GoNintendo has just posted a huge list of media assets from the Nintendo Direct. That includes a ton of new Star Fox Zero images. There's pictures of the team, closeups of the new vehicles and modes, and, curiously, what look like ship textures and user interface textures used on the website. This in addition to a lot of images we've previously seen, but in different resolutions.

I say 'different' because the images are highly compressed, more so that we typically see. They look blockier than they ought to, even on the original versions of each image. However, this could have been an upload mistake somewhere along the line (either Nintendo or someone else). I'm looking into it. Update: They were compressed this way by Nintendo themselves. :(

See the Flickr Image Set for all the images.

Peppy Hare had a little Easter Egg in the latest Star Fox Zero trailer.

With the surprise reveal of one new character for Super Smash Bros., Cloud from Final Fantasy, Nintendo has teased a special presentation focused exclusively on Smash Bros. It's scheduled for next month. I expect we'll hear more about changes and DLC stuff (and probably even more stuff we aren't expecting) there. I'm excited.

Cloud is an interesting choice for sure. Definitely a popular and iconic character. I'm interested to see how he plays. He also represents new ground being the first Smash Bros. character never to previously grace a Nintendo platform.

Fan Speculation: START! Please try not to kill each other. :)

The delayed Star Fox Zero has a new release date: April 22nd, 2016. This was announced in the new trailer was shown off during the November Nintendo Direct. We also learned a couple of (I think) new things about the game.

• The remote controlled tethered robot that descends from the Gyrowing is called "Direct-i" (and has a very cute voice even in English)
• The Landmaster's flight mode is called "Gravmaster"
• The Landmaster can lock on to 3 enemies at the same time
• The Gyrowing is not a drone after all, but an actual piloted craft (Slippy is shown piloting it during the trailer)
• The cutscenes have a definite graphical upgrade over what we saw at E3
• No mention of Amiibo interaction or online modes, though

Here's a video of the part of the Nintendo Direct about Star Fox, including the parts after the trailer.

A brand new Nintendo Direct will air November 12th at 2PM Pacific Time. This is the first Nintendo Direct since Mr. Iwata's passing and should contain updates for this holiday season, and perhaps some stuff for 1st Quarter 2016. The presentation was explicitly NOT going to cover the Nintendo NX. What else? Who knows!

If they're going to announce the Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot winners soon, this might be the time. I also expect them to talk about upcoming Amiibo announcements. After all, Mewtwo and Falco are coming in the next few days. I think they might also talk more about Star Fox Zero, specifically why it was delayed, and provide us with the new release date.

Official Stream - Check back tomorrow at 2PM PT

A fan-created episodic series based on the pre-Star Fox transition Dinosaur Planet is in the works. The team plans to recreate the story of Dinosaur Planet as closely as they can, since the game isn't going to come out. It's going to be a lot of work, but they have some basic animations already. They are looking for more "Animators, Artists, Sound Tech, and Voice Actors." If you want to help out, check out their sites.

• Official Site
• Series Tumblr

Thanks to Fire Yoshi for the heads up.

One of the premier Star Fox fansites for many years, ArwingLanding.net has gone down again, its domain name apparently expired. I'm told that the site was essentially dead before that, its forum largely inactive, but it is still sad to see such a large community disappear. Hopefully this is a temporary situation and the site will be restored.

This brings up larger questions to me, though. To my knowledge, the largest Star Fox sites on the internet right now are Star Fox at Wikia, Starfox-Online.net, and the Krystal Archive. Notable Star Fox sites that are dead or dying are the Krystal Lovers Association and of course, ArwingLanding.net. All other Star Fox fansites either disappeared long ago, or are too small to mention (please correct me if I missed one).

The Wikia Star Fox page has a very rich amount of mostly historical and textual information. It doesn't look like it's going anywhere soon. Starfox-Online.net appears pretty strong, and their community forum, while not as active as it once was, is still swinging. And then there's the Krystal Archive, focused primarily on news and archival of media. Since I helped put Starfox-Online.net back together when it failed the first time (back in, I don't know, 2006?), and maintained an active presence there until around 2011, I have a copy of pretty much every piece of media ever published there, since I was responsible for a significant percentage of it. So that stuff is not going away, I just have to publish it.

It's something I've been thinking about: should I start a Star Fox Archive? I probably will, in some form. I hesitate to initiate some kind of forum software though, because managing a community is a lot of work that I just don't have time for. Then again, there are things like Facebook and other social platforms that could easily fill the hole that a forum otherwise might have. What do you guys think? Where do you go for Star Fox community? Would you like to see historical Star Fox media published somewhere? I will of course continue to post Star Fox news in addition to Krystal news here. It's just that I might also post it somewhere else too.

Early this morning, Nintendo launched the official site for Star Fox Zero. It mostly contains the assets released at E3, but there are a couple new things...

Three HD resolution wallpapers were released, showing off the newer character models (possibly final?). While the largest available wallpapers for download are 1920 by 1080 pixels, examining the source code for the site revealed all three wallpapers had 1920 by 1200 pixel variants (Nintendo appears to be loading all full resolution assets with every page load for some reason). There's also a larger 'hero' image, which is the close-up of Fox's face you see at the top of the page, and a larger version of the docking bay image. If you want to view the full resolution images, they are...

• Wallpaper 1 (1920 × 1200) - black background is different from the downloadable version
• Wallpaper 2 (1920 × 1200)
• Wallpaper 2 (1920 × 1200)
• Hero Image (2440 × 1200)
• Docking Bay (1680 × 1473)

A message at the top assures that the "Full site [is] coming soon." Who knows what all that involves, but I hope for more information and media as the release date gets closer.

Also, Andross is more or less confirmed as the main villain in the game: "Master your craft, defy the odds, and earn your face-to-face meeting with Andross."

Lastly, some messages at the bottom of the page imply certain game modes.

• "Additional accessories required for multiplayer; sold separately."
  Might be multiplayer player-vs-player, or might be a co-op mode we heard about a while back where one player flies while the other player aims and shoots. The game is also listed as supporting "1-2 players", so at this point, I'd call 4-player multiplayer unlikely.
• "Broadband Internet access required for online features."
  Could this game have online play? Or could it instead be some kind of online scoreboard or Miiverse connectivity? Perhaps the cloud-based game saving we've heard rumored? Who knows!
• And Amiibo support is re-confirmed.

My hosting provider will be upgrading my server's database sometime on November 2nd. They expect no more than 5 to 10 minutes of downtime, but during that time, the site will probably be completely unusable. I don't know exactly when it will be, but if you do notice it going down, please send me an email so I can make sure it comes back up.

Update: Everything seems to be in order.

We posted a few of these photos from her Twitter, but now Ayano has sent the full resolution photos of her trip to the Tokyo Game Show where she showed off her new and improved Star Fox Assault bodysuit. She was hoping to meet with Mr. Imamura, the producer of Star Fox Command, to find how some details of Krystal's suit from Command. Sadly, Nintendo does not attend the Tokyo Game Show.

Thanks, Ayano! You are wonderful, as always.