Partnering With Krystal Burger Chain
I'm happy to announce that we at the Krystal Archive have reached an exciting new agreement with the Krystal mini-hamburger chain!
If you weren't already aware, the Krystal restaurant chain is one of the oldest in the United States, primarily serving the Southeast corner of the country. They are famous for their mini-hamburgers (or sliders) and mini-corndogs, as well as often operating 24 hours a day. In 2020, they filed for bankruptcy, which we reported here on the Krystal Archive. Since then, they have been hard at work restructuring the company. Now, they're making a come-back with new locations and reinvigorated business goals.
To that end, the Krystal Archive will soon introduce small banner ads for the restaurant: the first paid advertisements on the Krystal Archive. In return, SPB Hospitality (Krystal's holding company) has agreed to pay hosting costs and provide cross-promotion opportunities on the Krystal.com website under the banner of "Other Krystal Lovers".
I hope you are all as excited as I am to spread the appreciation of our beloved blue vixen to a much wider audience. Even more significant is the precedent set: This may well be the first time a major restaurant chain has teamed up with a fansite of any kind.
Please look forward to these changes in the near future. Be sure to check out the announcement video from Krystal Burger as well.
Update
Happy April Fools Day Everyone!
New Krystal Keychain Available for Purchase
I know a lot of you love these kinds of Krystal keychains. Well, there's another one out there. Artist Praquina (or Daniela Najera) has made an acrylic Krystal keychain available on Etsy. The keychain will take 2-3 weeks to be produced, but there are no apparent limits on quantity. They're $12 each and are 7 centimeters (2.75 inches) in size. Shipping is $7.
Krystal Archive 18th Anniversary!
Can you believe it's been 18 years since this humble little fansite joined the internet? I can't.
So you've probably noticed there hasn't been much posting here. That's putting it lightly. There hasn't been a post for over 6 months! There were only 17 total posts all year. It's a real shame. I apologize for that.
The reason is still the same: my job. I've been put in charge of a whole team and tasked with building an entire software solution (two of them!) in a little less than a year. In addition to my normal work as a front end developer, I've also now been tasked with being a backend programmer, a manager of other programmers, a software engineering instructor and mentor, code librarian, and advisor on design and deployment. It's a lot.
Also, I got a girlfriend recently.
Anyway, I'll keep it short. In 2024, I hope to return to a normal schedule with regular posts. Yes, I see you guys when you email me or message me on Discord. I just haven't had time to respond. I plan to get back to you. Thank you so much for your patience! We're going to make 2024 a great year!
The Legend of Krystal: The Wind Waker Mod Released
AngelTheVixen has finished the Krystal Wind Waker Mod we discussed previously and has made it available for download! Check out the trailer!
It works with the initially released North American version of the GameCube Wind Waker through the Dolphin emulator.
Features
- Title screen logo changed
- Link replaced with Krystal
- Link's voice changed where possible
- Power Bracelets have a new model
- Magic Armor visuals modified slightly
- Hero's Charm has a new model
- Heart gauge in UI is now fox-shaped
- Minor script changes for flavor
- All text (except the intro) can be skipped through
- Internal labels changed for software/hardware execution
- Demo video replaced
There are a few known issues, which you can read about in the Readme file included with the download. If you run into other issues or concerns, please let AngelTheVixen know via Discord (angelthevixen) or Twitter.
Downloads
- Via Krystal Archive - 42.8MB (Requires 7zip)
- Via Google Drive - 44MB
Krystal Rug!
Twitter user Phoenitoh has made a fantastic Krystal rug. Look at that! She's just so happy! Phoenitoh showed a couple of wip steps (here and here) before showing off the final product. This is super cool! I wonder if these would ever be on Etsy.
Phoenitoh has previously made a Fox McCloud rug too.
Krystal Wind Waker Mod In Development
AngelTheVixen on Twitter is working on a Krystal mod for Wind Waker. Specifically, her Dinosaur Planet incarnation. Given that Dinosaur Planet was intended to be Zelda-like, it's hard to think of a better crossover!
Beginning with a short video clip demonstrating swordplay on Twitter, the mod was revealed to the world on February 22nd, 2023. I got in contact with AngelTheVixen to get some details.
The mod's scope is limited just to a simple model replacement and some voice clip replacements. The model is almost done, just needing a few tweaks. Gameplay voice clip replacements use the closest voice clips from Krystal in Dinosaur Planet. The voice sound effects in cutscenes are not replaced because that would be too large an undertaking, so Krystal will still sound like Link in the cutscenes.
AngelTheVixen is a complete beginner to modding, but found that the modding scene for Wind Waker is very approachable; the tools and documentation are detailed and the game's simple graphical style is forgiving. Much was learned when making the mod, and this is the third Link model replacement that AngelTheVixen has worked on.
The mod is planned for release soon, but no definite date.
I'm sure we all look forward to giving it a shot. Wind Waker is one of my favorite Zelda games.
Lastly, AngelTheVixen was kind enough to send me a bunch of brand new screenshots, which I have posted below. Enjoy!
Casual Krystal Corner #2 Live Sunday
UndyingNephalim and Estelle Ellis will be having another video chat tomorrow where they will do Q&A, and talk about whatever comes to mind in a casual setting. The stream will start at 3PM Eastern (Noon Pacific).
They've done one of these before, but I missed it last time. You can check the first episode out on YouTube.
Update: Red Leader’s Krystal Fanart NOT the Earliest Krystal Fanart
A couple of days ago, I posted about another potential candidate for the oldest Krystal fanart. The publication date of the fanart was ambiguous, so I reached out to staff of TheGIA. Andrew Vestal was kind enough to do a little digging and according to him, the image would have been posted on October 4th, 2000. Fanarts were usually posted within a few days of receipt, so this fanart was probably not shared with them before October 1st, 2000.
So that means our previous champion retains her title by a wide margin! Leah from Nevada's Krystal fanart on the back of an envelope is the oldest known Krystal fanart. However, since that image wasn't published until the November 2000 issue of Nintendo Power, the newer image by Red Leader is the oldest publicly published Krystal fanart currently known.
As always, the search continues about this and all other interesting Krystal-related topics. So good to get a concrete answer about something found on the internet 20+ years ago!
Awoo Prints Krystal Figurines Now Available
We talked about the Krystal Figurines under development by Awoo Prints in a post a couple months ago where they were asking for votes on what pose to use. I'm happy to say that development is complete and you can now purchase these figurines in various sizes right now!
There are four sizes available:
- 200 mm for $75 (almost 8 inches tall!)
- 100 mm for $30
- 32mm for $9 (miniature)
- 28mm for $9 (miniature)
All of these sizes can be had in several different 3D printing colors like various forms of gray or translucent green. The real thing to do is to hand-paint it. Alas, they did offer a hand-painted version for $400, but it is currently sold out. They plan to make new hand-painted versions available eventually. There's nothing stopping you from painting it yourself, as Twitter user Mitsi did.
The model features Krystal (of course), her Staff, a rock to lean against, and some plants/ground the whole thing is mounted on. Gotta say, very reasonable price for the detail, though be prepared to do hand-painting yourself if you want colors. Plus, there's nothing stopping you from hand-painting her in her Kursed colors if you wanted. Might be interesting to see different variations.
There's some assembly required, as you can see from this exploded view:
Cancelled 30th Anniversary Star Fox Game Watch Details
A while back I got some info about a project under consideration to release around the time of Star Fox's 30th Anniversary. There were several other projects in the works, but the idea to create a new, modern Star Fox Game Watch was the only thing I received any details about.
For those who never heard of this obscure piece of Star Fox history, there was a Kellogg's Corn Flakes cross promotion to get a free LCD-based video game wrist watch featuring Star Fox themed levels. There were four levels and apparently the game was quite good considering the limitations of the technology and the fact that it was on a wrist watch! (Arwingpedia Entry, FJ McCloud's Review)
Anyway, this new anniversary edition would have featured:
- 380 x 320 OLED screen with 45 degree angle cutouts on the corners.
- A "micro-joystick" similar in design to what the 3DS used, but much smaller.
- Two face buttons, one for firing/confirming, the other for boost and other gestures in combination with flicks of the joystick.
- The graphical quality would have been like that of Star Fox for the SNES, but with some modern details. It would have still been very minimal with its polygon count, but better textures, resolution, and framerate.
- Only one level ever made it to playable state (Corneria) before the project was cancelled.
- High quality sound could be played via connected bluetooth speakers/headphones/earbuds (not included), and there was a backup speaker on the watch itself, but of much lower quality.
- There were 3D printed mockups of the watch casing, but I wasn't able to get a photo.
- Of course, like any wrist watch, it would feature the time, date, and a few smart watch functions, but no biometrics like heart rate sensing.
This interesting idea was cancelled along with a couple other projects timed to coincide with Star Fox's 30th Anniversary. The other projects had to do with rereleases of other Star Fox games digitally, but I got no details on which ones. Apparently internal discussions determined that the watch and other projects wouldn't make much financial sense at this time, in light of the lack of a new Star Fox game in the near future. They are still open to trying something like this for Star Fox's 35th Anniversary, which would put that around February 2028, with additional time to rectify that "lack of new Star Fox games problem".
Thanks to @unclewhoworksatnintendo on Twitter for the info!
Update!
Well this is embarrassing. Turns out "Uncle Who Works At Nintendo" is what kids say on the playground when they make up a video game rumor. Sorry everyone, really thought I had something special to share. Oh well, maybe next year.