The Surprising Similarities Between Sticker Star and Breath of the Wild

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Paper Mario: Sticker Star is the proto-The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

I have been muttering about how I believe Paper Mario: Sticker Star (developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo) and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (developed and published by Nintendo) fundamentally share similar game design philosophies for several years now. With The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild finally having its sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, releasing at the end of this week, it's time for me to finally and fully share my thoughts about how Paper Mario: Sticker Star is the gameplay prequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It was Nintendo's try of a non-linear limited-durability-weapon game four to five years before Breath of the Wild came out.

For the rest of this article, I'm going to discuss the gameplay similarities between the two titles, and then move on to the narrative similarities. (The story is greatly influenced by the gameplay structure.) Of course, the two games do have differences, as you should expect from a spiritual sequel, so I end the article by discussing those. It is also notable that both Paper Mario: Sticker Star and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are radical departures from what their respective franchises have developed a reputation for.

The Core Design Similarities

Designed with non-linearity

While everyone is well-aware of how The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild starts out—you wake up on the Great Plateau, acquire all of the Runes (Magnesis, Remote Bomb, Statis, Cryonis), and jump off with the Paraglider, and then you get to decide what direction you go—not as many people consider Paper Mario: Sticker Star as a predecessor to this.

Nintendo's Results For Fiscal Year Ended March 2023

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Are we now entering swan song territory?

It is the fun part of the year where Nintendo has completed their fiscal year (abbreviated as FY23, which ended March 31, 2023) and is now reporting on how that went. And the top-line results, year-over-year, are all worse than FY22. (We talked about last year's results last year. See the link below the italicised footer.) FY22 was, itself, a year of decline compared to the year before that, and Nintendo said from the beginning that they'd expect FY23 to be a year of further decline. Less profit, less sales, higher expenses across the board.

Compared to the initial consolidated financial forecast made one year ago for how FY23 would turn out (but note that forecast has changed several times since then), Nintendo was spot-on or better regarding their sales and profit figures. That said, they did expect to sell 21 million hardware units and 210 million software units, and they actually sold 17.97 million hardware units and 213.96 million software units. For FY24, they are now projecting they'll sell 15 million Nintendo Switch units and sell 180 million software units. Their basic strategy remains unchanged: Continue with some new titles, sell more of their already-released games, and hope more people are like Masahiro Sakurai and purchase multiple Switch consoles in their household.

They did sell a lot of a few new games, though, like Pokémon Scarlet, Pokémon Violet, Splatoon 3, and Nintendo Switch Sports. But just not as much first-party games as, say, the year before or the year before that. For this year, their plans are based on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (including its OLED model), with a side of Pikmin 4 and downloadable content for games like Pokémon Scarlet, Pokémon Violet, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Maybe Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp will sell well. And Metroid Prime 4 is still TBA.

Nintendo Live 2023 Has the Worst Possible Registration System, Bypassable by Winning a Splatoon 3 Championship 2023 Qualifier Event

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - You could also win a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Championship 2023 Qualifier.

Did you get excited over last month's news of Nintendo of America announcing a Nintendo Live 2023 event—said to be a Nintendo celebration for the fans, but there will NOT be product announcements—in September 2023 in Seattle?

Well, now it's time for all of that excitement to be sucked out of your mind, as Nintendo has announced new and despairing details. Nintendo Live will be held from Friday, September 1 to Monday, September 4, at the Seattle Convention Center. You can register for FREE tickets (which requires a Nintendo Account holders 18+; you can also register as a Family Group) starting on May 31... and tickets will be distributed randomly by lottery. That's right... if you want to attend, there is no guarantee that you'll be able to attend. Odds are, you won't be able to. If you want to schedule some time with friends ahead of time in attending the event, that'll be rather foolish, since it likely will be for nothing. Especially because your lottery ticket will only be for ONE day. That probably speaks to how much content will actually be at Nintendo Live 2023, but it also would be done to be able to fit more people.

There is another detail: At that same timeframe in the same Seattle Convention Center will be PAX West. PAX West and Nintendo Live 2023 will be co-located events, but they will have different ticketing systems. A ticket to Nintendo Live 2023 will not get you into PAX West 2023, and a ticket to PAX West 2023 will not get you to Nintendo Live 2023. However, PAX West ticket-holders will have the opportunity for an additional lottery-based system to also get a free ticket to Nintendo Live. That way, if you do plan on going to Nintendo Live, you should plan on going to PAX West as well. You can actually purchase tickets to PAX West (and guarantee you'll be there as opposed to relying on RNG) and take advantage of their hotel blocks. I don't understand why Nintendo wouldn't just charge for tickets and have the highest bidders win. They might even recoup the costs of the event that way.

Ah, but there are three skill-based opportunities to get in Nintendo Live 2023—and these will have you there for the duration of the event as opposed to just ONE DAY:

KoopaTV's Failed Attempt at Building THE MIGHTY BOWSER

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Alternatively: Two people with no LEGO experience try building one of the most complicated sets of all time.

While most of KoopaTV's staff were in our Sierra Leone headquarters between April 19 and April 23 this year for a big meeting, we had some non-meeting fun activities. The most fun of those? We permanently blew KoopaTV's current and future budget buying the $270 LEGO The Mighty Bowser set that released last year. Was that worth it? Read this review to find out.

First of all, disclosure. Only two people on KoopaTV's staff actually worked to try to build The Mighty Bowser (set #71411) (ages 18+): myself and Witch Princess. Despite my frequent writing about LEGO Super Mario as a topic, neither of us have LEGO set building experience. To compensate for this, LEGO also shipped us the 4x4 Off-Road Ambulance Rescue (set # 40582) (ages 6+) as a free gift—normally a $20 value. I think it's because they thought an incentive to buy such a large purchase would be cool.

We treated the ambulance as a tutorial level in being able to read LEGO's enclosed instruction books. The ambulance had two bags in it, and we finished the whole thing in an hour (29:48.35 on bag one, and 27:07.50 on bag two) without having issues. (If you're wondering what's with the times, we decided we'd time ourselves for The Mighty Bowser, because no other review on the Internet—and we looked extensively—gave a time for how long it took them to construct the entirety of the set. We decided we'd be the first ones out there to report this information.) This was the wake-up call that The Mighty Bowser would take a very, very long time to build, so we would end up putting some of the meetings off and dedicate the entire Friday to building The Mighty Bowser. Still, despite the time investment, we felt confident that we were competent enough people that we could be successful, even if it would take a long time.

True, the Advance Wars Trilogy's Story isn't Serious

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Seems like some are just figuring that out, but it doesn't make it less true.

In a story that is probably related to KoopaTV's article yesterday about how Nintendo has blacklisted awful videogame outlet Kotaku, Kotaku writer Sisi Jiang, who according to people who actually read the website often writes about identity politics (they love to discuss Chinese and queer issues), wrote an article, “The Advance Wars Remake Is Tactically Satisfying But Narratively Toothless”. In this article, Sisi Jiang reveals itself to be unfamiliar with Advance Wars games up to this point. For example, Sisi believes that damage calculations are “gambling”, even though there is a fairly consistent (besides an occasional luck stat) set of damage calculations that all player versus player theory is founded upon.

Sisi doesn't believe that Advance Wars's gameplay mechanics are as “profound” as they ought to be because of a perceived dissonance between the tactical complexity and the game's excuse plot. It's a well-known fact among Advance Wars fans for the past two decades that the trilogy (Advance Wars, Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, and Advance Wars: Dual Strike—note that Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp only offers the first two of those games, as the name suggests) has a very weak nonsense plot. Personally, I've never understood how the different countries work among the continents (Cosmo Land, Macro Land, Omega Land). Orange Star, Blue Moon, Ye–... Gold Comet, and Green Earth are all countries, and they seem to have presences on all of these continents (under the same name as whichever continent is where their home base continent is, which is never made clear), which suggests a lot of colonialism going on. Some COs are native or stationed to different continents. I dunno.

But Sisi's point is less about lore and more about the fact that the Commanding Officers (COs) don't care about the lives of their units. Neither the protagonists nor antagonists are all that concerned. That is also something that has long been observed among series fans, especially with missions like Rivals at the end of the first Advance Wars, which implies that COs Andy and Eagle are throwing away the lives of their units just for a personal rivalry to see who is better than the other, just for fun. That's lead fans to believe that units aren't actually real people but are basically robots, or maybe predeployed units are real people but units built from factories/airports (what's that?)/(sea)ports are robots. But the games don't go into those details.

Kotaku is Deservedly Blacklisted By Nintendo

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - As enemies of the people, Kotaku should be blacklisted by every other company, too.

Props to Ubisoft and Bethesda for doing this a long time ago. Terrible gaming journalism outlet Kotaku has a long history of poor behaviour towards game publishers, such as leaking very unannounced game information. Kotaku defends their behaviour with “it's our job to be good videogame journalists and serve our readers well, not to be mouthpieces and allies for the corporations.” (They also claimed to have “millions of readers” back in 2015, though I can't disconfirm that they don't. I just think it'd be unfortunate to be one of those millions.)

I have a very tough stance against leakers, though Kotaku not only loves their own leaking, but they also like to spread others’ leaks on unsuspecting readers. (Even when it's actually FAKE NEWS.) That damages their reader base. It doesn't help them. Anyway, one of the most popular games to leak right now is The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. While you won't find any leaks of it on KoopaTV, it's pretty easy to find them on Kotaku. This is one of the few ways Kotaku can actually cover The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom right now, because Nintendo has blacklisted the outlet from having a preview/review copy of the game:

If You Want a PlayStation 5 in 2023, You Can Get One at MSRP

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - That took a while, but I admit it's progress.

Two and a half years ago (November 2020), Sony Interactive Entertainment released the PlayStation 5 to market. For quite some time, it has experienced low supply and high demand at its $500 base price point, and potential customers found themselves at the mercy of scalping resellers that jacked up the price to something closer to what it should've economically been the whole time.

In 2022, Sony decided to raise the MSRP (the manufacturer's suggested retail price, though Sony appears to call it the RRP, or recommended retail price) of the PlayStation 5 everywhere on Earth... except for the United States of America. At the time, the PlayStation 5 was STILL unavailable at the normal retail outlets. Sony cited rising worldwide inflation rates for their price increase, ignoring that the United States Dollar was also suffering inflation and thinking that no one would appear to notice that. I opined that Sony should've raised the price in America, and it should've been a higher price to begin with. Well, about that...

KoopaTV's April 2023 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We have VERY big news to share, so read the entire newsletter. Carefully.

Hey, it's May!

Good job to you for surviving this long. Good job to us, too. It's felt like a rough whirlwind, yeah? Well, we have a number of items to share in the newsletter that focus less on April 2023 and more on things going on after May 1, 2023, but I'm still going to review April, too. Here's some proof:

Top Five Recommended Experiences of April 2023

Even though we had three days off from April 2023, we also had an additional day on (Saturday, April 1) that wouldn't normally happen, so I'm comfortable going with a top five instead of a top four. It's certainly a tough competition even at five:

1. The Short History of the Disrespected DK Rap — In basically every opportunity the DK Rap has had since 2001, it has been shafted and disrespected in some way. The Super Mario Bros. Movie leaving Grant Kirkhope's name out of its credits is just one of a long line of examples.
2. LEGO Super Mario Character Pack Series 6, Wendy O. Koopa in the Creativity Toolbox, and Pom Pom on a Balloon Ride — Ludwig plays catch up on wave 6 of the LEGO Super Mario series, and in the process, uncovers several storylines that further prove his on-going point that Mario is a vicious and evil man who must be stopped.
3. Alex Jones Is Wrong About Mario Hallucinating Koopas — American talk personality Alex Jones is correct that Mario is a bad guy, but in the process of making his point, he stated that Koopas are a product of a drug-induced hallucination on Mario's part. KoopaTV takes great issue with that claim.
4. The Truths About the FAIRtax — After listening to the media and politicians lie about the plan, Ludwig writes several truths about the FAIRtax, a national consumption tax plan in the United States, based on common objections and questions he has encountered.
5. SEEK POWER! Power Versus Wisdom Versus Courage Splatfest! — The upcoming Splatfest asks you which you should seek of power, wisdom, or courage. The choice to KoopaTV is clear: MORE POWER. Ludwig explains why.

Hm, tough competition didn't do it justice. April 2023 was a SPECTACULAR month for KoopaTV content. I'm (still) impressed by my own output. Hopefully, you are too. Everything, even if not listed above, is worth reading. There were several things I wanted to include but couldn't! The above list was created in chronological order of when it was published, by the way.

SEEK POWER! Power Versus Wisdom Versus Courage Splatfest!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Might makes right! Force makes action!

In a no-brainer idea for a Splatoon 3 three-way Splatfest theme, and supposedly to celebrate The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom releasing in a few weeks, next weekend's Splatfest (May 5 to May 7) will ask...

Which do you seek? Power, wisdom, or courage?
I am reading this prompt as asking what do you want more of than what you currently have.

Now, I've seen more than one person out there say that they aren't a fan of The Legend of Zelda, or that they hardly know her. Well, this theme isn't REALLY about the series. This is NOT Ganondorf versus Zelda versus Link. It is Power versus Wisdom versus Courage, and those are universal themes that you can look inside yourself and reflect on what you want more of. In fact, the Anarchy Splatcast discussion between Shiver, Frye, and Big Man didn't go and reference The Legend of Zelda besides that line about the Triforce Throwdown. As a result, even though this is technically a sponsored Splatfest (which I historically dislike), it doesn't feel like one, and it's actually a pretty good question. Shiver wants more power for making her wishes come true. Frye wants more wisdom so she wouldn't get lost. And Big Man...um...?

Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl: Two Faithful Remasters With Different Fan Receptions

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - It bothers me how different the fanbases are.

Congratulations to Advance Wars fans on their long-awaited release of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, which released on April 21, 2023. (That year is important!) It is a mostly faithful high-definition remaster of Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising (2001 and 2003, respectively), both from the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, developed by the team at WayForward, who wouldn't normally handle Advance Wars stuff. Intelligent Systems trusted WayForward to do a good job with it. WayForward brought a new art style. Advance Wars fans are mostly happy.

Compare and contrast that to Pokémon fans with their long-awaited release of a Nintendo Switch version of Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl (two Nintendo DS games released 2006–2007), also known as a multi-year cry for “SINNOH REMAKES!”. Pokémon Shining Pearl and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond released on the Nintendo Switch on November 19, 2021. These remasters were developed by the team at ILCA, who wouldn't normally handle Pokémon game development, but GAME FREAK trusted them. ILCA brought a unique art style. Unfortunately, Pokémon fans are mostly unhappy with these releases, with the unnotable exception of myself.

What happened for these different fan receptions to two sets of products that have a similar design philosophy and respect for the originals? Let's discuss.