The Mighty Bowser VERSUS The Bootleg Bowser

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Imagine getting a bootleg for a gift.

In these tough economic times, maybe you can't afford to blow your organisational or personal budget on a $270 2,807-piece The Mighty Bowser LEGO set like KoopaTV's staff did; click this for our review of it. (Click here for the official set.) Your choices are then to find alternate ways of entertainment and challenge-tackling, or to turn to bootlegged versions of The Mighty Bowser. Fortunately (???), there are multiple options out there that are significantly cheaper.

Of course, since they're bootlegs, they might not be at the same quality or feature levels you'd get from buying the official $270 LEGO set. For example, no interaction with the LEGO Super Mario stuff. But maybe you just want Bowser. Perhaps this DG Dreams 1358-piece set for only $80 (currently 25% off at $60) would be of... interest? It's about the same size as the real The Mighty Bowser, and it comes with the stand with two towers. Here is a comparison of DG Dreams Bowser versus LEGO Bowser using official product photos:

Left: The Bootleg Bowser
Right: The Mighty Bowser

Why Discord Removing Four-Digit Discriminators is Bad for Nintendo Switch Owners

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Well, it's bad for ME, at least. I don't know what to do!

Recently, Discord announced that they will change how Discord usernames will work. This will allegedly be rolling out soon. When is soon? “In the coming weeks” to be notified of when you can update your account, and then “the course of several months” to actually do it, with the earliest Discord adopters going first. I made a Discord account in 2017 because of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) ending. That means there are millions of people who've been using it before me, but that's still before the majority of its users. I haven't received any notification of when I'll be able to upgrade my username.

The gist of the change is that rather than having a name and then a number sign with four digits afterwards (which are randomly assigned among the four-digit numbers not already in use... unless you pay Discord to be able to change them) that allows for ten thousand people to have that same name, you'll just have one unique username. You send friend requests to that unique username, and you can also have a different display name (which doesn't have to be unique compared to literally every other Discord user) that shows up when you actually talk to people. This is generally how every other service works. Think like Nintendo Network IDs on Miiverse. My NNID was PrinceOfKoopas (I'm the only Nintendo Network ID holder named PrinceOfKoopas), but my display name was Ludwig (of which there were many posers).

Here is my problem: I use my Discord tag (Koopa#5969... for now!) as my Nintendo Switch profile name for the explicit purpose of getting random people I play online with to send me a Discord friend request. It actually works, because people recognise that a name with a number sign with four digits following it is a Discord username. It's distinct to Discord.

Nintendo's Financial Results Briefing for Fiscal Year Ended March 2023 Q&A Analysis!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - They are most interested in the Switch's successor, as well as The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

After Nintendo announced how their financial results for their fiscal year that ended March 2023 went—which was pretty much as expected—they had to field questions from their stock analysts. And that means... I get to analyse their seven questions and Nintendo's (President Shuntaro Furukawa's) answers! You can read the translated question and answer session at this link. What follows are my thoughts, and this time, I think I've written some intelligent things (for what might not all be intelligent questions).

Question 1: What impact will The Super Mario Bros. Movie's success have on Nintendo's future IP expansion initiatives, including revenue projections?

Furukawa says he and Shigeru Miyamoto are pleased about the fans’ overall positive reception to The Super Mario Bros. Movie, including stories of super-fans who had watched it several times. Nintendo will report the revenues of the movie (which are in the NEXT fiscal year that ends March 2024, since the fiscal year just ended in March 2023, and the movie released in April), and Nintendo does see money from that along with Universal, but what they really see is the potential in people buying Nintendo Switch consoles and a bunch of Super Mario videogames as a result of watching and being excited around the movie. Maybe that's how New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe has re-outsold Ring Fit Adventure.

Nintendo does plan to “pour [their] efforts into a variety of visual content”, and it seems like they are looking for other non-game opportunities to expand selective IP in, “with the goal of continually invigorating our core dedicated video game platform business.” Well, you know what could really use some re-invigorating and would be excellent fodder for movies? F-Zero and/or Punch-Out!!. But I think Nintendo wants to get the most bang for their movie investment buck, which means there needs to be several sellable items associated with a new thing they make a movie of. F-Zero and Punch-Out!! have zero, unless you really want to stretch and say people will pay for a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to play Punch-Out!! on the NES... or upgrade to an Expansion Pack to play F-Zero X on the Nintendo 64. But “several” means “more than one”...

On the Nintendo Switch Online bit, Nintendo IS observing and appreciates those numbers, citing a non-specific “slight rise in activity for classic Mario titles that can be played through Nintendo Switch Online.” And maybe THAT means that if you go and play Paper Mario right now on the Expansion Pack emulator, they'll count that as people wanting more Mario games, not people wanting more classic JRPG Paper Mario games. (See that comments section discussion on Nintendo Switch Online emulator telemetry.)

It turns out this isn't the last question on The Super Mario Bros. Movie, though:

Ten Years Completed of KoopaTV... but this anniversary is where it ends

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - An explanation of His Majesty's royal decree and what that means for KoopaTV.

Thank you, if you've been around KoopaTV for the ten years it has been established. Yes, KoopaTV launched on May 12, 2013. It's now May 12, 2023. I suppose it's unlikely anyone has been around since Day 1, but, eh, congrats if you've been close enough.

You may be wondering why KoopaTV has Round 50 (May 1 2023 to June 30 2023) of the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program be its last round. That would be because KoopaTV will not continue after that point. I'll get into the reasons throughout this article, but essentially, it's because the big man that we even have this site for, King Bowser Koopa, no longer believes it is a good use of Koopa Kingdom's resources to continue to operate KoopaTV.

By the way, this is the real King Bowser Koopa. With real scales, not a Trojan cardboard fake (like the last time “Bowser” demanded KoopaTV end). We confirmed this as the Big KoopaTV Staff Meeting in April, and that's when we got his official orders. That also means that we have finally ended our Sierra Leone office lease. So... why is this happening? A lot of the problems are around product-market fit.

KoopaTV's Live Reaction to Nintendo Treehouse: Live's The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Gameplay

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - This counts as our launch coverage, right?

Given their upcoming non-presence at E3 2023 (since E3 2023 won't exist), Nintendo of America apparently still wants their Treehouse division to be streaming gameplay footage of their most important game(s) of the year. For 2023, that's The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

It's unclear what I'll be doing during E3 2023 week, but since I was prepared to watch streams of Nintendo Treehouse: Live during then, I might as well as prepared to do that a month sooner than expected with this stream. And, hey, MAYBE it'll get me to change my mind and want to buy The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom! ...I doubt it. But I'll give it a chance. The rest of this article will be my live (textual) reactions to Treehouse's stream, with occasional screenshots.

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.