Early this morning, Nintendo of Japan posted a lot of stuff about Star Fox 2. And I mean a LOT! There was an interview with some of the Japanese developers, and both the Japanese and English Star Fox 2 Official Manuals. The manuals are website-based, but otherwise follow a similar format to classic game manuals, complete with story, controls information, character bios, and much more. Plus, we got to see some development documents, detailed Arwing schematics, and original concept art for the Star Wolf team. The character page includes mobile wallpapers, and notes that while Star Fox 2 was completed back in the 90s, promotional materials were not. As a result, Nintendo brought back one of the original artists from the game to make the brand new artwork we're now seeing for Star Fox 2. I guess that answers the question about the artwork!

I still haven't had a chance to go through everything yet, but there is much more here, including instructions for actually playing the game. I hope they translate the interview too! If you guys find anything else interesting, or find the translated interview or development documents, please let me know in the comments below!

• Star Fox 2 Developer Nintendo Japan Interview
• Star Fox 2 Official Manual (Japanese)
• Star Fox 2 Official Manual (English)
• Star Fox 2 Aircraft Schematic Drawings
• Star Fox 2 Game Design Documents
• Star Wolf Concept Art

Thanks to N J FOX for the heads up.

Shauna (the_real_seal on Instagram) has been cosplaying as Krystal at a couple events this year. The premiere of the cosplay was on Friday, March 31st 2017 at WonderCon in Anaheim, California. Her second appearance was on Saturday, July 1st 2017 at Anime Expo in Los Angeles.

In addition to walking around each con and interacting with con goers, she also had several small photoshoots at each con with some photographers. The photos in the gallery below are some of her favorites, but she has posted more. A LOT more! And she will continue to post more in the future. Later on, those photos will be put in the Krystal Cosplay Group on Flickr at high resolution. For now, though, I have provided links below to all the photos online that I could find.

As for the costume itself, I have a few details available. The Staff shaft is a painted PVC pipe. The tips of the Staff are made from pink insulation foam, carved to shape, coated with spackling paste and wood glue, and then painted. The ears are made out of fabric and felt. The armor is shaped and painted EVA foam. The bra is a normal bra that the_real_seal sewed fabric over to match Krystal's. The loincloth was made by _queenbean_. The tail was purchased. The wig was purchased as well, then modified to fit with the ears. The sandals were bought and painted. The jewelry was bought and painted, although the headpiece was customized with beads and metal wire. The hip and arm tattoos are done using Snazaroo face paint.

In the future, the_real_seal said she that the Krystal cosplay is more of a seasonal costume, and it will probably be retired until next summer. She hopes to remake some of the armor as well.

Photo Links

• Photo by novicesnapshots
• Photo by novicesnapshots
• Photo by novicesnapshots
• Photo by novicesnapshots
• Photo by novicesnapshots
• Photo by novicesnapshots
• Photo by novicesnapshots
• Photo by novicesnapshots
• Photo by novicesnapshots
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• Photo by novicesnapshots
• Photo by novicesnapshots
• Photo by novicesnapshots
• Photo by novicesnapshots
• Photo by catboxphotography
• Photo by catboxphotography
• Photo by catboxphotography
• Photo by catboxphotography
• Photo by jackofalltradesx11
• Photo by jackofalltradesx11
• Photo by jackofalltradesx11
• Photo by jackofalltradesx11
• Photo by jackofalltradesx11
• Photo by jackofalltradesx11
• Photo by jackofalltradesx11
• Photo by jackofalltradesx11
• Photo by nsulley
• Photo by nsulley
• Photo by stevemintyfresh
• Photo by jrulison
• Photo by fruitt.cat
• Photo by yo_ernie
• Photo by the_real_seal
• Photo by ThaCraZedDoktor
• Photo by conartistimages

Work in Progress Images

• Photo by the_real_seal
• Photo by the_real_seal
• Tumblr post by the_real_seal

Instagram photographers: novicesnapshots, catboxphotography, jackofalltradesx11, nsulley, stevemintyfresh, jrulison, fruitt.cat, yo_ernie

Thanks to Ayano Harumaki for originally informing me about this cosplayer.

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!