I have so distressing news, everybody. Back on August 11th, our friend and major site contributor, FoxType, was taken to the ER with severe abdominal pain. He had been suffering off and on since mid-May, but in August while attending the D23 Disney Convention, the mysterious issue became too great. He had a serious misalignment with parts of his digestive tract, which I believe had become infected. He also found out on the same day that he is diabetic. Tragic news on the day he was supposed to be having fun with other Disney fans!

He's been giving me updates occasionally. He's been through at least one surgery already and is on the road to recovery. He tells me he'll be in the hospital for another two weeks. Then he'll be in recovery at home for another couple weeks. It sounds like the worst is behind him. He asked me to let you all know what's going on. In spite of my objections, he is still anxious to get back to work on the videos he took of Ayano's cosplay at the beginning of the year.

I'd like to ask you all to keep FoxType in your thoughts and prayers as he recovers. Thank you.

Over the next few hours (or days), I will be updating the site's theme. Don't worry, the site will look almost identical, just slightly better. It was necessary to allow for changes as the site moves forward. I found issues as I was trying to add new content (which is coming soon, yay!). Certain pages and posts may be broken temporarily, so no need to report anything yet.

Also, I'm dropping full support for older versions of Internet Explorer. The site works on IE8 and IE9, though with issues. IE7 and lower aren't really my concern anymore. If you use Internet Explorer, I'd recommend you upgrade.

After the upgrade is finished, I'll need you guys' support to help me flesh out any issues. Thanks!

Once again, I'll be attending Everfree NW, the Seattle Brony Con, July 5th through 7th. I will also be cosplaying for the first time, so I'm super nervous. It's going to be Twilight Sparkle, with the whole purple hair and everything, ha ha. Come by and say 'hi' if you're attending. I know already that at least one of you will be attending. So there's no confusion, my badge should say 'Mr. K'.

Lovely image, isn't it? I've been waiting a long time to show it off. Almost immediately after the final Brawl character was revealed to be Wolf O'Donnell, I decided to put a lot of effort into making sure the same thing didn't happen again. I commissioned Sig-nal to create this artwork in preparation for a campaign to convence Mr. Masahiro Sakurai to put Krystal in the next Super Smash Bros. There was to be a dedicated website linking to an online petition where Krystal fans could sign up to request Krystal be included. As I continued to advance in my DigiPen studies of video game programming, I even considered writing up the character design document that would detail movesets, animations, costume changes, physics, art specifics, and all the other nitty gritty details that comes with creating a character for a character-focused game like a fighter. I planned all of that in an effort to entice Mr. Sakurai to include our lovely blue vixen.

Then I got busy with finishing school and finding a job. Plans are much easier to think about than act on. I kept the site up to date (mostly), but special projects like making a campaign for Krystal in SSB4 kept getting delayed in favor of other things. Before you know it, Nintendo launches their next console and promises a new Smash game coming soon. I realized then that it was probably too late. Now that an official trailer has been show, it is almost certainly too late.

During that time, I also gained an appreciation for just how the game industry works. Up until last month, I've been working for EA for a little over 2 years. I learned that while there is a lot of fun and magic to be had in making games, it is decidedly less magical than I expected going in. You can't just decide that a character should be in a game. There are licensing issues, technical challenges, and the character's impact on the game as a whole that must be considered. Mr. Sakurai could get it done if he wanted to, but he has correctly decided to place overall gameplay concerns over getting the most popular characters in the game. That's not to say he isn't listening. Megaman was the most requested guest character, but Mr. Sakurai was very careful to choose the classic NES-style Megaman simply brought into the land of 3D. If Krystal isn't a good fighting choice and not popular enough, there's little to no hope that she will be in any Smash game.

Sounds pretty negative, I know, but I'm just being realistic. Barring some kind of executive decision by Shigeru Miyamoto, Satoru Iwata, Reggie Fils-Aime, or Mr. Sakurai himself, all of the characters that will appear in the game have been decided on long ago. The only way she will likely appear is if she was already chosen. What are the chances of that? Not terribly bad, actually. Let's look at the reasons.

1. Staff-Based Fighter

Krystal's Staff is the primary weapon used throughout Star Fox Adventures. We only got to see Krystal wield it briefly in that game, but Fox showed that it has many, many capabilities. This opens up numerous possibilities. While Link, Ike, Marth, and Roy used swords as part of their fighting style, there has yet to be a character in Smash games to use a staff. Unlike a sword, which generally only allows for attacks in one direction at a time, a staff can be used to attack in both directions or one direction depending on how it is used. This would be useful for mid-power attacks. Krystal's Staff features upgrades that allow for elemental attacks based on fire, ice, earth, and plain-old energy shots. In Star Fox Adventures, Krystal's Staff was intended to be a universal tool and weapon. Krystal can use her Staff in Smash the same way.

2. A New Female Character

If I recall correctly, Mr. Sakurai expressed interest in including more female characters in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The result? Zero Suit Samus was included as an alternate form for the normally suited Samus. This time around, we're doing a little better. We get the Wii Fit Female Trainer as one of the newly revealed characters. Why have only one when we can have two (or more)? Adding Krystal would increase the number of playable female characters without resorting to alternate forms.

3. Krystal, the Unusual Star Fox Character

The development of Star Fox Adventures led to Krystal having attributes not shared by any other characters in the Star Fox series. Namely, she's a telepath. In the games, she displays strong empathic abilities and possibly a small amount of future-sight. While all other Star Fox characters can (and do) use mostly physical attacks and laser weapons when fighting outside their vehicles, Krystal presents the opportunity to have a Star Fox character with a more psychically focused moveset. It could be implemented as distance psychic attacks like Ness's, or as close-up disorientation type attacks like Mewtwo. Krystal also displays a connection with the various Saurian dinosaur characters she encounters. She might also be able to call in helper dinos like Captain Olimar calls in Pikmin.

4. No More Landmaster!

It doesn't need to be this way! Krystal can call on one of the CloudRunner dinosaurs, or a whole pack of them. Or she can do some kind of crazy psychic limit break. I don't care. Point is, Krystal presents much more opportunity for a unique Final Smash.

5. In Uniqueness, Familiarity

While Krystal has a lot of unique abilities and a diverse set of options available, she remains a member of the Star Fox team. She can pilot an Arwing, use firearms, talk on comms, and do all the other things most Star Fox characters can do. If Mr. Sakurai wants to keep part of her moveset familiar, Krystal is fully capable of using kicks, punches, and laser pistols.

Bonus: Popularity

While Krystal is not without her share of controversy, she remains a very popular character. Indeed, when Mr. Sakurai polled people for characters to include in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Krystal was requested multiple times and was the most-requested female character among those listed in the poll results. I've even heard that Sakurai expressed surprise at the numerous requests for her in Brawl, though I was unable to find the source.

Not a bad list of reasons. Even Krystal herself believes she should be in the game. She's certainly just as interesting as most other characters in the series. Fox is going to be in the Super Smash Bros. 4, but Falco and Wolf are easily up in the air considering their clon-y movesets.

Is Krystal the logical choice? What other reasons should she be in Smash? Are there good reasons to keep her out? What do you think?

Full Resolution Krystal Smash Art

It's been confirmed that Retro Studio's secret project was the new Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, but they almost went with another Metroid game. I guess we'll have to look beyond Retro Studios for some Star Fox love.

Super Smash Bros., for both 3DS and Wii U was shown, and Fox makes his expected appearance, but no other Star Fox characters were seen. Keep an eye on the official game site for new character reveals. There have already been two today: Animal Crossing's Villager and the Female Wii Fit Trainer.

Other than that, Nintendo had a great press conference, in my opinion. They showed lots of good looking, interesting games and provided a couple of nice surprises like the sequel to Xenoblade. The only thing that could have made this presentation perfect would be a surprise Star Fox (obviously) or actual footage of the new 3D Zelda game they're apparently working on (NOT the Wind Waker remake, which also looks fantastic).

Check out all the new games

Nintendo tweeted today the date and time of their E3 Nintendo Direct for North America, where they are expected to reveal most, if not all, of their games for the Fall and early 2014.

Tuesday, June 11th @ 7AM Pacific

This corresponds to the first official day of E3 expo proper, but the day after the official keynotes of Microsoft, Sony, Ubisoft, and EA. Might actually be a smart move, because Nintendo's announcements will likely be the "newest" news available that day, everyone else having already revealed their stuff the day before, fighting among themselves for attention.

Update

The Nintendo Direct WILL feature a video of the new Super Smash Bros. Source

As you all probably heard, Nintendo will not have a keynote at E3 this year. Instead, they will do more of their own Nintendo Direct video presentations leading up to the show, and present small, closed-door meetings at E3 proper (and likely have a show floor presence).

An announcement was made today that tomorrow morning, at 7AM Pacific time, we will be getting our first Nintendo Direct of this type. This one is to be about upcoming Wii U games for summer and fall 2013. You know what that means! If they are set to reveal Retro Studio's new game, and actual details on the next Smash Bros, this is the first place we might see them. Fingers crossed!

Presentation Site
Source

There will be other Nintendo Direct for Europe tomorrow as well, and possibly Japan, so be on the lookout for news.

Update

No Star Fox or Smash this time. The direct was mostly about the new Mario and Sonic Winter Olympic Games, Pikmen 3, Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, Resident Evil, New Super Luigi U, and a bunch of little details and launch dates on games that we already knew about or expected. There will be another Nintendo Direct coming "around the time of E3," so we'll have to look forward to that.

Engadget is reporting (via GoNintendo) that recent checkins of Google's Chrome OS have used Fox, Falco, Slippy, Peppy, Mario, Sonic, etc as placeholders for upcoming devices that will boot directly to Chrome OS. Glad we have some fellow Star Fox fans among the engineers at Google.

Checkin 1
Checkin 2

As promised, here's a new episode of the Krystal Archive Podcast. This time I go over Further Confusion, my current life situation, and some plans to use third-party systems to improve the Krystal Archive.

If you want to go ahead and join the DeviantArt group, it can be found here: Krystal Archive on DeviantArt

Listen on YouTube

Download
Show Notes

I made a couple of small changes to the Krystal Music page, a couple of the files were missing and an astute person mentioned that we didn't have the song from when Krystal gets trapped in the crystal.

I'm planning to do another podcast episode this weekend. There's been a LOT of stuff going on in my RL life, so I have much to tell with regard to updates and why I haven't been responding to emails. Thanks for being patient. All will be explained soon.