Turtwig as a Troopea Sprite

By TURTWIG VON KOOPA - Turtpea? Troowig? Koopea? We need a name for this...

For those wondering, Ludwig is... or was doing alright after the assassination attempt on him from four months ago. He has been going through some physical therapy to work that out, but a lot of his progress seemed to be reverted upon hearing that ŌKAMI will be getting a sequel (and apparently Ōkamiden doesn't exist?) because Ludwig went into a total state of shock. Given his present vegetative condition, Ludwig's global set of minions have decided to pitch in and send him a nice vegetable-related birthday present. The finest artists in Koopa Kingdom and beyond the dimensions have produced this custom sprite:

You may be familiar with the quadruped Troopea from Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, native to the Beanbean Kingdom. These are relatives of Koopa Troopas from Koopa Kingdom. They may look like Koopas... but they have sprouts growing from their heads. You may also be familiar with the Pokémon called Turtwig, which is the quadruped Tiny Leaf Pokémon that also has a sprout growing from its head. Turtwig are commonly seen as “first partner Pokémon” (or starter Pokémon) in the Sinnoh region. Troopea and Turtwig are conceptually similar. In the past, others have noted that Troopea is like a “proto Turtwig”, and some have even requested a custom sprite merging the two, with one guy saying he's working on it back in 2008. But no such sprite was ever actually made, to Ludwig's disappointment. ...Until now!

Ludwig has quite a bit of affection for Turtwig in particular, and Grass types in general, and Troopea is basically a Grass-type Koopa Troopa from his own planet. Given the currency situation, Ludwig doesn't actually get to peacefully visit the Beanbean Kingdom all that much, but he likes Troopeas in theory and is as fascinated by them as someone who doesn't know biology can be.

Ludwig Von Koopa Statement on Attempted Assassination at Nintendo Museum

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - About yesterday's events (August 19, 2024).

I want to thank The Koopa Kingdom Squirtle Squad, and all of Law Enforcement, for their rapid response on the shooting that just took place in the Nintendo Museum, Uji City, Kyoto. Most importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the Koopa at the Visit who was killed, and also to my family of the other Koopalings that were badly injured. It is incredible that such an act can take place in that Country.

Quite a bit is known at this time about the suspected shooter or shooters, who are all alive. I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the scales. Much bleeding took place, so I realised then what was happening. GOD BLESS KOOPA KINGDOM!

Regarding the suspects, Nintendo Executive Fellow Shigeru Miyamoto can be seen and heard on video instructing himself and Nintendo employees (in Japanese),

“Yes! Don't shoot Mario or Peach! Aim and shoot at the Koopa Troopas! OK, there are a lot of them! Let's shoot ‘em! Bob-ombs are flying at us! I wonder how I did. What's my score? It seems good!”

KoopaTV's June 2023 Review Newsletter — The FINAL Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - You'll want to read this entire newsletter if you care even a little about KoopaTV!

I don't want to write this newsletter, since I know what it represents (and you should click that link if you don't understand why it's the last newsletter), and it's not something I like.

For more information on that, read to the end of this newsletter.

Don't miss KoopaTV's new videogame, Fire Withdraw!

You might not have expected KoopaTV to publish a videogame on the Sunday before this newsletter was to go out. But it happened! It's a very rare and fortunate event. ...And you ought to go play Fire Withdraw, too, instead of just marveling at its existence. You can play Fire Withdraw directly from KoopaTV for free, even. (Play it on a PC.)

The answer to the second question should be “Yes” if you focus hard enough.
But you gotta prove it!

Hm, I'm just now reminding myself that I (or multiple people) need to go update the TV Tropes pages for both our videogames and our website as a whole.

Top Five Recommended Experiences of June 2023

June 2023 was pretty much the only month of KoopaTV's ten-year history where I had a plan for what to publish on every day of the month. However, FakE3 events kept popping up that needed a Reaction Log, so that bumped off content that will now just never exist. ...So it's hard to pick just five articles from a month that had a lot of high-intent works, several of which I've wanted to write for YEARS. Here's my attempt (that ends up omitting all of those Reaction Logs) in chronological order:

1. Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl Resolved Many of Diamond & Pearl's Release-Era Issues — This article exists on the theory that the issues identified near when a game is initially released are more authentic problems than those that crop up several years later, which are prone to outside influences and unrelated biases. Based on that, Ludwig compared the noted negatives of Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl a decade and a half ago with what Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl did, to try to mend the latter's poor fan reputations.
2. The Mushroom Kingdom Hyperinflation and its Problem for the Koopa Clan — The monetary mismanagement caused by Princess Peach of the Mushroom Kingdom causes great damage to the Koopa Kingdom, and that's why Koopa Kingdom's interventions are justified.
3. Pokémon Stadium Kids Club Minigame Tier List — There are nine minigames in Pokémon Stadium—which are the worst and which are the best? And why?
4. Mario's Subcon Dream Comes From Childhood Memories — There is a very close tie between Mario dreaming about Subcon compared to his memories as a baby, which this article explores.
5. Left-Handedness Deserves More Recognition — The left-handed witch, Witch Princess, discusses her difficulties operating in a world and gaming ecosystem designed for right-handed people.

Hm, that's overwhelmingly biased towards the last week of June. In times like that, I'll say that every KoopaTV article is worth reading and checking out. And you ought to do just that. Especially since there won't be any new articles coming out—so you'll be able to much more easily catch up than ever before! Now... let's move on to the user-generated parts (and afterwards, a big list of KoopaTV prize winners, and concluding thoughts you'll want to see):

Play Fire Withdraw: A Free Videogame By KoopaTV!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The next generation of one-button gameplay, with a very important moral lesson.

Check below (under the page break, so it doesn't try to load every time someone sees the home page) for a new videogame you can play right from KoopaTV. ...On a PC with a keyboard. This is KoopaTV's first new videogame since 2017! And this is my first completed project developed using Scratch 3.0. It's also KoopaTV's first and only videogame that's based on the Super Mario IP. (Which we don't own. Go beat the Story Mode for the credits.)

As of July 9, 2023, you can now play the game with just a mouse, but it's not implemented in an optimal way or reflected in-game yet. This patch also made Level 5 marginally easier.

As of July 31, 2023, the in-game instructions and user interface reflect mouse use, including level selection and a new KoopaTV instructional dialogue in Level 1 (and Level 1 is marginally easier to make sure you don't die while listening to the instructions). This should also make the game playable on a mobile device. I strongly believe that the most optimal way to play the game is still using a keyboard key, though.

Fire Withdraw is KoopaTV's first and last-ever videogame that you could play on a mobile device!
(It's inferior to using a keyboard on a PC, but it's possible to play through the game and the UI fully supports it!
Try it on a stable connection.)

Fire Withdraw is a single-player game that evolves the one-button gameplay inspired by the Egg Catcher minigame from Kirby's Adventure (and Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe) and further developed by the Rock Harden minigame from Pokémon Stadium. I have a full explanation of everything below the page break (plus the embedded game itself, playable right from your web browser), so go: ↓↓↓↓↓

↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓

Buy the Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective Remaster!

>By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Play the free demo if you feel nervous about the idea!

Today, several notable videogame titles released on the market. I have no problem with them (except for probably Everybody 1-2-Switch), but I will have a problem with YOU if you do not strongly consider purchasing the HD remaster of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, available on all modern gaming platforms at the moment. I'm saying this as someone who still has the DS cartridge (but also considers its 2011 release to be a top 10 game released in the 2010s.) Here is the launch trailer particular to the Nintendo Switch.

The trailer might make it seem like any typical murder mystery adventure game (featuring time travel), but unlike, say, Ace Attorney, Ghost Trick (written by Shu Takumi, who wrote several Ace Attorney titles) is significantly more interactive. You're not just pushing A to scroll through text and occasionally making menu-based selections (by no means do I personally have an issue with that level of interactivity, but I know some people I've tried pitching Ace Attorney to do have that problem); your spirit is constantly moving around, and you must move around strategically. The puzzles get multi-layered and quite involved as the game progresses, though you can try again as often as you'd like.

Non-living or non-formerly living objects are all across detailed environments, and moving from possessing one to another within your range is how you move.
...And some objects let you perform an action, too.

Ike (from Fire Emblem) is Not Gay

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The accusations against him are playground bully logic. Instead...

For several years, KoopaTV's comments section has been assailed by weirdos who insist that Ike from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is gay. Or maybe it's the same guy.

Unfortunately, it's not just that one guy who has been spreading this claims about Ike. There is a whole part of the Fire Emblem fanbase that has mistaken beliefs about romantic and/or sexual relationships, including many people that are themselves gay. It's very strange to see to see, but a big part of it is that there is a movement (that doesn't care about the truth) that wants to redefine any and every character as gay, in their image. (Some game developers are also interested in doing this to their own characters, or as the basis for making new characters.) They even want to say I'm gay. And to that, I say, don't say gay!

...Seriously, don't. It's not a very precise term. (And it's only in my article headline because that's the terminology people keep using, not because it's good terminology.) Instead, take a look at this 2x2 matrix I've developed. It's... not a very original thought, but it's a concept a lot of people don't understand, including laypeople:

This 2x2 matrix represents classifications on romantic and sexual attractions, based on attraction/no attraction to the same or opposite sex. (For more information, research “split attraction model.”)
The sexual identity movement tries to overcomplicate this with ideas of >2 genders and words with complex prefixes to feel unique and quirky, but this chart is the basic and enduring truth.
(There... may be one possible addition or complication to this that may explain common attractions in Fire Emblem, however.)

This chart may raise even more questions, so before I go to talking about Ike's life specifically, I'll answer some of those questions. ...Be careful, because this article has big SPOILERS for his games.

Left-Handedness Deserves More Recognition

By WITCH PRINCESS - It's hard to operate in the world with your preferred hand when almost everything wasn't designed for you to do so.

If you couldn’t tell from the title of the article, I am a left-handed witch. That means I pretty much am accustomed to doing (almost) everything with my left hand, from writing to eating to using a physical calculator.

I say almost in parenthesis because there are things such as cars, computers, and even video game console controllers that require me to use my right hand much to my displeasure.

My dominant hand has always been my left, according to my parents. Fortunately, I had parents who never tried to “retrain” me to use my right hand instead of my left. However, just because they didn’t doesn’t mean I was free of right-handed influence. There’s a whole list here dedicated to lefty problems!

The main problem I’m going to share with you though relates to gaming for lefties, specifically, a call to Nintendo and other companies to design ergonomic controllers for us!

Mario's Subcon Dream Comes From Childhood Memories

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - More specifically, the events of Super Mario Bros. 2 was influenced by the events of Yoshi's Island (chronologically).

Remember: The events of Super Mario Bros. 2 (or Super Mario Advance, the superior way to experience it) were all a dream. They did not actually happen. ...Sorry, I guess that spoiled the game's ending, but I'd like to think everyone knew that already.

That isn't a controversial statement—or shouldn't be, if you understand dreams. However, even though the events of the dream are fictitious, they do represent—even in an indirect way—things that actually happened to the person who was dreaming (Mario). For more information, let's ask an expert in the field. He's known as Pewter. He seems to know what he's talking about:

Pewter: Dreams can only be constructed from images and experiences the subject was present for.
Mizuki's Somnium couldn't have contained that figure if she didn't see it in person.
Of course, not everything we see in our dreams looks exactly the same as it did in the real world.
You saw some strange things in Somnium earlier, didn't you, Date?
That event you experienced is obviously not as it happened in reality.
Dreams are a collage of many memories intertwining and blending with each other.
Your skills as a Psyncer allow you to untangle those dreams and solve mysteries no one else can.

What does the state of Mario's dreamy experience in Super Mario Bros. 2 have to say about his past experiences? I believe the memories he's conjured up come from his childhood, or more specifically, his state as a baby or toddler. Now, this can get messy, because Mario has a time machine, and that's how Baby Mario can co-exist with his adult self in the present at times (or sometimes his adult self is in the past). And sometimes he's even employed his baby self as a... doctor? So that causes scenarios where Baby Mario's memories involve things he's seen way into the future, and that affects Mario's dreams in the present (or past relative to today, when he actually had the dream told by Super Mario Bros. 2). In other words, because of his baby self time travelling, Mario as of Super Mario Bros. 2 is able to dream of things that hadn't happened yet in his life because those were past memories encountered by his baby self in the future.

With that caveat out of the way, we'll try to understand Mario's subconscious for the rest of this article.

Pokémon Stadium Kids Club Minigame Tier List

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Worst-to-best of the nine minigames in Pokémon Stadium!

A few months back right after the first Pokémon Stadium became available on the Nintendo 64 emulator on Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, I wrote an article about how Generation 1 mechanics really don't hold up today. I also wrote about how the minigame aspect (the Kids Club) is overrated, because the quality of the minigames themselves are lacking. Today, I'm going to go into more detail about those minigames and how they are designed, rating them in a worst-to-best tier list. My experiences are based on playing the minigames both with three other computer players, as well as with other real people. Also, note that my ratings are based on playing Pokémon Stadium on the Nintendo Switch. I DID play it on the Nintendo 64, but my game design thoughts are significantly more refined now.

If you get five minigame wins in a row in “Who's the best?” mode on HARD difficulty, you'll unlock HYPER difficulty.
It's not more fun than HARD, and winning is sometimes impossible.

Ekans’ Hoop Hurl

In-game Description:

Aim using the + Control Pad. Pull back and flick the Control Stick to launch EKANS.

The one with the highest score wins.

Pull the Control Stick back further to toss further.

Flick it lightly to toss a short distance.

Featured Pokémon

Ekans (controlled), Diglett (objective), Dugtrio (design of the floor)

Time

60 seconds. The player with the highest score at the end of that time wins. Ties are possible.

Ekans’ Hoop Hurl is easily the worst minigame of Pokémon Stadium—and I'd argue among the worst experiences of the entire Nintendo 64 library. It is one of the very few Nintendo 64 experiences that asks you to use both the Control Stick and the Control Pad at the same time. This is terrible for several reasons, including how uncomfortable it is.

I'd like to show you the in-game description below. Pay particular attention at the photo of how you are supposed to hold the controller. Note that controllers don't look like this anymore: Both the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller and Nintendo GameCube Controller, as examples, have the Control Stick at the top left of the controller and a D-Pad southeast of it. Those controllers also have two prongs for two-handed people, instead of the Nintendo 64's three prongs for three-handed people:

Ludwig's First-Ever Visit to a Physical Therapist

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - An evaluation appointment. Treatment appointments to come. (Now updated at the bottom of the article.)

I haven't played Ring Fit Adventure since the start of 2023. There is something resembling a good reason for this: I've been in pain for the past four months, particularly on my right hip. As opposed to persistent pain in my left hip at the end of 2021. You probably have the impression that my body is a mess. You would be right.

Since I haven't been totally following my chiropractor's fitness advice (and my chiropractor helps me feel better but doesn't cure my pain in the long-term), my primary care physician suggested I go to a physical therapist (PT). It takes quite a while to schedule an evaluation appointment with a physical therapist, since I suppose they're in big demand. (My doctor also refused to let me get an MRI or X-ray because he thinks I'm too young to have problems). But today I finally got one! For the first time ever. Lemme tell you what happened.