I'm working hard on some Krystal news items, but they're going to take a bit longer. So, in the meantime, please enjoy this fun little video about something I noticed while recording the Star Fox Adventures cutscenes in HD.

Did any of you notice this? Watch the video in glorious 4K on YouTube!

Click the image to see the full resolution artwork.

Nintendo just posted three SNES-themed Nintendo Power covers on Twitter in celebration of the SNES Classic. One for Super Mario World, one for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and one for Star Fox 2. The Star Fox 2 cover has a HUGE version of the Star Fox 2 character art.

According to the tweet, Nintendo will be giving out physical copies of these at their PAX West Panel in 3 days. Note that this giveaway is for a print of the cover alone. It isn't an actual issue of Nintendo Power.

Anyone going to Pax West? Be sure to go to the Nintendo panel and grab one of these! If you can get me one too, I'll pay you for it!

Warning: Left 4 Dead 2 is a violent game with blood and zombies. Look away if that's something you don't want to see.

If you have a need to switch the in-game Left 4 Dead 2 player Francis for Krystal (and who doesn't?), there's a mod for that! Modder Ruby The Bat provides this free L4D2 mod that's based on the rig by Rhyfe2002.

Mod features:

• Francis is replaced with a Krystal model
• If playing as Francis, you see Krystal's hands
• New Krystal UI elements

Of course, you can have more than one Krystal on your team with this other Krystal mod. Edit: Actually, you can't have Francis and Rochelle on the same team, according to Dogman15, so only one Krystal per team it looks like.

Video of the mod by United4Games.

For those of you who, like me, couldn't manage to get a preorder for an SNES Classic, you're in luck! While preorders remain sold out everywhere, both GameStop and Toys R Us will have some Day 1 Supply for walk-ins. GameStop announced additional walk-in supplies on Twitter. Toys R Us will not take preorders at all, according to their response on Twitter.

If you want one, get in line early. That's what I'll be doing. If GameStop does a midnight launch, that means getting there before dinner time. If they are waiting until normal business hours, then get there at 3AM or so. I'm pretty sure Toys R Us almost never does midnight launches. Call ahead and make your plans accordingly. Either way, for those of you who will be in line, you're representing Star Fox fans out there. Make us proud!

If you aren't able to get a system Day 1, remember that Nintendo has promised to produce a lot of them, and will continue to produce them throughout the end of the year. There should be several additional shipments.

The SNES Classic launches on September 29, 2017.

Crying image source.

Last week, I posted about Krystal sculpture by Bageloftime. I was finally able to get in contact with her and she sent along a bunch of photos and information about the bust.

The bust was created in Sculptris, a 3D sculpting program. After that, she had the 3D model printed on a 3D printer. Bageloftime would then paint the print as you see in the photos. It took about two weeks to sculpt the bust, and another week to paint and glaze it. She entered the Krystal bust in annual Art Show at her high school last year. Though she didn't win that year, she was happy to take the bust home with her. She is currently trying to find the original 3D file so that it might be uploaded, in case others want to try and print one.

Bageloftime has been a huge Krystal fan and reader of the site for over six years! Thanks Bageloftime!

Check out the official post on DeviantArt. She plans to upload more photos of the bust in the future if you're interested in following her account.

As promised, here is the Fortuna Briefing cutscene in 4K from the Japanese version of the game. If you compare it to the English version, you'll notice immediately that the characters are much more animated. Their eyes blink, they smile or frown, they move their mouths in much more complex ways than simply opening and closing.

But we can do even better! What if we combined the Japanese animations with the English text and subtitles? Well, wonder no more, because here it is:

Much better! The only disadvantage here is that the lipsyncing is a bit off. The Japanese words and expressions don't match up perfectly with the English translation, but it's pretty close. About as good at a Japanese dubbed anime.

Here we go! This week's Star Fox Assault cutscene is the Fortuna Briefing scene from the first level from the English version of the game. In it, the Star Fox team learns about Oikonny's attacking forces, and Krystal makes an appearance. All this in beautiful 4K and adjusted audio that won't blow out your speakers!

"Wait a minute... if it's 4K, why is it a square video?" Sharp eye you've got there! See, it turns out that Star Fox Assault doesn't support widescreen. I found that attempts to make it do widescreen with the emulator tricks and codes resulted in stretched textures (such as the Corneria Logo in the background becoming an oval instead of a circle) and generally changed the way the game looked from the original. That's why, for these kinds of cutscenes where you need to see the whole frame, I elected to use 4:3 video like the original game. Don't think you're losing quality, however. I set the width of the video to 3840 pixels (4K resolution width), and kept the aspect ratio the same. This means that in the vertical, you get 2948 pixels instead of the standard 2160 pixels. So this video is actually higher than 4K resolution.

As with the Shot Difference Video that was posted last week, there are some differences between the Japanese and English version. I will post the Japanese version tomorrow, along with... a surprise. See you then.

This is Nintendo's official trailer for the SNES Classic, which shows off some of its save state and rewind features.

Nintendo has allowed preorders to go live today, August 22nd, 2017. According to some outlets, Amazon and Best Buy's preorders went live in the middle of the night, then sold out within an hour. What's weird is that I was up during the time they went live, but I never got an alert. It might be a glitch, like the Walmart situation, and the preorders will be available later today sometime. Either way, more stores, including Gamestop, Target, and Toys R Us are supposedly opening preorders later today sometime. And went I spoke to GameStop, they expected to have some systems available on launch day for those without preorders, if they were willing to stand in line.

As for me, I jerry-rigged some code that lets me reload the GameStop webpage every minute and will be monitoring it all day. Good luck out there!

It looks like there were some review embargos lifted today on the SNES Classic. As you can see in the video above, Nintendo Life talks about what it feels like to play Star Fox 2. He talks a lot about the differences between this game and the leaked ROM. Namely, he says it's significantly harder. Other changes include newer logos, description changes, name changes, and there are no lock-ons initially.

GameXplain says that it feels like a brand new retro sequel, much like Sonic Mania is to the Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog games. The reviewer also mentions that Star Fox 2 won't unlock as playable until you beat the first level of the original Star Fox. Check out the video for that info:

Here's the first 7 minutes of gameplay:

More gameplay footage:

More gameplay footage:

For those of you guys who have played the ROM, do you see anything else that has changed?

NarbePlays just posted a video showcasing a weird camera glitch where the camera refuses to follow Krystal, or follows her too closely, for portions of the game's intro. This results in some weird audio and video glitching, as well as providing alternate angles in some cutscenes. Namely, we get to see Krystal get trapped in the crystal from her perspective, more or less. The video is relatively low quality, and the glitchiness can make it hard to watch. I'm hoping to find out more about this glitch, and have sent a message to Narbe.