The Krystal Lovers Association (KLA), the world's largest Krystal-focused community forum, is shutting down at the end of 2012 after almost 10 years online. Eggman9713, the long-running admin, announced the shutdown back on June 28th. It basically comes down to losing interest over time and a lack of new Star Fox games. He's not sure what exactly will become of the site after it's shut down, musing that he might freeze the site from new posts, but leave it up as an archive for a while. You can read all about the reasoning and the plan for the shutdown in Eggman's End of Line post.

It was no more than 2 weeks after I created the Krystal Archive (having been a member of Starfox-Online for a few months prior) that I was contacted my a couple of high-profile members of the KLA and asked to join. Since then, for most of the years since, I've been an active member of the KLA community, and chatted with Eggman and many others at length. It was only recently that I have been neglecting the community. Nevertheless, the KLA will always stand in my memory as a great community and a historic location for the announcement of Krystal and Star Fox research (Star Fox Adventures in HD, finding unreleased artist renderings, etc).

This is the first in a series of posts I'll make as the site rebuild continues. The top bar links Podcast, About, and Donations have been updated.

Podcast, or the Krystal Archive Podcast, has been completely restored. Your subscriptions should get updated soon if you're subscribing to the feed. You might also notice that the audio player has been replaced with a specially modified version of the YouTube player. That's right, you can listen to the Krystal Archive Podcast via YouTube.

The About page gives a basic overview of the site and details our policies. In the future, after the Articles have been restored, it will provide information for people new to Krystal or Star Fox. It will probably also have some information about me and how I can be contacted. Not sure yet if I should break that off into a separate article like it once was.

I've rebuilt the Donations as well. During the hacking incident, all the user data was lost. If you were one of the donors and you want your account back, just email me and I'll add it asap. The old Secret Area is gone, but if you as a donor want to have access to those files, just mention it in the email.

We made some small modifications to the theme so the Search page has columns for archived months.

Lastly, I'm almost done with a method to allow volunteers to help review fanfilms, fanfictions, and do other work without needing to be coordinated by me. It's going to work through Google Docs, so everyone can be working at the same time without getting in each other's way. This, combined with some new tools I'll be writing, will hopefully greatly speed up the update time for fan works.

Just kidding. :D

As you all know, Nintendo did not show Star Fox, F-Zero, or Smash Bros at today's presentation. They didn't show a Metroid/Star Fox crossover, they didn't show a lot of things. And while that is initially disappointing, I'd like to point out that there was a very significant thing they also did not show:

What has Retro Studios been working on?

So take heart, Star Fox fans. Nintendo has made major game announcements outside of their keynotes before. E3 isn't over, and we may yet hear some additional news about in-development games like Star Fox and Super Smash Bros 4. There's also another Star Fox possibility: the next Star Fox game could be on 3DS. There's a video presentation just for new 3DS games tomorrow at 6PM.

Either way, Nintendo DID show quite a few great looking games. I'm particularly happy for fans of Pikmin. I don't play that series, but I am happy for those who do. They've been waiting a lot longer than we have for a sequel. Nintendo showed that their new system, the Wii U, is capable of all of the experiences offered by the PS3 and XBOX 360, plus more through the new gamepad. The addition of a touch screen to console gaming might turn out to be more revolutionary than motion controls.

Overall, I'm excited about the new games and gameplay possibilities. Nintendo can't make everyone happy all the time, but I am a little disappointed to not see Star Fox front and center.

In a about 10 hours, Nintendo will be having its keynote presentation at this year's E3. There will be numerous places to watch it live online and even on TV. What's even more amazing is that Nintendo has already gone ahead and done a pre-presentation to show off new features of the Wii U, its gamepad and new controllers, its built-in software and online/social features, and some news about the 3DS. They showed off all of this just so they wouldn't distract from tomorrow's presentation where they will talk exclusively about the new games.

Though I have not been keeping up with the latest leaks and rumors, what I have heard from various news sources is:

• Mario title at launch
• The Star Fox/Metroid crossover game was only proposed, but was not created
• Nintendo to show new Star Fox and F-Zero games

I'm going to be at work at 9AM (Pacific) when Nintendo has their presentation, but I will be able to watch it there. If there is any news about Star Fox and/or Krystal, I will post about it as soon as I can. I'm hoping for an epic Star Fox game in the pedigree of Star Fox 64, but with the newer crew of Fox, Falco, Slippy, and, of course, Krystal.

Thanks to all who volunteered to help. I got more of a response than I was expecting, and I don't yet have tasks ready for those of you who I haven't given a response. I will get some things for you to do, don't worry. It'll most likely be in the form of reviewing fanfictions, fanfilms, and finding new fanart.

However, I'm having some guests in town over the next few days and will probably be unable to update the site or respond to emails until they are gone, so please be patient. And don't forget to count the days to E3, where there will no-doubt be some incredible news!

Here it is folks! If you're reading this message, you should be seeing the brand new Krystal Archive version 4. Dozens and dozens of features were added along with the overall redesign. In every single aspect of the site, I tried to reduce the total amount of work required to perform each task. The time saved on each thing should result in more frequent updates and the ability to bring on helpers to assist in the upkeep of the site.

The redesign is Beta, however. I currently have no way to test the site on Internet Explorer (volunteers?). The fanart systems are not yet in place, and of course, there is a lot of content to reupload and reformat to the new style (volunteers?). For my first task, I'd like to get the Krystal Archive Podcast back online. After that, I'll be moving into the other pages like images, audio, and video.

If you're interested in helping out, please email me, and we'll work out what you can do.

Here's a few interesting Star Fox related videos that have appeared on the net recently.

There's a reason I haven't been posting for the last couple weeks. I've been hard at work on the core technologies for the next version of the Krystal Archive. I've had some remarkable breakthroughs, and I'm almost ready to begin the building process.

I hope by the end of the day, or maybe tomorrow, I can have the basic theme up and running. It's a lot of work, so don't old me to this timeline.

Lots of rumors going around the net, now that E3 is only three weeks away (June 5-7, 2012). Retro Studios has been working on something at least since they helped with the tracks in Mario Kart 7. A rumor from over a year ago claimed that they were working on a project everyone wanted them to do. This drove a lot of speculation. Now, the same site that had that rumor now has another. According to this very detailed rumor, Retro Studios has been working on a game that stars both Samus and Fox McCloud in what is probably the first real story-related crossover by Nintendo and its IPs (not counting Mario & Sonic games, the Smash Bros. Series, and the occasional cameo appearances all over the place).

The details:

• Some high-speed warp causes Fox's Arwing to collide with Samus's Jumpship
• Samus crash lands, loses all her upgrades (seriously, get some super glue, Samus!), and must explore the planet
• Fox remains in space and proceeds to have numerous space-based battles
• Eventually the pair meet up, Fox is controlled third-person style, will be more ninja like in movement style
• Andross is using Metroids on himself and army somehow
• The working title is: "Star Fox – Metroid: Fusion Saga"

Personally, I don't think I'm alone in thinking this sounds like it came straight out of FanFiction.net. While Metroid and Star Fox are probably the most universe-compatible of Nintendo's series, I don't see it happening. Then again, popular knowledge also said that Mario and Sonic would never be in a game together, and that non-Nintendo characters would never be in a Smash Bros. game. Crazier things have happened. As for Retro Studios and Star Fox, I think it's easily possible and even likely that Retro Studios is working on Star Fox, regardless of this rumor. They've proven themselves with more than one of Nintendo's IPs in the past.

Source

Tonight, I'm proud to announce the release of Bit Fox Adventures, the Star Fox Adventures Microalbum. It features chiptune and electronic remixes of several Star Fox Adventures songs. It was an idea by Laffe the Fox, who also got several other artists to participate. More info and downloads are on the album page.

Bit Fox Adventures Album Page