Modder ShadowSnake has taken on the huge task of converting the high poly LittleDragon Krystal rig to work as a Smash 4 playable character. He is going to use Palutena (the game's lone staff user) as the base character, so Krystal should have her staff. Other features will include a modded height to make her as tall as Fox and Falco, rigged facial expressions, moving eyes, a voice pack, and a rigged tail (hooked to the dress bones of Palutena). ShadowSnake is also considering her Star Fox Assault jumpsuit as an alt skin. If this gets completed, it will be one of the most impressive mods for any character in Super Smash Bros Wii U!

The mod is at approximately at the 20% mark. You can read more and follow progress on the GameBanana Listing.

ShadowSnake himself emailed me with the announcement, so I hope we'll see more from him in the future. Speaking of emails, there are currently 632 in my inbox. I got some very cool emails from some of you while I was away and will be responding to them soon. Sorry for the delay.

It seems the world of Star Fox Adventures Speedrunning is heating up! Last month, JubJub62 beat his own record again, completing the game in only 4 hours and 26 minutes. Now, a new glitch has been discovered that can allow the player to skip almost all of the game, resulting in a run by Keanu Buze where Star Fox Adventures is completed in only 18 minutes and 46 seconds.

A couple days ago, an unexplained eight year old glitch was formally understood by the speedrunning community. As I understand it, the glitch allows data from one save file to be used in another save file under certain conditions after the player character reloads the scene (such as warping or jumping off a cliff). In one case, the glitch "Event Storage Warp" (ESW) will allow a user to skip from the first visit to the Walled City to the second visit, skipping all of the events between the two visits in a normal playthrough. The other glitch, "Reverse Event Storage Warp" (RESW), uses the same idea, but with the second save file containing the save of a nearly completed game. As a result, the glitch can allow the user to skip from Krystal's section of the beginning of the game, right up to the final boss.

For now, the speedrunning community is debating whether one or both glitches should be allowed in speedruns. Most likely, they will allow ESW glitches in standard runs and make a new category for RESW runs. With RESW (aka the Krystal Corruption Glitch), the game is now effectively "broken" in the same way that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is broken (with it's current world record of 17 minutes and 9 seconds).

Hi friends. I have been away for a few weeks. Sorry about that. I know it's lame to post about why I haven't been posting, instead of just posting again, but I feel I owe you some kind of explanation due to the suddenness and completeness of my disappearance.

I have had a lot more than usual on my plate in real life. I'm finishing up my fifth trip out of town in only five months. I've had several family visits that took up my whole weekends that I would otherwise have used to get the site caught up. In the last two weeks, I've been to three different doctor appointments and had a minor surgery. I'm totally fine by the way, so don't worry. But this sort of thing means some delays, pain, and medication that prevented me from updating like I should. Every time I think about updating the site, I think about just how much actually has to be done, and that just made me want to put it off until later. I just needed the rest, you know?

The rest of my current trip should be relatively uneventful. Once I get back home, I am actively striving to have no major events or travel for over two months! With that kind of stability, I hope to not only keep the site regularly updated every day, but also make good progress on some of the larger projects that span more than one post.

Thank you guys for your patience. See you in the morning!

This Krystal charm is one of several that feature different Star Fox characters by Saraba Tikyuuyo. It's fairly rare to see a physical item like this for Krystal, even an unofficial fanmade one. Unfortunately, according to the charm item listing, the charm is sold out. Fortunately, the item is listed as an "on-demand" product. In theory, more of these could be made. The charm costs 800 yen, or just over $7.

As for other items, there's this Krystal and Fox card holder by Kabe Tea Shop.

Thanks to Smokey for the heads up.

Cosplayer むー or むぎ (translated as Mumu or Mugi) posted photos on Twitter of her Krystal cosplay a few days ago. The costume appears to be a furred zentai suit with sewed in tattoos. She appears to be using a facial prosthetic for the muzzle, like Kat the Leopardess did long ago. Custom clothing, jewelry, armor, a wig, ears, and a staff complete the costume. I can't tell if this cosplay includes a tail. I'm messaging the cosplayer for more information and photos.

Photos were taken by LL_Spider3. Thanks to Ayano for bringing this to my attention.

Dylan Cuthbert of Q-Games and Giles Goddard of Vitei, two of the original developers of Star Fox for the SNES, will be streaming a playthrough of the game for the first time ever! Check out the stream on Twitch. The gaming begins tonight, July 4th, at 7PM PST. I won't be around, thanks to July 4th festivities, but some of you might be able to see it. I have already asked on the original announcement post if they will be keeping a copy of the stream for later viewers. If so, I'll get a link to it for you all.

Thanks to Falemirous for the heads up.

Update

The video was saved as a recording, though I don't know how long it will stay up. If you missed it, you can watch it now. Be warned, they use some adult language. I really liked the technical details they provided, but if you're looking to get some insight into the story of Star Fox, you're going to be disappointed. These guys have forgotten most of those types of elements, and they were largely responsible for the technical aspects, not the story aspects.

DeviantArt user SAB64 has made a fully rigged Arwing mesh for Miku Miku Dance. The cockpit canopy opens and closes, the wings can be adjusted, and the guns can be revealed or hidden. This mesh came from Star Fox Guard, so it looks like the one used in Star Fox Zero. Download it on the info page. It's a nice Arwing if you want to make simple Star Fox animations in MMD.

There is also a Fox McCloud Rig available.

Nicki Tens has been making fast progress. As of today, she's shown off her version 2 of the 3D printed Krystal mask. This one is slightly larger and came out much cleaner. There's also a short timelapse video showing one of the parts being printed.

In all the excitement with the SNES Classic and Star Fox 2, one couldn't be blamed for missing Nicki Tens' progress on her 3D printed Krystal mask. Here is the finished Version 1 print glued together. This was always intended to be a test print, and now she will begin on Version 2. Version 2 will be larger (Version 1 is a bit too small). She might also do some customization to the structure of the mesh at this point and make it her own. In spite of a lot of mis-starts and issues, Version 1 came out really well. I can't wait to see where this goes in the future.

From Nintendo's 77th Annual General Shareholder Meeting, we have this interesting exchange.

Q7: Regarding product video, are there any plans to bring back past content like Kirby anime on BD, or old games on DD for console/mobile?

A7: Miyamoto: We hold the Kirby IP and it’s growing in Europe. It’s selling in Spain; watched in places w/out game hardware. We want to make anime for Pikmin, Star Fox, Yoshi, etc. and distribute it freely, or integrate into games.

This doesn't mean we WILL see a Star Fox anime, but they want to do it and are far enough in the consideration stage to talk about it openly. I, for one, can't wait to see what they can do, after the awesome Star Fox: The Battle Begins short. Of course, this is a fan-translation. Though he is very reliable, I'm told, take this translation with a grain of salt.

Question Translation and Answer Translation provided by Alex Aniel @cvxfreak. Story via GoNintendo.

Update

Ayano Harumaki says that this is a slight mistranslation. According to her translation of the original Japanese transcript from NStyles, Miyamoto was referring to pre-existing Pikmen, Yoshi animations and Star Fox: The Battle Begins, not interest in making new animations. Here's her translation:

Miyamoto: We hold the Kirby IP and it's growing in Europe and it's selling in Spain well. We can sell the visual products even in areas where gaming machines cannot be sold. We made anime of Pikmin, Starfox, Yoshi etc. and distribute it freely, or integrate into games.

I guess we'll have to wait and see with an official translation to be absolutely sure. It all hinges are whether they were talking about the future or the past.