Welcome to 2014
It's been one year since I welcomed you all into the year 2013. I had high hopes for 2013, and I was not disappointed.
In my personal dealings, I had a great year! I quit my job for a much better one. I created a half-dozen New Year's Resolutions and completed or made significant strides on half of them. Beyond those, I managed to win a costume contest at a convention, wrote several websites, published an open source library, and have begun getting some long term health issue straightened out. All this while making preparations to move across the country for the fourth time.
All that personal progress came at the expense of time to focus on this site, and for that I am sorry it's taking so long. I have managed to rebuild the 3D section of the site and have restarted the long process of modernizing all the old posts from years past.
I was too optimistic on Star Fox and Krystal news however. Retro Studio's secret project was Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, a sequel to their last game. No other Star Fox related games or rumors of any significance were revealed. And although two new female characters are confirmed for Smash 4 (Female Wii Fit Trainer and Rosalina), Krystal is still left out of the battle. Time will tell if she makes the team.
Looking forward for the site, I've learned AngularJS and several server technologies at my new job. They are the perfect thing for rebuilding the fanart section to be faster, more interactive, and more informative. Likewise, I will be able to build better tools for getting the art organized and posted faster. YouTube recently rolled out live events, so I hope to try it out with the next podcast (which is hilariously overdue).
Actually, I'm thinking of doing the first one of the new year at Further Confusion 2014. If you are going to Further Confusion this year, please post in the comments below. Perhaps we can do a round-table type podcast at the con. I really enjoy having more than just me on the show.
Welcome to 2014. I hope the year is even greater than the last for all of us!
Update
Actually, looks like I won't be attending Further Confusion this year after all. FoxType, Mike, and a few others I had intended to see while there can't attend, and Ayano will not be able to make it this year. I'm going to plan to attend 2015's show instead, which should be better for everyone's schedules.
Comments
Let me tell you, Mr. K,
You weren’t the only one with a crazy year, but you know, c’es la vie. Anyhow, the things I hope for are pretty much the same as every year.
I sort of get the feeling that Nintendo is trying to phase out Fox and the gang, but I don’t know. I obviously hope not, but it seem that they’re just trying to make them irrelevant by artificial means. I think the Krystal in Smash petition would be vastly outshone by a petition just to get a new Star Fox title at all, and not just a port of SF64 to a new console.
Well happy new year ever one.
Happy new year! May this year will be year of goodness and prosperity! \m/_
I couldnt imagine how hard it is to run and keep up a site esp. after it got hacked and all. Good to hear you are doing well and how you have a wonderful 2014!
Thanks for all that you do Mr. K YOU ARE AWESOME
@The Falcon
You aint kidding, the last thing we needed was another dumb DK game, Starfox hasnt seen a new game since 2006’s Starfox Command (64 3D DOES NOT COUNT) Why does Nintendo do this to us? At least Fox and the gang can “for now” live on in the Smash games… but come on Krystal more than anyone deserves to be in it as a playable character! But back to Starfox… why didnt the Wii ever get one? The Wii U would be friggin awesome for a Starfox game, just think… Starfox, for the first time, IN HD!!! Nintendo only teases us with a remake here or a little shout out there like the arwing in Animal Crossing: New Leaf… quit toying with us and get serious and give the fans what they want!
@Fox_McCloudFF7
Absolutely. I own the Nintendo systems I do because there’s a Star Fox game for them. Like the GameCube, sure games like RE4 and 007 NightFire are great games, but they’re only icing on the StarFox cake that I got the system for. I don’t own a Wii yet, main reason I already own an N64, which has an original StarFox title.
We as fans have demands, and I think we need a real push. We need to list our demands. I am calling to fans globally when I say we need a petition. We want a new StarFox title. How about we demand a western? I think StarFox in the Wild West would be a good idea; howabout you? With enemies other than Andross or those who have tie-ins to him. Bosses that are a challenge to fight! Not just shooting at the glowing thing, make us figure it out! Celebrity voice actors, too. The voice acting in Star Fox Assault was pretty bad, save Glidewell; PBS actors were more believable. I say we get some real guys in there. Howabout Christian Bale as Fox and Harrison Ford as Peppy? And like I said for bad guys, let’s get a whole professionally written plot with actual character death scenes that make you actually feel like you’re there. When Slippy gets killed make me cry for him! This should be no mere petition, 50,000 signatures only represents a fraction of Nintendo’s fanbase. I say we get 1 Million! There’s got to be atleast a million furry loving freaks like us out there with a good name to put on paper. Get them to do it! Someone get typing! Let’s not just make this a little fly-by-night wimper in some dark corner of the Internet, let’s make this bad boy look like a movement! And then when little rabbit children can frolic with the little fox children, we can exclaim from the mountain tops, “Free at last, free at last! God Almighty, free at last!”
Sorry, I get real worked up about this.
@ The Falcon
still good to see the modivation, i don’t think that they would divert from their current story plot tho. not to sound like a broken record or anything but when i did my research on them they have been consistant with the starfox series allthrew out. at this point if they do deviate at all from their supposed plot line i think we would see some seriously old names like “Phoenix” if you catch what im hinting at. I think Nintendo prephers to be old school tredition.
Happy New Year, Mr. K! Aye, any kind of Star Fox news is long overdue. I’m getting flashbacks of the Mega Man series at this stage. I hope the blokes at Nintendo haven’t forgotten about our anthropomorphic space heroes.
@Falcon That would be cool, huh huh. Like, y’know, eh heh, that would just kick a**.
@The Falcon
I admire your enthusiasm, but that’s probably in the ‘100% never going to happen’ category.
Don’t forget guys, one of Nintendo’s jewels, the Metroid series, made no appearance on the N64. The time between Super Metroid and Metroid Prime was 8.5 years!
The time between Donkey Kong 3 and Donkey Kong Country was 11 years!
Star Fox Command came out less than 8 years ago, SF64 3D came out less than 3 years ago.
So it’s about time for another new Star Fox game, BUT, this is by no means an unprecedented amount of time, nor proof that Nintendo is canceling anything.
I know. But, you know what I think? While it is their content and yeah they can do what they want, but here’s the deal, we are technically Nintendo’s employers. If it weren’t for dedicated fans like us they couldn’t put bread on the table. And as fans, I think we need to, maybe not push, but sort of nudge our buddies in the right direction.
@ The Falcon
Mr.k Makes a good point about the time line of there productions. we will probably see Metroid just before Star Fox in some way. not to get your hopes down or be discouraging anything… I still have my hopes up for the team’s next appearance and i hope for something new as well, but as much as i love to be in support of a petition to “encourage” such a thing Nintendo still has to take care or their financial demographics to keep there “employer’s” happy all around for best results. I certainly hope that we can find a pattern to their production line if anyone can see if they could find that out then maybe we all can get a rough estimate of when we should expect something like StarFox to come full circle again threw the endless Mario remakes.
@The Falcon
We are their employers, but only indirectly. Nintendo, like Apple, is an innovator company. They specialize in giving people what they didn’t even know they wanted, unlike many other companies that take things people already want and improve them or make them cheaper. With games, this is especially important. Nintendo is not the kind of company to do anything, even if there were millions of signatures, unless they personally stood behind the decision. I suspect the only things keeping a Star Fox game from coming out are:
1. They’re too busy (likely, given the newest Marios, Zeldas, and the launch of the new console).
2. They don’t know how to innovate Star Fox like they want to, thus are still spinning their wheels until they figure out something that fits well.
This story kinda supports both reasons: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/06/miyamoto_unsure_nintendo_can_make_another_great_f_zero_game
To be honest, we’ve already waited long enough for a new Starfox game and I can see so much potential for the Wii U for this franchise. It’s been nearly 9 years since we had a game for it on a major home console and that was none other than Starfox Assault(2005). What Nintendo needs to do is ignore the endings from Command(DS; 2006) and continue with the canonical approach after Assault. Even Miyamoto wouldn’t be foolish to kill off one of his own IPs in the process. Because if he did, he would only anger the huge fanbase(including myself) who have been wanting a new game on the Wii U.
Look at the condition that Nintendo is in now. From the looks of it, most 3rd-party companies don’t want to support the Wii U. Nintendo’s only hope now is to focus on their 1st-party IPs and bring back some of their classic IPs(besides Mario and Zelda) we haven’t seen since the Gamecube era. If Miyamoto was able to do it with Pikmin 3 recently(glad that the fans got a new entry last year since there hasn’t been a new Pikmin game since 2004 back on the Gamecube), then so can he with a new Starfox Wii U game. It’s simple logic there. Even he’s aware of it along with Iwata and everyone else at Nintendo that there is still a huge fanbase for that series and the fans want to see a new entry soon. That’s why I have a gut feeling that we may get to hear something on it anytime soon. Because that series deserves a new entry and not to be left out in the cold as it did in the Wii era just like what happened with the Pikmin and the F-Zero. All Nintendo needs to do for the next game on the Wii U is utilize the gameplay mechanics on the Gamepad controller similar to what they did for the Starfox 64 remake on the 3DS and it would sell really well and give the players online capabilities and branching paths like in the old games with mixing some of the gameplay elements like from Assault where in the foot missions(kept to a minimum and give it a over the shoulder 3rd person view like in previous games like RE4-6, TF: War for Cybertron or TF: Fall of Cybertron).
Miyamoto has talked about getting a new Starfox game on the Wii U for some time now since he said in an interview back in 2012 that along with bringing Metroid to the Wii U, Starfox is another franchise that he wants to bring the most into the Wii U and I don’t blame him for it. Heck the sales for the SF64 remake on the 3DS actually made it past its goal and sold good enough. That proves that the series is still relevant and bring forth a new Wii U game on it. So please, Nintendo give the fans what we truly want. Because no matter what they reveal on any of their 1st-party IPs whether it is Starfox, Mario, Zelda, DK or Kirby, anyone would know these games from those IPs would sell.. So I would have to disagree The Faclon there of Nintendo phasing out the Starfox franchise for good. No way that is ever going to happen and Miyamoto knows better than to kill off one of his own IPs for that.
As for regarding in having Krystal for SSB4, I think she really deserves a chance to join the roster and be the most unique of the SF cast and that would make another female character joining the roster. I’m glad that Rosalina made it in(really love the Mario Galaxy games and the character herself). Don’t you guys think that Krystal should finally get the chance? Hopefully Sakurai will finally consider putting her in the 4th game. Because if I remember during the development of Brawl, he was surprised to see that Krystal was one of the requested characters to be playable which unfortunately she didn’t make the cut on that game. Hopefully she’ll get her chance in this one. Besides, now that we have entered into 2014, we’ll expect to hear more on SSB4 with more newcomers because I believe that there’s going to be more. And with Sakurai that he stated that he is not going to include a story mode like what he did in Brawl with the Subspace Emissary, this will give Sakurai an opportunity to place more content in there such as more characters for the roster(most likely the roster for SSB4 will be bigger than the Brawl roster), more stages, etc.