour less than normal tourneys) there was an event tourney in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. For once in one of these articles about the event tourneys, I'm actually not complaining about the inclusion. It's comprehensive—with one exception that I'll get into. And I was in it. This was the Fighters of Many Faces event tourney, described as:

This time-limited tourney features fighters who change significantly between color variations. They could have a different form or shape, or be someone else entirely!

If you click that link (or scroll down a little further in this article), you'll see an enormous amount of the cast was included in this. Here's what this means: When you switch between the alternate colours/costumes of a character on the selection screen, and if they have any physical model change whatsoever that isn't just a recolour, they got to be in Fighters of Many Faces. Note that physical model changes don't change a character's frame data, hitboxes, or hurtboxes. In other words, it's purely aesthetic and doesn't change gameplay, even if it looks like it ought to.

I've read people think that inclusion in the tournament is themed for characters who can transform in some way. ...But there are lots of characters that don't transform, and some characters who do transform (such as King Bowser Koopa and Ganondorf) who are excluded. So allow me to explain, for every included character, why they're included:

Daylight Saving Time 2021: Contact Your Congresspeople for the Sunshine Protection Act Reattempt!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Quit the clock-changing! ...Here's how to affect change.

I thought we were getting close for the past couple of years on getting the United States of America to take action on Daylight Saving Time (sometimes pluralised as Daylight Savings Time). You guys had President Donald John Trump, who was “O.K.” with making it permanent (as opposed to switching from daylight and standard time twice a year). We had all-time negative opinion polling on Americans’ thoughts on Daylight Saving Time.

And then nothing happened. No change was made, despite the Sunshine Protection Act of 2019 in both the Senate and the House of the 116th Congress. It never made it out of committee. Now President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. is the president of the United States, and he has a very mixed record on DST! (Though he doesn't really matter as long as he doesn't veto it.)

But a new session (117th Congress) is still a new chance, and now there is the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021 in both the Senate (S.623) and the House of Representatives (H.R.69). Like before, they're sitting in the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee and House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce, respectively.

If you live in the United States in the states that these committee members represent (or are willing to pretend to live in those states), call them up and/or email them. Tell them to get going on voting and passing this legislation. For the record, KoopaTV supports year-round standard time as opposed to year-round daylight time, but either one of those is still better than switching between them. Here are the list of committee members and how to contact them (if you choose the email form, select “energy” or “commerce” in the topic drop-down; if you choose phone number, you probably want to call their Washington D.C. office). You might want to ctrl + f your state: