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!

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

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.

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!

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.

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!

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:

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.

The Gaming Intelligence Agency has been online since 1998. It featured news and fan content for a long time, then moved to social media for a time. As of 2015, they don't appear to post anymore.

However, they have archives of the site all the way back to the beginning. One of those pages contains the artwork of artist "Red Leader". According to the description, Red Leader saw trailers for the newly announced Dinosaur Planet and decided to make the first fanart in the world for the game, featuring Krystal of course!

Now we get into the tricky question: is this the oldest Krystal fanart? Or even is it the first Dinosaur Planet fanart, as the artist claims? It's hard to say. There is no date on the page to indicate exactly when it was posted. There's some stiff competition to beat out the work of Leah from Nevada, our current oldest Krystal fanart champion. Red Leader would have had to create this fanart after April 29th, 2000 (Dinosaur Planet's existence revealed), but before July 26th, 2000 (Leah's postmark). It is certainly possible. Alas, without some additional information, I can't confirm it. The Wayback Machine's archive of the page only goes back to November 2000, and the gallery page archive only goes back to October 2000. I just don't know.

I will contact The Gaming Intelligence Agency about more specific date records for this work. Oh, and if anyone knows how to contact the original artist Red Leader, let me know!

Thanks to Sunnyside for the heads up!

UndyingNephalim posted two more videos of Fox and Krystal riding various dinosaurs in large battles: one in the sky on the back of a CloudRunner (Kyte), one on the ground on the back of an EarthWalker (Tricky). Once again, Star Fox Event Horizon will be full of unique scenarios and options not seen in other Star Fox games.