I got it for free and I had a good time with it. It has zero depth and nothing to offer outside the "put pictures of yourself into a beat 'em up" gimmick. But it is a pretty fun gimmick.
What I really want to talk about, though, is Nintendo Week. If you've never heard of Nintendo Week, it was a weekly (advertising? sketch comedy? game news? fever dream?) video series released on the Wii's Nintendo Channel that was, in hindsight, kind of a proto-Nintendo Direct? But, like, if the chaos energy of that one E3 Nintendo Direct with all the puppets was just a standard feature. A "this is bad but I sort of love watching it" kind of show, you know?
Anyway, one of the episodes featured an extended segment covering a Photo Dojo tournament at the Nintendo Treehouse offices. Whether this tournament was already planned by the staff or was just a bit for the show was unclear, but what was clear was Bill Trinen winning the tournament and being declared something like the "Photo Dojo Champion of the World".
As far as I know, this title belt that's officially recognized by a Nintendo publication has gone uncontested since that one tournament over a decade ago. And while this is totally understandable considering nobody plays (or cares about) this game anymore, I still jump back into it from time to time to keep my skills sharp. Because if somehow, by some strange sequence of events, I run into Bill Trinen, and I happen to have my 3DS on me...
That title is mine.
What I really want to talk about, though, is Nintendo Week. If you've never heard of Nintendo Week, it was a weekly (advertising? sketch comedy? game news? fever dream?) video series released on the Wii's Nintendo Channel that was, in hindsight, kind of a proto-Nintendo Direct? But, like, if the chaos energy of that one E3 Nintendo Direct with all the puppets was just a standard feature. A "this is bad but I sort of love watching it" kind of show, you know?
Anyway, one of the episodes featured an extended segment covering a Photo Dojo tournament at the Nintendo Treehouse offices. Whether this tournament was already planned by the staff or was just a bit for the show was unclear, but what was clear was Bill Trinen winning the tournament and being declared something like the "Photo Dojo Champion of the World".
As far as I know, this title belt that's officially recognized by a Nintendo publication has gone uncontested since that one tournament over a decade ago. And while this is totally understandable considering nobody plays (or cares about) this game anymore, I still jump back into it from time to time to keep my skills sharp. Because if somehow, by some strange sequence of events, I run into Bill Trinen, and I happen to have my 3DS on me...
That title is mine.
It's easy to disregard this as a shallow fighting game with little content, but I think that the most enjoyable parts come from the fact that you can not only put yourself and your friends in the game, but also anything you screenshot. For instance, I took a few pictures of my Ness amiibo, did a terrible impression of his voice, played as him for a bit and laughed my ass off from hearing my shrill voice. I've even added Goku and Joe Biden to the game, giving them the most nonsensical audio imaginable. As a fighting game it's mediocre, but I'll look past that because the game's too funny for me not to care about it.
Back in the day I had a collection of empty soda cans, and at one point, my Photo Dojo roster was made entirely out of Pepsi cans. I needed a death animation for one of them so I crumpled up the can, and I got really sad because it was part of my can collection and was now ruined. I don’t know what I was thinking.