Everyone has a different opinion on Star Fox Zero. It was a divisive game among both Star Fox fans and Nintendo fans alike. A lot of its criticism comes from its control scheme, there's no denying that. In this video, game designer Mark Brown talks about the decision process and design of Star Fox Zero's controls, where they work, and where they fail. I found it to be a fascinating, and neutral perspective on this controversial game.

Now I just need to beat it!

Here's the Japanese version of the Star Fox Assault Sargasso Briefing scene. Not only are the characters more expressive than in the English version, but the voice acting is really enthusiastic, even if I can't understand what they are saying.

Here we combine the Japanese animation with the English voice acting and text. This time the lipsyncing is bad only about half the time. The other half of the time it's pretty good!

This week's Star Fox Assault cutscene is the Sargasso Space Zone Briefing scene. The story goes like this: After Pigma flees, the Star Fox team believes that they have tracked him down to a Star Wolf controlled hideout. Krystal warns Fox to be careful.

As with all of these, we have beautiful 4K (5K) visuals, improved audio, and the Japanese and mixed versions coming tomorrow.

The Nintendo Direct today will start in about 1 hour. I hope your body is ready!

Watch the stream with us on Discord!

After a lot of requests from you guys, and a bit of research in my part, I've finally created a Krystal Archive server for Discord, a text and audio chat system favored by gamers everywhere. I hinted at this in yesterday's Nintendo Direct post. Tomorrow's Nintendo Direct will be the perfect test of the new system. We'll get to chat in real time about the stream of new game information. But no need to wait until then, the server's up right now!

For now, I've limited this link to the first 25 people. But as more people want to join, I'll add more links so you can sign in. Just click the link, sign in (or register), and you're good to go!

discord.gg/QJPuJVP

I'd like to use Discord to coordinate projects, such as the Miiverse project from a few days ago. If you'd like to help out with the site, this is also the place to do it.

Update: We hit more than 25 users last night (yay!). So, here's an updated link.

discord.gg/3dCbzDN

Alert! Nintendo has a new Nintendo Direct incoming! It will take place on Wednesday, September 13th, 2017 at 3PM Pacific (6PM Eastern). Confirmed topics include Super Mario Odyssey and games with holiday releases for the Nintendo Switch and 3DS. I don't expect there will be Star Fox, but there might be a few surprises. Probably the most surprising thing they could announce is that they are in active development on Smash Bros for the Switch. (Note: I don't have any knowledge that they are, not even rumors.)

I always enjoy watching these things with you guys. Watching the stream while chatting is a great way to connect. In the past, we used an online chatroom. I'm thinking of something more stable, but also a little crazy. Discordant, if you will. More tomorrow.

• Nintendo Direct Presentation Site
• Nintendo on YouTube
• Nintendo on Twitch
• Nintendo of America Announcement
• Nintendo of Europe Announcement
• Nintendo of Japan Announcement

It's official, Miiverse is shutting down. On November 7th (less than a month away), all functions related to Nintendo's first social network will be closed, and likely all data associated with it will be hidden or deleted. Current users of the service will be able to receive a copy of all their posts after the service ends, but you won't be able to browse others' posts anymore.

I never really used Miiverse. It's nothing personal. I don't generally use any social media services, except to do basic communication and, for the Krystal Archive, repost news there for exposure.

However, I know that Star Fox in general, and Krystal specifically, had a huge fanbase on the service. Countless images of Krystal exist in the Miiverse, many asking for her to be included in Super Smash Bros. I've seen quite a number of them when reposted to other art sites. But the original posts are going away.

There is a current, ongoing project dedicated to backing up the entirety of the Miiverse, and making it available online. There is even a Github project for it. I wish the Archive Team the best of luck. They're doing God's work over there.

However, I don't want to rest on the hope that they will get it done. So, I'd like to start gathering links to all the Krystal-related Miiverse posts we can find! If you know of any Krystal posts, or you're willing to search through the Miiverse for them, PLEASE send me an email (mrkrystal@gmail.com) with your links. ANYTHING Krystal related is fine. I will worry about filtering them for quality or content. Also, DO NOT try to post these links in a comment here, because the spam filter will flag comments with multiple links.

And if you know how to effectively search the Miiverse, please advise me how. I don't use it, after all. Help me start the project!

I will take these links, and create an archive of all the Krystal-related posts. I will make it available to everyone once it's complete.

Photo by Dragonheart07. Original art by Alfore.

Here's a new fan-crafted Krystal figure by livintdark. It's built on top of a Monster High Catty Noir body. Livintdark added custom sculpting for the armor and head. He then painted the figure with Krystal's colors and added a fabric loincloth. Though the proportions are off due to the body base, the sculpting and paint work is actually pretty well done in my opinion.

Check out the livintdark's gallery post for the full image.

Site reader jimaki sent me an email with his piano rendition of Krystal's Theme from Star Fox Adventures. If you guys like it, let him know in the comments and he'll work on it some more to improve it and create music sheets.

Listen Now

Jimaki also sent in a link to his sheet music for SNES Star Fox's Cornerian theme.

The interview mentioned in the huge Star Fox 2 info dump a few days ago has been translated from Japanese to English. Shigeru Miyamoto, Takaya Imamura, and Tsuyoshi Watanabe talk about their experiences developing Star Fox and Star Fox 2. Much of what's in the interview was already known from previous interviews, but there were a few tidbits.

The decision to include Star Fox 2 with the SNES Classic was made by the producer of the SNES Classic, not Miyamoto. It's almost as if that producer read the interview about Star Fox 2 being finished and decided "why not?"

We had known that several of the characters in Star Fox were based on the personalities or mascots of various dev team members, but apparently, Andross's character was based on Imamura's boss at the time. No idea who that might be, though.

The crazy detailed diagrams of the Arwing transformations were made for the instruction manual, not for the purpose of making toys or something.

Read the interview.