About the Mario Kart 8 DLC Leaks

As you might know, I'm a hobby editor myself, working for ZeldaEurope. And what I learned in all those years is never trust the big media sites. They are all like sparrows. If one starts to fly, they all do. Even if there's nothing there.

Now, you might have seen the Mario Kart 8 DLC leaks recently, which now got falsely debunked as a fake, because someone on GameFAQs (Nin3DSFan) used the data to make some jokes. But the original data wasn't from this guy, it was from Brawl Custom Music back in November. See this discussion about the original leak, which revealed the following five tracks for the upcoming DLC pack:

• GCN Baby Park
• 3DS Neo Bowser City
• Animal Crossing
• Woods
• Metro

What happened here is the controversy about the choice of Retro tracks. I personally like them, Neo Bowser City is my favorite track from Mario Kart 7 and I would be happy to see it back, while Baby Park is certainly one of the most unique tracks from the series, which should be in there for the fun alone. It could also make a great battle arena.

But not everyone agrees with my opinion, some might find Neo Bowser City to be boring and others might find Baby Park to be a cheap addition, which caused some heavy dispute over whether this leak is real or not. Nin3DSFan (the guy on GameFAQs) now used this to have some fun, you might even call it "trolling". His posts are entertaining, I give him that, and at one point he even "admitted" in an apology that he only made the leaks up. In the very next sentence he makes clear that he's just joking, however, someone NeoGAF completely missed the joke and thought this was proof that the leak is fake. Ironically he even says that people should look more into things, before believing everything, while he didn't even manage finish reading the fake apology. Some moderator on NeoGAF then closed the thread based on this false "proof" and the news sites picked this up, ignoring all the posts about original source (including one of mine).

And this is how modern Nintendo news sites work, ladies and gentleman. Their world view is based on NeoGAF and even there they only dig on the surface. None of these infos were new, these leaks were around since November, some even picked them up a while ago, but sites like NintendoEverything tend to miss these infos, because there are no passionate editors around, who really dig for this stuff. Remember all the pictures of the 8-Bit weapons for Hyrule Warriors from crediar, which he posted before they were officially revealed? This also never made the news, but not because it wasn't "interesting" enough, but because they simply missed it. Probably should have posted it on NeoGAF, I guess.

I'm not saying that the Mario Kart 8 leak will turn out to be real, so don't laugh it me if it's not going to be Neo Bowser City and Baby Park. I'm just saying that they are not yet proven to be fake and after all the accurate Hyrule Warriors DLC leaks I wouldn't wonder if this turned out to be real as well. But I guess we will know for sure in a couple of days.

The moral of this story is: don't trust the big media sites or big media in general. Those are all just sparrows. Don't get me wrong, sites like NintendoEverything are really good when it comes to sharing and collecting official info about Nintendo. I use them on a daily basis. But when you have to do more than just copying info, mistakes like this happen a lot, sadly.

Update: And the leak was real, all tracks are in! Guess that guy on GameFAQs was just lucky... Oh, and there's Cheese Land, that was also on my wish list, because it was quite a thematically unique track from Super Circuit. There's also Ribbon Road, which looks amazing as well. I'm very happy with these! But the biggest surprise was probably getting another F-Zero track, but I guess these games are a good source for some anti-gravity action.

Majora's Mask 3D Fishing Journal, Entry 2

After my last entry in February I relatively quickly caught all the other remaining fish except for one: the infamous Great Fairy Fish. But then I didn't have much time on my hand and going for the Great Fairy fish felt like a slow task, so I didn't return to the fishing minigame until today. And now I managed to finally complete my collection:

To get the Great Fairy Fish you have to spent a good time fishing during the first two days, so that it appears on Day 3. I don't think it matters, what and how many fish you get in advance. I mostly caught Seabass and Goby, but also one Ambrosial Amberjack, one Dancing Bream, some Fairy Fish, some Skull Fish and two Bashful Angler. So, that you have to catch all types of fish before Day 3 or even empty the pond, those are just a rumors. If anything maybe go for Fairy Fish. But you should spent a good amount of time with one fishing session.

So, now save your game at the Dawn of the 3rd Day, so you can reset, if you're unlucky. Then go to the seaside fishing pond, wear the Fairy's Mask and enter and exit, until the hair starts glimmering. If the hair doesn't glimmer, you simply exit and re-enter, there's no reason to check the pond, because there won't be any Fairy Fish around. If the hair glimmers, you can go and check, if the Great Fairy Fish is there. It's supposed to be in the crystal cave on the deep right side. Unlike Lord Chapu-Chapu it's not so easy to spot, it hides behind the sea grass and it's quite smaller than the cave. At first I thought it might be larger and as easy to spot as Chapu-Chapu, but that's not the case. You really have to go in front of the cave to see it.

Then now find the small Fairy Fish around. You might be unlucky and it's on the opposite site of the pond. This actually happened to me. But you can still get it, where it needs to be. I stood on top of the pillars in front of the crystal cave and I pulled the small Fairy Fish towards the big one and then I let it go. Some people complain, how heavily luck based he Great Fairy Fish is, because they expect a small Fairy Fish right in front of the crystal cave. But you might not get so lucky or only after many, many visits. But the small Fairy Fish doesn't need to spawn there, you only have to get it there. So give it a try.


So, here's my list of records. (I put the German values in parenthesis, because they make more sense, size-wise. Though not all of it, it's really weird.)

• Termina Bass: 13cm (61cm)
• Termina Loach: 22cm (79cm)
• Groovy Carp: 5cm (39cm)
• Sweet Ranchfish: 5cm (39cm)
• Fragrant Reekfish: 10cm (53cm)
• Mooranha: 7cm (44cm)
• Postal Salmon: 42cm (108cm)
• Cuccofish: 7cm (44cm)
• Ancient Fish: 114cm (178cm)
• Ferocious Pirarucu: 170cm (217cm)
• Colossal Catfish: 125cm (186cm)
• Lord Chapu-Chapu: 380cm (325cm)

• Termina Seabass: 43cm (109cm)
• Goodta Goby: 6cm (42cm)
• Ambrosial Amberjack: 37cm (102cm)
• Bashful Angler: 49cm (117cm)
• Dancing Sea Bream: 22cm (78cm)
• Fairy Fish: 12cm (57cm)
• Ninja Flounder: 21cm (77cm)
• Skullfish: 36cm (100cm)
• Nuptuna: 103cm (169cm)
• Grand Swordfish: 187cm (228cm)
• Savage Shark: 209cm (241cm)
• Great Fairy Fish: 392cm (330cm)

I might try to score some better records, but now that I caught all the fish types, I'm not much interested in this minigame anymore. It also doesn't provide any replay value, it feels like something, I'd only ever do once. Maybe I do it a 2nd time in a couple of years, but it's similar to all the Ship Parts and Train Cars in the Nintendo DS Zelda games. It feels great to complete these collections, but it's too random to offer any incentive to play this multiple times.

So, I most likely will keep the fishing going in this one savegame and if I ever decide to replay Majora's Mask 3D, I probably won't touch the fishing in the new savegame.

Turok: Rage Wars - All Medals

As a reply to my review from 2009, today I finally collected all 50 medals in Turok: Rage Wars.

For the longest time I was stuck with 49 of 50 medals, because the medal "Coming in Last" (sense that irony in the name) requires four controllers. But I thought I should just buy two cheap N64 controllers from ebay and finish this game for my Backloggery. And it sure feels great to return to an old favorite game 15 years later to finally complete it. It also shows, how great Nintendo's old hardware is. My Nintendo 64 works still like a charm and the Controller Pack still had all the save data on it. That's what I call timeless stuff. Not sure that the Wii U will fare the same.

Now in case you viewed this post, because you want to know, how to get all medals, I don't want to disappoint you. Basic rule for almost all medals was that they needed a 2nd player. As soon as I had a friend or my brother playing with me, medals kept popping in. You cannot just plug in a 2nd controller and frag a dummy, however, the game keeps checking for activity of all players. But you can trick the game by using rubber bands on the Z trigger. Which is also what I did for the last medal.

The medals are divided into 36 map achievements and 14 special medals. As for the map achievements, you simply have to win a 10 minute match with a score of 10 more on the map in multiplayer. For most medals you also need to use all your weapons including secondary fire modes. But you can bypass this by using either Tal'Set, who gets his weapons at random, Raptor or Mites. Here's a list of all the achievements:

• Achievement on Proving Grounds
• Achievement on Basic Training
• Achievement on Crossroads
• Achievement on Grim Retreat
• Achievement on Cathedral
• Achievement on Fallout
• Achievement on Boxed Set
• Achievement on Dire Straight
• Achievement on Prey
• Achievement on Warehouse
• Achievement on Water Temple
• Achievement on Bomb Shelter
• Achievement on Tempered
• Achievement on Earth Temple
• Achievement on Fire Temple
• Achievement on Mystic
• Achievement on Bottleneck
• Achievement on Tightrope
• Achievement on the Pit
• Achievement on Leap of Faith
• Achievement on Wicked Dance
• Achievement on Bunker
• Achievement on Amphitheater
• Achievement on Fire Walker
• Achievement on Crypts
• Achievement on Breakdown
• Achievement on Retaliation
• Achievement on Hopeless
• Achievement on Matrix
• Achievement on Fathom
• Achievement on the Pedestal
• Achievement on Defcon 5
• Achievement on Spirit Temple
• Achievement on Stronghold
• Achievement on Courtyard
• Achievement on Starlight

Earth Temple, Fire Temple, Water Temple and Spirit Temple? No wonder I liked this game!

Now the remaining medals had you do very specific tasks:

• Attained 15 Frags in 5 Minutes
• Attained 25 Frags in 10 Minutes
• Not Getting any Frags
• Killing Yourself 5 Times
• Coming in Last
• Total Frag Award
• Total Being Killed Award
• Sniping 10 People in a Round
• Not Being Killed in a Round
• Defeated Bastille
• Defeated Syra
• Defeated Symbiont
• Defeated Tal Set
• Beating the Cooperative Scenario

Most of this is self explanatory. A "round" should again be a 10 minute match. The Total Frag and Total Being Killed Awards are awarded for accumulating 1000 Kills and 1000 Deaths on one profile. The "Coming in Last" medal, which I got today, requires you to lose a four player match with at least 10 Frags difference to the third place. I used a 50 Frag limit for this one and played on my favorite map Hopeless, where you can quickly score frags.

For the "Attained X Frags in X Minutes" medals you have to set the frag and time limits accordingly. Also, don't forget to use all your weaponry or special characters.

The four boss medals are the only ones you can get in singleplayer. They don't have any special requirements, just beat the bosses. And from what I heard you can't get the coop medal in the US version because of a bug. If you have any questions about how to get all medals, feel free to ask in the comments.