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

Celestialien86 sent me an email about Colors! 3D, the simple drawing program available on iPad, iPod touch, and the Nintendo 3DS. One of the main features is it lets you record your drawing so you can replay how you made it. And since it's a 3DS application, there are LOTS of Nintendo-related drawings drawn in it. Further, there's a site that allows you to upload your creations and see the art of others. In fact, I searched and found a Krystal drawing by Celestialien86 herself.

Celestialien86's Krystal Drawing

Colors! 3D costs $6.99 in the Nintendo eShop.

I have some bad news, friends. My friend and someone many of you knew has passed away. Lucas succumbed to his brain cancer treatments early last month. There wasn't much left of him after the chemotherapy, but he was able to receive and watch the Krystal DVD gift Foxtype1973 sent him (which I will be posting soon). His brother told me that Lucas really enjoyed it. So, sad news, but I thought you all should know.

For those who don't know, Lucas was a long-time Krystal Archive reader. He has had brain cancer for about three years, and occasionally I would post updates on his conditions in previous podcasts.

I commissioned The Burning Donut for two Krystal fanarts. He has made three! I hope you like them as much as I do. He put them up on his FurAffinity page along with links to the full res versions. Enjoy!

Commission 1
Commission 2
Commission 3

While you're waiting for the site to get completely back online, I'll temporarily upload specific files by request. I've gone ahead and uploaded two of the more popular files. If you want any other files, leave a comment requesting what specific file you want and I'll try to get it online for you.

Updated with new requests:

• GTA San Andreas Star Fox Mod - Krystal + other characters
• GreyFireFox's Krystal Rig - Version 1.4
• Burmecian's Fallout 3 Mods - Krystal + other characters
• Assault Krystal Mesh - Krystal
• Brawl Star Fox Meshs - Krystal + other characters
• Sinaherib's WarCraft III- The Frozen Throne Krystal Mod
• Gadonstriom's Adventures Model

Mystery Assault Cosplayer

The incident with the server deleted not only the Krystal Archive proper, but also the sub-sites. Namely, the Saurian Translator and Star Fox Command: All the Words. Both sites have been reuploaded, good as new. I also added them as links in the sidebar.

Coming soon... another couple of project sites related to the Krystal Archive...

Fire Yoshi sent me some high resolution screenshots he took a week or two ago. These will be going into the screenshots section eventually. Meanwhile, enjoy the high res Krystal goodness! A few of these shots were taken immediately after Krystal was sealed in the crystal, but with the camera zoomed in and rotated so we can see details.

Screenshots

I've done a quick pass at making the site mobile-compatible (try resizing the window to really small width). You can also see all the other changes as you resize and hover over things.
Design v1

Tested it on my iPhone 4, and it works well!

I'm working on a new theme for version 4 of the Krystal Archive. The new theme will focus on simplification of the visual style, the site design itself, and the content design so that people that other myself will be able to help maintain the Krystal Archive. Take a look, and tell me what you think. The image of Krystal was specially rendered for the Krystal Archive version 4 by Greyfirefox.

Edit

The first comments I've received on the above design called for a background image. The above image does have a subtle background in the form of noise (like the previous version 3.5 of the site). So far, commenters want a large, Krystal-centric background image, which is probably not going to happen due to the inherent limitations of such backgrounds (see comments), and the fact that this site expands and contracts its size based on the width of the browser window (and in the future, will adapt to mobile devices). I am not opposed to a more agressive, repeating, small background image though. Here's the site with some of the background imagery from the Saurian Translator. I think it works pretty well here, but tell me what you think.