Team Star Fox call in Krystal for Smash!

[Mushroomguy12]

TFW people still say you ruined Star Fox when you had nothing to do with the worst one

Source: https://www.deviantart.com/gerovort/art/Krystal-is-Angry-838391661

I would blame Star Fox Zero a lot for the severe drop off in popularity Krystal has had for Smash. Not only as a game that lowered her standing in the SF series itself by not featuring her (since it wanted to go the remake 64 in everything but name route), but as a game that killed the series for a long time to come, so we can't even get another game featuring her.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

I would blame Star Fox Zero a lot for the severe drop off in popularity Krystal has had for Smash. Not only as a game that lowered her standing in the SF series itself by not featuring her (since it wanted to go the remake 64 in everything but name route), but as a game that killed the series for a long time to come, so we can't even get another game featuring her.

I'm hoping that Nintendo finds the sense to salvage at least the assets of SF Zero and make a new game that doesn't require you to have eyes that move independently of each other like the great Leon! to play it. I would prefer Xenoblade Chronicles X get a port first but Paper Mario Color Splash was a mess of WiiU gimmicks and they got a decent game out of it in Origami King.

 

[MorbidMiraj]

I would blame Star Fox Zero a lot for the severe drop off in popularity Krystal has had for Smash. Not only as a game that lowered her standing in the SF series itself by not featuring her (since it wanted to go the remake 64 in everything but name route), but as a game that killed the series for a long time to come, so we can't even get another game featuring her.

There was a lot of stupid sexism towards her back in the day. Everyone dumped on her instead of looking at the mechanical and rushed production issues of the actual games themselves. She was a scapegoat. The fact that the games have sold worse since she's been gone isn't attributable to her either, but it's something those same haters wouldn't acknowledge if she were in fact somehow the reason for the series being popular or not.

I do worry that Nintendo is taking too long between games. It's really side projects likes Smash or Starlink that keep Star Fox in the gaming crowd's awareness, though I doubt the general audience nowadays know much at all about the franchise. Nintendo likes to do this though... they take huge breaks in-between entries of their once-popular series and maybe occasionally do a spinoff or remake, and then wonder why nobody buys them. Audience retention is something they're really bad at when it comes to their non-heavy hitter franchises.

 

[MAtgSy]

I would blame Star Fox Zero a lot for the severe drop off in popularity Krystal has had for Smash. Not only as a game that lowered her standing in the SF series itself by not featuring her (since it wanted to go the remake 64 in everything but name route), but as a game that killed the series for a long time to come, so we can't even get another game featuring her.

Sakurai still saw fit to add Krystal as an AT despite that.

 

[MorbidMiraj]

Sakurai still saw fit to add Krystal as an AT despite that.

He's suggested in interviews that she's meant to be a playable character since Brawl but always gets cut because of time constraints. I guess an AT was a halfway measure, but it still stings that after 3 games and 13 years, she's still a wishlist character.

 

[Dinoman96]

He's suggested in interviews that she's meant to be a playable character since Brawl but always gets cut because of time constraints. I guess an AT was a halfway measure, but it still stings that after 3 games and 13 years, she's still a wishlist character.

That's not really the case at all, though.

Sakurai answers some (old) questions– about Brawl!

These questions were part of a two-part article that was published shortly after Brawl’s release, in the magazine Nintendo Dream, featuring a bunch of reader questions, which Sakurai answered…

sourcegaming.info

Sakurai: Wolf was a character that barely made it in due to time constraints. He was added because there was high demand for his inclusion on places like “Smash Bros. Dojo!!”, and he’s a popular character. Of course, if he didn’t have that backing him, I don’t think I could have put him in. Among the characters with high popularity, I chose one who had a high possibility of becoming realized in the game, and as a result you could say Wolf was created.

Host: Does that mean even if you wanted to add more female characters, Krystal didn’t have a realistic chance of being physically implemented into the game?

Sakurai: For Krystal, we didn’t have any of the technical modeling knowledge that we had cultivated with Fox and Falco, so it was like making a brand-new character from scratch. And because of the limited amount of time we had, creating Krystal wasn’t realistically possible. On that point, with Wolf we already have some knowledge of how to model his character, and would require about 70% of the effort required to create a whole new character.

Host: I see. But we did get a lot of questions like, “Why wasn’t Krystal a playable character?”

Sakurai: It’s not that I don’t understand how that feels, but if you start saying that, it becomes “Why isn’t Waddle Dee playable?” or Dry Bones, or Baby Peach. There’d be no end to it.

Host: Well, that is true (laughs).

Sakurai: In the end, the three playable characters in this game from “Star Fox” are Fox and Falco, and on top of that, Wolf, because he was popular and easy to create. On the other hand, if it was a situation where it wasn’t easy to create this character, and we had to make him from scratch, “Star Fox” may not have had 3 representatives. So, please think of Wolf as a lucky inclusion.

Sounds like to me that she was at best, momentarily considered before being passed on for Wolf. Really to me, it sounded like it was going to be Wolf or no one.

It's pretty apparent to me that the only reason Star Fox got all the characters it has in Smash is through dumb luck and convenience. The last sentence of the interview above is pretty telling. Obviously he's talking about Wolf specifically but that statement also easily applies to Falco, considering he only got into Melee because they wanted to pad out the roster with clones towards the tail-end of development. Likewise Wolf got into Brawl because he was popular AND also easy to develop, due to being partially cloned off of Fox. In other words, both these characters were pretty much just bonuses that got in through sheer luck.

It's also worth pointing out that Sakurai had actually considered on just making Peppy, Falco and Slippy alt skins for Fox back in Smash 64. There probably exists a timeline where Fox remained the only Star Fox character playable in Smash, just like how Wario and Captain Falcon are with their series.

 

[MorbidMiraj]

That's not really the case at all, though.

Sakurai answers some (old) questions– about Brawl!

These questions were part of a two-part article that was published shortly after Brawl’s release, in the magazine Nintendo Dream, featuring a bunch of reader questions, which Sakurai answered…

sourcegaming.info

Sounds like to me that she was at best, momentarily considered before being passed on for Wolf. Really to me, it sounded like it was going to be Wolf or no one.

It's pretty apparent to me that the only reason Star Fox got all the characters it has in Smash is through dumb luck and convenience. The last sentence of the interview above is pretty telling. Obviously he's talking about Wolf specifically but that statement also easily applies to Falco, considering he only got into Melee because they wanted to pad out the roster with clones towards the tail-end of development. Likewise Wolf got into Brawl because he was popular AND also easy to develop, due to being partially cloned off of Fox. In other words, both these characters were pretty much just bonuses that got in through sheer luck.

It's also worth pointing out that Sakurai had actually considered on just making Peppy, Falco and Slippy alt skins for Fox back in Smash 64. There probably exists a timeline where Fox remained the only Star Fox character playable in Smash, just like how Wario and Captain Falcon are with their series.

Yeah it was a thing where he said that Wolf would be easy since he would be a clone/echo. For Krystal they would have to do wholly new body and animation styles. Krystal also supposedly did well on the ballot, and her AT is very advanced, indicating she was possibly intended for full playable status. Maybe this is all just conjecture, but there seems to be more indications than not that she has at least been considered.

I also just realized that all of the Star Fox fighters are clones or echoes of Fox. So really we only have one wholly original Star Fox character in Smash. Ugh.

 

[Mushroomguy12]

Super Rare Dudes art.

Sketch ////// Final art#SmashBrosUltimate #SuperSmashBrosUltimate #Nintendo #DonkeyKong #Rareware #Rare #DKC #BanjoKazooie #SNES #N64 #Switch #Nintendo #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/eJjk4WHlfa

— Kachec (@kachec1) September 8, 2021

 

[MorbidMiraj]

So the last Smash fighter could potentially be announced this month if Nintendo does their usual September Direct. While it's likely going to be a third party rep or another Fire Emblem character, one thing has kind of nagged at me...

Sakurai said that it took a year to make the Orbital Gate Assault stage for Smash 4. It's one of the most complex levels ever in Smash, and it's one of a small set of stages not included in Ultimate. In fact, the other missing stages either have pretty similar equivalences already in Ultimate, or are tied to a console-specific functionality (Miiverse). Also notably, besides Krystal being an AT and Wolf returning with a new jacket, there is no other new Star Fox content in Ultimate. In fact, besides Krystal being an AT, there's arguably less content since they ditched this level.

This is a long shot, but what if Sakurai and crew were retooling Orbital Gate Assault for Smash Ultimate to be included with the final DLC character or as a final patch? It's the most notable missing stage, and it probably was technically difficult to port over (a la Ice Climbers in Smash 4). It probably got cut from the base game due to time constraints, like how there were other planned characters and stages that had to be saved for DLC because of time.

I don't know if DLC stages necessarily have to be tied to the same IP as the new fighter... but it would be welcome to see this stage brought back somehow, since it was such a big effort that is missing from the Ultimate package.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

I wonder if the Orbital Gate stage had trouble playing nice with the stage swap feature given how rapidly it swaps between different modes itself.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Given that OGA took over a year to develop, and all previous stages have to be adapted to a new lighting engine regardless of whether or not they were remodeled, it might've been just too much to apply PBR materials to OGA in time.

 

[Mushroomguy12]

The night before the direct, Sakurai tweets a Star Fox Adventures POTD.

2002年のきょう､『スターフォックスアドベンチャー』(Star Fox Adventures)北米で発売!!
『スターフォックス』シリーズとしてはかなり毛色が異なるのは､元々『ダイナソープラネット』という名前で作られていた作品だから｡
クリスタルが初登場し､この後スターフォックスに加入します｡#スマブラSP pic.twitter.com/NXQioXrms4

— 桜井 政博 / Masahiro Sakurai (@Sora_Sakurai) September 23, 2021

Today in 2002, "Star Fox Adventures" will be released in North America !! The coat color of the "Star Fox" series is quite different because it was originally made under the name "Dinosaur Planet". Crystal first appeared and later joined Star Fox. #Smash Bros SP

 

[Guybrush20X6]

The night before the direct, Sakurai tweets a Star Fox Adventures POTD.

2002年のきょう､『スターフォックスアドベンチャー』(Star Fox Adventures)北米で発売!!
『スターフォックス』シリーズとしてはかなり毛色が異なるのは､元々『ダイナソープラネット』という名前で作られていた作品だから｡
クリスタルが初登場し､この後スターフォックスに加入します｡#スマブラSP pic.twitter.com/NXQioXrms4

— 桜井 政博 / Masahiro Sakurai (@Sora_Sakurai) September 23, 2021

Today in 2002, "Star Fox Adventures" will be released in North America !! The coat color of the "Star Fox" series is quite different because it was originally made under the name "Dinosaur Planet". Crystal first appeared and later joined Star Fox. #Smash Bros SP

He acknowledged it exists which is more than can be said for the SF series at this point.
Here's hoping that the Star Fox series gets some love in the direct. Or at least a sequel made from the remains of SF Zero.

 

[Dinoman96]

Kinda shocked he outright acknowledged Adventures' Dinosaur Planet roots.

 

[MorbidMiraj]

I figured if Sakurai acknowledged Krystal in a tweet the day of the Direct, she wouldn't be the final fighter (if she were upgraded from an AT). But now that we know the announcement is next month, I'm torturing myself with renewed hope!

 

[Dinoman96]

Well in other Star Fox related news, Star Fox 64 is coming Nintendo Switch Online along with N64 games in general.

Kinda nice to have SF1, SF2 and 64 all together on the same system like that. It's pretty unlikely but it'd be great if we could get GCN on NSO and add Adventures and Assault to that collection as well.

 

[MorbidMiraj]

Well in other Star Fox related news, Star Fox 64 is coming Nintendo Switch Online along with N64 games in general.

Kinda nice to have SF1, SF2 and 64 all together on the same system like that. It's pretty unlikely but it'd be great if we could get GCN on NSO and add Adventures and Assault to that collection as well.

Assault with online multiplayer would be the dream!

 

[Mushroomguy12]

Great to see SF64 get added to NSO. Praying for the Gamecube NSO in the future for Adventures and Assault.

 

[IsmaR]

My pipe dream would be for the original Dinosaur Planet to get the Star Fox 2 treatment with it releasing as an incentive for the online expansion pack.

Slightly less than impossible sounding given Banjo-Kazooie is eventually coming to the service.

 

[MorbidMiraj]

My pipe dream would be for the original Dinosaur Planet to get the Star Fox 2 treatment with it releasing as an incentive for the online expansion pack.

Slightly less than impossible sounding given Banjo-Kazooie is eventually coming to the service.

That would be really cool, but I don't know if it's even possible since Dinosaur Planet was unfinished while Star Fox 2 was effectively done. Perhaps instead they could do a remake of sorts, combining the aspects of Dinosaur Planet and Star Fox Adventures together, like the dual protagonist mode, or some of the nixed characters and story beats.

 

[Dinoman96]

So this thread hasn't had any new posts in almost a month, and today marks the end of all Ultimate character speculation threads before they're locked forever. So, despite me not being exactly a Krystal megafan, I felt like having some closing words about the blue vixen.

I don't think people have really given enough credit to how well Krystal did this game. This is a character that Nintendo has pretty much been trying to bury from the public eye for well over a decade now, a character that appeared in three not super well liked Star Fox games from ages ago, so for her to get a full blown assist trophy, based on her original Adventures appearance with even her staff, is pretty something. Not even considerably more popular and relevant characters like Bandana Dee or Dixie Kong got that far. She even got a four star "Legendary" spirit. It's pretty apparent that, despite all the talk about how Krystal's fanbase had completely died down after Brawl, she was still popular enough on the Smash ballot to get the acknowledgement like that. Pretty much the only consolation prize she didn't get was a Mii Fighter outfit.

I guess it's bit of a duel edged sword, though. On the virtue of her being one of the very first assist trophy confirmations/character deconfirmations for Ultimate, as well as Star Fox in general being kinda stuck in limbo, she pretty much disappeared almost entirely from the speculation scene. She was never really given the chance to regrow her fanbase again, just like how fans of Isaac, Shadow, and Geno did before they inevitably got put to bed with assist trophies or Mii outfits months later...years later in Geno's case.

It's kinda clear at this point that the only way Krystal will become a major figure in Smash speculation once more is for Nintendo to make a new Star Fox game with her in a starring role again. Regardless, I do think her fans should be grateful with what they got this time around, especially considering the controversial status of her character and all three of her associated games in general, which I feel is probably the biggest reason Nintendo seems very keen on not referencing any of them.

Here's hoping for a better future for Star Fox, and Krystal.

BTW, Krystal's assist trophy makes another appearance in Aqua's spirit battle in Sora's pack.

 

[Fluttershy64]

So this thread hasn't had any new posts in almost a month, and today marks the end of all Ultimate character speculation threads before they're locked forever. So, despite me not being exactly a Krystal megafan, I felt like having some closing words about the blue vixen.

I don't think people have really given enough credit to how well Krystal did this game. This is a character that Nintendo has pretty much been trying to bury from the public eye for well over a decade now, a character that appeared in three not super well liked Star Fox games from ages ago, so for her to get a full blown assist trophy, based on her original Adventures appearance with even her staff, is pretty something. Not even considerably more popular and relevant characters like Bandana Dee or Dixie Kong got that far. She even got a four star "Legendary" spirit. It's pretty apparent that, despite all the talk about how Krystal's fanbase had completely died down after Brawl, she was still popular enough on the Smash ballot to get the acknowledgement like that. Pretty much the only consolation prize she didn't get was a Mii Fighter outfit.

I guess it's bit of a duel edged sword, though. On the virtue of her being one of the very first assist trophy confirmations/character deconfirmations for Ultimate, as well as Star Fox in general being kinda stuck in limbo, she pretty much disappeared almost entirely from the speculation scene. She was never really given the chance to regrow her fanbase again, just like how fans of Isaac, Shadow, and Geno did before they inevitably got put to bed with assist trophies or Mii outfits months later...years later in Geno's case.

It's kinda clear at this point that the only way Krystal will become a major figure in Smash speculation once more is for Nintendo to make a new Star Fox game with her in a starring role again. Regardless, I do think her fans should be grateful with what they got this time around, especially considering the controversial status of her character and all three of her associated games in general, which I feel is probably the biggest reason Nintendo seems very keen on not referencing any of them.

Here's hoping for a better future for Star Fox, and Krystal.

BTW, Krystal's assist trophy makes another appearance in Aqua's spirit battle in Sora's pack.

Maybe we should create a Krystal Social thread so we can still talk about her chances for the next smash games and other Krystal related things.

 

[Fluttershy64]

Krystal Social Thread

This is a Krystal from Star Fox thread to discuss our favorite blue fox. Come here to discuss speculations about new Star Fox games and other things that come to your mind!

smashboards.com

Hi everybody I made a Krystal Social Thread, so let’s all move there and I hope to see you all there!

 

[IsmaR]

Bit on the late side, but as the above was locked, I've made an alternative that can be used to continue the series/discussions in here.

All aircraft, report - Star Fox General Discussion

AKA Starwing, AKA Lylat Wars, AKA Dinosaur Planet, AKA the game that let us hear high paced animal gibberish and is responsible for rapidly destroying our thumbs in pursuit of 20XX. Star Fox is a 3D rail shooter video game developed by Nintendo spanning across several console generations...

smashboards.com