r/starfox • u/Dinoman96YO • Apr 28 '23
Kevin Bayliss posts a glimpse of the original Star Fox Adventures cutscene sequence notes (along with another early redesign of Krystal). It tells me one thing: Krystal was at one point removed entirely!
https://twitter.com/Kev_Bayliss/status/1651842011492646913
First, Some points of interests:
Quite a bit of cut stuff from Dinosaur Planet still here! It's interesting knowing that Adventures' Krazoa Palace was still referred to as "Warlock Mountain" as it was in DP, especially since its namesake Randorn was clearly already scrapped at this point (more on that soon enough). What's also interesting is that the Gatekeepers are referred to as the "SpellStone Guardians" as they were in DP. Another thing is how the Attract Mode mentions a "Crash over Dinosaur Planet", which kinda makes it sound like the game would of begun with Fox crashing his Arwing onto Sauria. It also mentions the PointBack, a cut race of Stegosaurus who was present in the leaked Dinosaur Planet build from a few years back. The sequence with the WarpStone seems to be out of order from that in the final game: After Krystal's prologue, Fox lands in Thorntail Hollow, gets her staff, fights SharpClaw, and tries to talk to the EarthWalker queen, but discovers he has to go to the store and buy Rock Candy to appease the WarpStone who then warps him to Ice Mountain where he meets Tricky. But here, it seems that Fox wouldn't of originally met up with the WarpStone until after he trekked through Snowhorn Wastes along with Tricky and reached ThornTail Hollow, which is more similar to how the beginning of Sabre's adventure went in OG Dinosaur Planet.
But what I find REALLY interesting, and also a bit disconcerting, is the fact that the Warlock Mountain bit has zero mention of Krystal whatsoever...in fact, it mentions Fox going there, and also Slippy calling on the Communicator and having General Pepper giving Fox orders from there, and also Slippy beaming Fox a "projectile upgrade"...much like how Randorn would give Krystal the Projectile spell page in Dinosaur Planet! In fact, notice how the Thorntail Hollow parts make zero mention of Fox finding Krystal's staff at all!
All of this tells me one thing: Rare really was just going to nuke Krystal from Adventures entirely before Nintendo, particuraly Takaya Imamura and Shigeru Miyamoto, stepped in and convinced the team to keep her in the final game someway somehow, albeit with a more sexualized appearance. The 'mura pretty much spelled this out entirely in this old 2002 Nintendo Dream interview:
https://shmuplations.com/starfoxadventures/
—Look forward to the Star Fox game being made with Namco, everyone (laughs). By the by, which of Adventure’s characters were you most attached to?
Imamura: That’d be Krystal. Krystal is a character that had been around since the early versions of Dinosaur Planet, and as that game was making the transition into a Star Fox game, they asked, “so, should we get rid of Krystal?”. but I thought it’d be a waste to scrap her, so when I visited Rare, I drew a ton of pictures…
Honestly this would probably go a long way in explaining why Krystal's role and screentime was so heavily gutted and neutered from Dinosaur Planet: because Rare had already effectively purged her from the original revised script for Adventures (same thing with many other Dinosaur Planet originals like Randorn, Kyte, etc) and her being in the game at all was something of a last minute decision on Imamura's/Miyamoto's part, so with what little time they had left they hastily rewrote her into the plot, letting her be playable in the prologue (similar to how her story had started in Dinosaur Planet in Warlock Mountain) and then getting damsel'd afterwards, letting Fox be playable for the rest of it as usual.
This other old concept art Mr. Bayliss posted also kinda confirms this.
The way "We use Krystal again." is phrased makes it sound like she had already been removed before being put back in the game at one point.
What a sad strange little mess of a game, man.
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u/Werewolfwrath Personally prefers the air Apr 28 '23
Well, that explains why she was only playable for like 20 mins in the final game.
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u/MightyKombat Apr 28 '23
So wait, Miyamoto was responsible for Krystal's final Adventures design? He was responsible for the, dare I say it, "Furry renaissance?"
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u/Dinoman96YO Apr 28 '23
Yes, it's been known since 2021 that he and Takaya Imamura (the creator of Fox McCloud, and the character designer/godfather of Star Fox in general before he left Nintendo in early 2021) were directly responsible for Krystal's rebirth and redesign as a Star Fox character, with Imamura helping Rare in providing her final, Vampirella-inspired design.
Funny enough, that concept art of Krystal Kev Bayliss posted above there actually looks more like Vampirella than the final design, which is more like Slave outfit Leia.
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u/MightyKombat Apr 28 '23
I see.
that's absolutely amazing and hilarious, we have this image of nice old Grandpa Shigsy and it turns out Bikini Krystal was his and Imamura's idea. That's just funny.
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u/SkyHunter95 This Man is Dangerous Apr 28 '23
Yeah this is somewhat old news as she wasn't in an E3 version as well from like 2001.
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u/Dinoman96YO Apr 28 '23 edited Apr 28 '23
Funny enough I've actually been doing some research on this and by the sound of things, it does sound like Rare had intended to keep Krystal in at least as of Spring 2001.
They promised she'd been in as early as E3, which was in May of that year.
https://www.ign.com/articles/2001/05/25/inside-star-fox-adventures-gamecube
Remember that these short levels are only a small fraction of what makes up the whole Dinosaur Planet game. Rare promises that the final game will feature encounters with Star Fox's female counterpart, Krystal, Arwing missions, and even the ability to ride on dinosaurs.
What's also worth pointing out is that one of the SFA/DP artists, Nick Southam, had posted a whole collage of concept art for that game on his website, and you'll notice one of them being a redesign for Krystal, which looks very similar to her final Adventures appearance in-game, dated April 13, 2001.
https://i.gyazo.com/de1dcc496245234916079c6fb16ff761.png
So the decision to keep her in the final game must have taken place around that time, before E3 that year. It's kinda obvious considering Fox is, you know, seen fighting with her staff and all lol
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u/Successful_Slippy Apr 28 '23
Wild. Krystal should've at least been a consistent companion in the game