I honestly never thought I'd see the day! Nintendo just announced the long-rumored Super NES Classic. Included among the games is the original Star Fox and, believe it not, Star Fox 2. Star Fox 2 was never officially released. An unfinished developer preview of the game was leaked years ago, but as Dylan Cuthbert mentioned in an interview, the leaked game was missing significant content from the finished version. Fortunately for us now, the final game was indeed finished, even after cancellation of the project, because the developers were so close to the end of development. My guess is that this is the real, final version of the game, not the internet-leaked incomplete version.

Also nice is to have the first official re-release of the original Star Fox. Star Fox for the Super NES has never been re-released to any virtual console or official remake, likely due to the complexities of emulating the Super FX chip that made the early 3D graphics possible.

Of course, there are lots of other great games it includes:

• Contra III: The Alien Wars
• Donkey Kong Country
• EarthBound
• Final Fantasy III
• F-ZERO
• Kirby Super Star
• Kirby's Dream Course
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
• Mega Man X
• Secret of Mana
• Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting
• Super Castlevania IV
• Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts
• Super Mario Kart
• Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
• Super Mario World
• Super Metroid
• Super Punch-Out!!
• Yoshi's Island

The Super NES Classic will release September 29th for $79.99. I just called my local GameStop and they said they don't even have it in the system yet. So no idea when or how to get a reserve, but you can bet that I will be getting my hands on a copy as soon as possible! To my great shame, I've never actually played through the original Star Fox, so I'm looking forward to correcting that mistake.

I somehow missed the announcement of Starlink: Battle for Atlas during E3 a couple weeks ago. Starlink is a Toys-To-Life game published by Ubisoft that will allow customizable spaceships, features, and weapons. In the absence of a new Star Fox game, I think this game might be worth checking out. It will be available on XBOX ONE, PS4, and Nintendo Switch in Fall 2018.

Let's break it down:

• Story-driven gameplay
• All-range mode space battles
• Planet-side shooting via a low-level flight mechanic that lets you move around the surface almost like a mech
• Numerous, varied characters
• And perhaps most importantly, no features or story points are limited only to those who purchase additional pieces. Apparently, everything can be obtained in the game with enough effort. Buying the collectables serves only to speed up the process and give you something to physically interact with or display on your shelf.

We have a while until the game is released, which should give us plenty of time to find out more about it. For now, though, this looks like an interesting distraction while we wait for Nintendo to make the next big Star Fox game.

A long-running unofficial Smash Ballot for future character DLC in Super Smash Bros has ended. The poll, run by fansite nintendolife, featured a large list of potential characters to vote for, including a place to enter custom requests. Yesterday, the poll closed and the votes were tallied. The results were very interesting.

According to the initial count, Krystal outpaced every other character by several thousand votes! Huge win, right? Except, hold on. Apparently most of them were bot-generated votes by a single IP address. Some Krystal fan out there has been very naughty. Once the fake votes were removed, Krystal actually ranked at about #20 to #25. A great showing for a older character in my opinion, especially considering that this was a relatively small, unofficial fan poll.

The poll organizer was in good spirits about it. Jordan "Unofficial Krystal-in-Smash Promotional Manager" Sweeto contacted the poll organizers to find out some details. Apparently the organizers at nintendolife are interested in the #teamKRYSTAL promotional project and may help promote Krystal in the future.

Vote rigging, even for a fan poll, is NOT ok. Got it? At worst, it can lead to blowback and delegitimizing legitimate fans. At best, it's dishonest and Krystal would not approve. That said, it's an online poll. Those at nintendolife have now learned firsthand why online polls are hard to take seriously.

Thanks to Mr. Brownstone for the heads up.

There are so many little glitches in Star Fox Adventures. Some of them are pretty hilarious. This first video features a bunch of Krystal-related glitches. It's by SUPER SAOS, a speedrunner who's investing a lot of time trying to figure out how to exploit the game. The second video below is by MobianAngel. I had no idea Tricky's following code was so quirky!

It's an older video, but I never posted about it. YouTube user OriginalCourtland shows, in precise detail, how to create your own Krystal look-alike custom character in Soul Calibur 5, complete with Staff. I think this is probably the most accurate Krystal creation I've seen in any game's in-game character creation screen. Do you guys know of a better one than this? I hear the wrestling games have very extensive character creation systems.

As a side note, I'm about to fly home to Texas after being on yet another trip for two weeks. I hope to do more significant posts and research soon.

HyperShadow92 shows off his Krystal Amiibo created by combining parts from Fox and Zero Suit Samus Amiibos. There's also a custom paintjob and sculpting that went into this mod. The base reports Fox McCloud when scanned.

Have you ever found yourself playing GTA5 and thought to yourself, "You know what would make this better? An Arwing!" Well, I have some good news. A fully flyable Arwing mod for Grand Theft Auto 5 is available. In addition to flight, it can shoot two different kinds of weapons.

If you want to play something a bit more relaxing, you can fly the Great Fox mod for GTA5. It moves a bit slower and has no weapons (that I know of anyway).

Both mods were made by KAFAROS, who frequently makes custom mods for GTA5. Maybe you can convince him to put Krystal in the game, for the right price. Both videos by LemonadeGamingHD.

Here's a quick digital speedpaint of Krystal. Unfortunately, Cielo (the artist) has not posted the finished piece anywhere that I can find. Here's her gallery, though.

In another mod posted via GAMEBANANA, modder TheAggrivator has restarted work to fully add Adventures Krystal to Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. The mod will skin over Fox rather than Zero Suit Samus as in the NEOFilly Mod. It looks like the mod will be a bit more detailed than a simple skin swap. Additionally, this mod will eventually come with a custom Character Select Screen profile and possibly custom Krystal sound effects/voice acting.

The mod is still in development, but progressing rapidly. Keep an eye on the project page for more details as they become available.

Thanks to Smokey for the heads up.

Speaking of Krystal in Smash Bros, we've got some interesting projects going on at GAMEBANANA, a gaming mod community.

First up, there is a skin available for Super Smash Bros (Wii U) that replaces Zero Suit Samus's mesh with that of Krystal from Star Fox Assault. Creator NEOFilly says that although the skin doesn't have facial or finger animations working, the skin is passable for use right now. It was NEOFilly's first mod. Visit the skin page for more photos and the download link.

64iOS even made a video showcasing this skin (and a few others). You can see from the video another area that could use some improvement: the tail has no physics, which makes sense as Samus doesn't have a tail.

Thanks to Smokey for the heads up.