The Switch 2 has been announced. That means the there's probably going to be another Super Smash Bros game in development if it isn't already. You don't have to look far for rumors and speculation about what characters will make an appearance.

I was watching Game Maker's Toolkit's video on How a Super Smash Bros. Fighter is Designed today, and I was reminded of the fact that Sakurai chose to include Wolf instead of Krystal in Super Smash Bros Brawl to save on time (see 4:31 in the video).

It's important to remember that game development is a huge endeavor that takes a lot of hard work by many people, especially on a game series as large and popular as Super Smash Bros. Sakurai has said the next game in the series would have to reduce the size of the character roster, as what they did with Ultimate was the limit of what was feasible. That's probably realistic. 89 characters is an absurd number given how unique the characters are, even excluding Echo Fighters.

To that end, I would like to propose an idea to think about. If we're going to have to reduce the number of characters, why not have a meta-theme of "Sideline"? There are tons of characters from popular series that are sidekicks, secondary characters, or less-common variants on popular characters, or characters who ALMOST made it into Smash Bros, but didn't quite make the cut. Keep the core characters, Mario, Link, Samus, Fox, Pikachu, and the like, reducing the main characters down to 10 to 12 representatives of their series. Then, the rest of the roster of maybe 40-50 characters could be filled with fighters who have never fought in a Smash Bros game before.

Obviously, Krystal would be my pick. But it's crazy that Paper Mario has never appeared as a fighter given how unique his moveset could be. Geno would be a popular choice, as would Waluigi. Skull Kid from Zelda could be there. Isaac from Golden Sun would make for an interesting fighter. There would be room for new third party characters too, like Shantae, Shadow the Hedgehog, or even Master Chief.

What do you think? There's no avoiding controversy no matter what happens, and I do think it's reasonable to reduce the roster. Since you can't please all the fans of existing fighters by whittling down the list, why not bite the bullet and provide the most room for new faces as possible?

That's my idea anyway. What do you think? And besides Krystal, what other characters would you like to see in Smash Bros that have never been a fighter before?

Anim Zuddab sent me photos of his Krystal Staff. It looks like the staff was 3D printed with two different kinds of 3D printers. A standard FDM printer for most of the structural elements like the shaft details and the staff tips, and a resin printer for the translucent parts like the blue and orange gems.

Anim Zuddab tells me that the staff is about 2 meters long when fully assembled. It has two swappable tips on the head of the staff, one closed for normal combat, and one opened like when Krystal or Fox shot blasts. The shaft has embossed details surface details which appear to be based on my game accurate texture. Both the head and tail tips glow very brightly, powered by normal 9 volt or AA batteries. The whole staff can be disassembled into smaller parts for travel.

This is so cool, Anim! Nice work. It's good to see another staff at such high detail.

Check out the full gallery of photos!

In my absence, UndyingNephalim has been hard at work with Estelle Ellis and many others continuing to develop Star Fox Event Horizon. From the looks of it, they're well into building Sauria-focused locations and missions.

In the latest preview video, we see a giant dinosaur charge assault on the Walled City, with Fox and Krystal riding Tricky into battle with tons of other EarthWalkers and Kyte flying above. They face RedEye and "HookClaw Riders", the latter of which are based on an unused dino species from beta Star Fox Adventures called the ShadowHunters.

The video is pure chaos, but UndyingNephalim says the level is turning out to be the best level in the game so far. You can see a more detailed view of the Walled City from the foliage pass posted a few days prior. Hope to see more soon.

Here's a quick featured Krystal product by Justin8bits. He has two kinds of Krystal stickers for sale on Etsy. One is a holographic sticker of Krystal in the crystal for $4. The other is a clear-bordered sticker of Krystal with her gatling gun for $3. This one only looks like it has a white border because the adhesive backing is still on in the photo. You can also get them in batches of 3.

Just pointing these out for you Krystal Kollectors out there. You're welcome.

It has been a while since I checked in on Rubiinikettu. In my absence, it looks like she has posted some Krystal cosplay photos recently. One photo celebrating the 22nd anniversary of Star Fox Adventures in September, and a more recent photo from December showing off a (Chinese?) dress in preparation for the New Year. Check out the original posts for much higher resolution images.

I think she's implying that she's working on an Assault suit, which would be awesome to see! Looking forward to what Rubiinikettu will do in 2025.

I'm reminded that some time ago, Rubiinikettu sent me a video of her Krystal cosplay to post and I haven't done it yet. Oops! Sorry, Rubiinikettu! I have it around here somewhere. I promise I'll post it soon!

The most recent photo was taken by Nih.

In case you were living under a rock today, or you saw this and thought it was a fake, let me be the first to tell you that this trailer is real. The Nintendo Switch 2 was officially shown for the first time today, along with very few details. Much of the rumored hardware features appear to have been correct. As such, it has larger, magnetically connected Joy Cons on a larger screen. The rumor is that it uses Hall-Effect joysticks (awesome) and will have power at or slightly better than a PS4 (very nice). We already knew from a previous announcement that the Switch 2 will be backwards compatible with Switch games, and this video confirms that again.

Check the video and look at other articles about rumored features and specs to get a better idea of its capabilities. No games were announced, but we did see Mario Kart shown. It's probably Mario Kart 9, since there are some tweaks visible, including a redesigned Donkey Kong that more closely resembles the Super Mario Bros Movie look.

I've heard rumors that there are over 20 third party games ready to release for Switch 2 on launch. It's likely that Yooka-Replaylee will be there, as well as Hi-Fi Rush, which I've been wanting to play. I've also heard rumors that a new 3D Mario title is already waiting in the wings to be the system's launch title. Given the recent cancellation of Metroid Prime 4 preorders (one I had for many years btw), I think Metroid Prime 4 will be available at or soon after launch, possibly also launching on the Switch like how previous Zelda games came out on multiple systems (Breath of the Wild, Twilight Princess). No info on Star Fox, F-Zero, or other older series, but I remain hopeful.

No doubt more information will come out slowly until the next major Nintendo Direct about it on April 2nd, 2025. I suspect the launch will be mid-summer, since there are going to be Switch 2 Experience tours all the way through June.

Recorded on January 11th, 2025, I did this episode while sick, so my voice sounds very rough.

I explain why the podcast was so long coming and why the site has been almost abandoned until recently, as well as what I'm doing to rectify the situation.

After that, I go over all the major events on the site from 2020 to 2025.

Finally, I respond to your questions and comments. There were a lot!

Thanks for listening and sticking around all this time.

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Show Notes

A new, high quality Krystal puppet was recently made by mypuppetpal for commissioner nickisdoge. The puppet is just from the torso upwards and has a moving mouth as well as hands and arms controlled by arm rods.

Here's a demo video of the puppet's movement capabilities and details.

Nick got in contact with me about the puppet project because he is looking into creating a mini Staff to give her and saw the recent Staff Project post. He inquired about the reference shots. Thanks to Nick for giving me a heads up on this project.

According to him, there isn't a concrete plan for projects using her. He collects puppets as a fun hobby and wanted a Krystal to add to that collection. However, he's thinking about maybe commissioning Estelle Ellis to do some voice lines for the puppet to act out. Also, he will probably bring the Krystal puppet along to some cons in the future as he has done with other puppets of his.

There's also a work in progress video by mypuppetpal detailing the creation process from start to finish.

One of the stories I didn't get a chance to post about last year was Kevin Bayliss (Lead Artist on Star Fox Adventures) doing a traditional painting of Krystal from Dinosaur Planet, holding a leash to a CloudRunner. He would later go on to sell prints of this painting, one of which I have purchased.

But long before he finished the painting, a 3D artist, Daniel B., had recreated the scene in 3D using 3D Studio Max, ZBrush, and Substance Painter. I'm pretty sure he did this based off the initial illustration, rather than the painting, since this was posted long before the painting was finished. I just love the detailed fur texturing. This looks like it was a lot of work. Nice work, Daniel! Check out the original post for high resolution renders.

Here's what the painting by Kevin Bayliss looked like. I believe this is a work in progress shot, and Kevin removed the photos of the finished work after having made the prints. At least, I can't seem to find those posts.

Update
Updated text to reflect the fact that this 3D rendering predated the finished painting. I initially got the timeline wrong when looking at the posts.

YouTuber Luck Stat has produced a concise, yet deep video about Rare's mysterious canceled game, Dinosaur Planet: the game that would become Star Fox Adventures and bring Krystal into the world. It's called Dinosaur Planet: Inside Rare's Cancelled Zelda Clone.

The video pulls together interviews, archived footage, promotional materials, and website archeology to explain the development of the game. It starts with the initial conception of the game, and goes all the way through the transition to Star Fox Adventures and Rare's sale to Microsoft, followed by some detail about the discovered partial build of the game.

For anyone not familiar with the Dinosaur Planet saga, this is an excellent introduction to it. Give it a watch!

Thanks to Plague Doctor Lawrence for bringing this to my attention.