Star Fox (SNES)

Infobox VG
title = Star Fox


developer = Nintendo EAD
Argonaut Software
publisher = Nintendo
designer = Katsuya Eguchi
Yoichi Yamada
Takaya Imamura (character designer)
composer = Hajime Hirasawa
engine =
released = vgrelease|Japan|JP|February 21 1993
vgrelease|North America|NA|March 1 1993
vgrelease|Europe|EU|June 3 1993
genre = 3D Shooter, Rail shooter
modes = Single-player
ratings =
platforms = SNES
media = 8-megabit Super FX cartridge
requirements =
input = Joypad

nihongo|"Star Fox"|スターフォックス|Sutā Fokkusu, released as "Starwing" in Europe due to the existence of an Atari 2600 game with the same name, is the first game in the "Star Fox" series of video games. It was released in the spring of 1993 for the SNES. It was the first three-dimensional Nintendo game, and it included the Super FX chip, a coprocessor used to accelerate graphics display. The complex display of three-dimensional models with polygons was still new and uncommon in console video games, and the game was much hyped as a result. "Star Fox" featured kemono character designs by Nintendo artist Takaya Imamura, music composed by Hajime Hirasawa and obstacle course style gameplay. "Star Fox" was developed by Nintendo EAD with assistance by Argonaut Software, and was published by Nintendo.

The storyline involves Fox McCloud and the Star Fox team, who must defend their homeworld of Corneria against the attacking forces of Andross.cite book | year=1993 | editor=Argonaut Software | title=Star Fox Instruction Booklet | pages=3, | publisher=Nintendo of America | language=English | id=]

The game was very successful and started another one of Nintendo's major franchises, with one remake and three sequels released to date.

Gameplay

"Star Fox" is a rail shooter in a third-person 3D perspective. The player must navigate his/her spacecraft, an Arwing, through environments while various enemies (spaceships, robots, creatures, etc.) attack him. Along the way various power-ups are placed in the stage to help the player. The player receives a score on each level based on how many enemies destroyed and how well the player has defended his/her teammates. At the end of each level there is a boss that the player must defeat before progressing to the next level.

"Star Fox" possesses certain unique elements that differentiate it from the standard scrolling shooter. Most scrolling shooters force the player forward at a constant speed. While this is also true for "Star Fox", there are thrusters and retro-rockets on the Arwing that allow the player to temporarily speed up and slow down accordingly. These can be used to maneuver around enemy attacks and other obstacles.

The damage model is another difference. In the standard scrolling shooter, touching almost any object (whether it be an enemy ship, enemy fire, or other obstacles) results in the destruction of the player's craft. In "Star Fox", the Arwing has a certain amount of shield energy that represents how much damage can be absorbed before the destruction of the craft. The game also has a small degree of locational damage detection. For example, if the ship's wings clip too much against obstacles or the ground, they will break off. This significantly affects the flying ability of the craft and the ability to upgrade the weapons.

The difficulty in "Star Fox" is also set in a unique way. Most scrolling shooters, if they have selectable difficulty levels, allow the player to set the difficulty by choosing an option (e.g. "Easy," "Normal," and "Hard") at the beginning of the game. This option usually affects variables such as the number of lives a player has, the number of enemies encountered in the game, the speed of enemies, and so on. In contrast, at the beginning of "Star Fox", the player is given a choice of one of three routes to take through the Lylat system. Each of these routes corresponds with a certain level of difficulty, but each route has its own series of unique levels. This gives "Star Fox" somewhat more replay value than other scrolling shooters that have a fixed series of levels each time the game is played. The three game paths all contain the planet Corneria (the first level) and Venom (the last level), but they each have different versions depending on the path taken.

In each level, the player is accompanied by three computer-controlled wingmen: Peppy Hare, Slippy Toad, and Falco Lombardi. At certain pre-scripted points, one will fly into the player's view, often either chasing an enemy or being chased and asking for assistance. Ignoring a wingman's pleas will result in him taking damage, or being shot down. They cannot be damaged by the player's own lasers (they will notice it nonetheless). Regardless of their survival, wingmen are not present during boss battles but rejoin the player before the next stage. It is preferable to help your wingmen when they ask for assistance, as they will engage some of the enemies not destroyed by the player, and thereby make it easier to achieve maximum score in a given level. If a wingman gets shot down, he will not return for the rest of the game.

Plot

etting and characters

This game takes place in the Lylat system, a stellar system in the fictional "Star Fox" universe that is inhabited by animal races (i.e. foxes, frogs, dogs, birds, rabbits, apes, etc). It contains the planets Corneria and Venom, both representing good and evil, respectively. One can visit many other planets, asteroid belts, space stations, etc. while going through the course of the game. Whichever path the player chooses affects what places they will encounter.

Star Fox is an elite mercenary unit hired by General Pepper to defeat Andross. Fox McCloud is the leader of the team, and he is accompanied by his teammates Falco Lombardi, Peppy Hare, and Slippy Toad. The player controls Fox, while Falco, Peppy and Slippy occasionally come to his aid or need his help.

toryline

The evil Andross has launched an attack against Corneria and the rest of the planets in the Lylat system, and it is up to Star Fox, an elite mercenary team led by Fox McCloud, to stop him. The battle begins on Corneria and proceeds through the system, eventually arriving at the planet Venom, location of Andross' headquarters, and culminating in a one-on-one battle against Andross himself.

Development

The game company Argonaut worked closely with Nintendo during the early years of the NES and SNES. They developed a prototype of the game that they had running on the NES, initially codenamed "NesGlider", which was inspired by their earlier 8-bit game Starglider and then some weeks later on a prototype of the SNES. Jez San told Nintendo that this was as good as it could get unless they were allowed to design custom hardware to make the SNES better at 3D. Nintendo said yes, and San hired chip designers and made the Super FX chip, the first 3D graphics accelerator. [cite web
last = Bolton
first = Syd
title = Interview with Jez San, OBE
publisher = Armchair Empire
url = http://www.armchairempire.com/Interviews/jez-san-interview.htm
format =
doi =
accessdate = 2007-12-28 ] So powerful was the Super FX chip that was used to create the graphics and gameplay that they joked that the Super Nintendo was just a box to hold the chip. [cite web
title=Interview with Jez San
publisher=arwinglanding.net
url=http://www.arwinglanding.net/articles.php?page=writeups/jezsan
accessdate=2007-09-04]

Argonaut brought the idea of using space ships, and Nintendo suggested the "arcade-style shooting" element of the game.cite web | title=Interview with Dylan Cuthbert | publisher=emulatorium.com | url=http://www.arwinglanding.net/articles.php?page=writeups/dylan | accessdate=2007-09-04] Yoichi Yamada, a level designer for many Nintendo games, laid out and edited the Star Fox maps with a great attention to detail.

Variant names

While the game was originally released as "Star Fox", in Europe the title was changed to "Star Wing". It is usually claimed that this was due to Nintendo fearing legal action due to the existence of an Atari game called "Star Fox" released in 1983. This older game was trademarked in Europe, but not in the USA.

It is also claimed that the name change was caused by the existence of yet another game with the same name by Ariolasoft for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC home computers, while the British Nintendo Official Magazine alternatively suggested it was because there was a European company called "Star Vox" in Europe, so Nintendo changed the name to avoid confusion.

Easter eggs

The game features two well-known Easter eggs, which take the player to secret levels. One such level, the Black Hole, can be accessed from the Asteroid Field on Course 1. The Black Hole, which General Pepper states is the place where Fox's father disappeared, consists of a "warped space" that loops over and over again. A spinning ring also appears periodically, allowing the player to escape. The player is then taken to a level (depending on which ring they fly through), and continues from that level's path.

The other Easter egg (found in the Asteroid Field on Course 3) takes the player "Out of This Dimension". The player flies through space and shoots down paper aeroplanes for a time. The "boss" of this level is a large slot machine with no life meter, and the boss's theme music includes excerpts from the Japanese folk song "Yuki", the chorus from "When the Saints Go Marching In", and "Lightly Row". Shooting parts of the machine (including its arm) cause its rollers to spin and then stop in various configurations. Configurations including an image of Andross cause it to flip over and launch a series of missiles and plasma-balls at the player, and one configuration launches large coins at the player instead (each one acts as a shield recharge).

Getting the winning configuration (three "7"s) "defeats" the slot machine, causing it to disappear. The game's ending credits then appear on the screen, followed by the words "THE END" appearing with each letter turned or flipped in a random direction. Shooting a letter causes it to fly away momentarily and then come back in a different direction. The letter turns yellow when it is correctly aligned. If a letter is correct, an enemy may fly towards the letters, changing their position, thus reseting the sequence. When all letters are aligned correctly, the music changes briefly and then goes back to the slot-machine boss music, and the letters re-jumble themselves. Typically, it is easier just to reset the game console or lose all of one's lives and start over from the start. If the player allows their ship to be destroyed, they start over at the beginning of the level and repeat the whole sequence.

Although not an easter egg, the real voices (as opposed to the captioned language) of the Star Fox team can be heard at the end, and when a boss enemy enters the level (near the end).

Competition version

A promotional cartridge, "Star Fox: Super Weekend (Official Competition)" (titled "Star Wing: Super Weekend (Official Competition)" in Europe), was released as part of the game's marketing campaign in Europe and the US. It featured time-limited single player mode on modified stages, as well as an exclusive bonus level.cite web | title=IGN: Star Fox: Super Weekend (Official Competition Cartridge) | publisher=IGN | url=http://cheats.ign.com/objects/496/496296.html | accessdate=2006-08-08] According to IGN, "The altered start-up screen displays 'Official Competition Cartridge'. Depending on the points scored, players could win a t-shirt, a jacket, or even trips to international destinations. An estimated 2000 cartridges were made."

In the United States, The Star Fox: Super Weekend Competition was played by tens of thousands of competitors in malls across the country. Stores such as KB Toys and Suncoast Video (usually any store that carried Super Nintendo Games participated) hosted the event.

In the United Kingdom, the competition was known as the "Star Wing Challenge" and was held in gaming shops across the country on May 29, 1993.

Reception and legacy

At the time of the game's release, the use of 3 dimensional polygons in a console game was almost unheard of, beyond a handful of earlier experiments such as Atari's I, Robot. [cite web |author=News & Features Team|date= June 27th, 2006| title=Essential Games for the Animal Within | publisher=IGN | url=http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/746/746646p2.html | accessdate=2006-09-04]

The game took the #115 spot on "EGM"'s "The Greatest 200 Videogames of Their Time", and 82nd best game made on a Nintendo System in "Nintendo Power"'s Top 200 Games list. [cite web | title=The Greatest 200 Videogames of Their Time from Electronic Gaming Monthly | publisher=EGM | url=http://egm.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=3&cId=3147448 | accessdate=2006-08-08] Citation|year=February 2006| title=NP Top 200|periodical=Nintendo Power|volume=200|pages=58–66.] It also received a 34 out of 40 from "Famitsu" magazine, and a 4.125 out of 5 from "Nintendo Power" Magazine.cite web | title=Star Fox Reviews | publisher=GameRankings | url=http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/588690.asp?q=star%20fox | accessdate=2006-08-08] "Next Gen Magazine" pointed out Star Fox as helping pioneer the use of 3-D video game graphics. [cite web |author=Eric-Jon Rossel Waugh|date= June 27th, 2006| title=THE TEN GREATEST YEARS IN GAMING | publisher=Next Gen Magazine | url=http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3313&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=6 | accessdate=2006-09-04] The game has been used as an example of how, even with a fully polygon design, the game was still very similar to older games in that there was a set path to travel through each level. [cite web |author=Andre Segers|date= May 9th, 2006| title=2D to 3D: A Tale of Two Dimensions | publisher=IGN | url=http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/786/786938p1.html | accessdate=2006-09-04]

Other games in the series

Due to its success, "Star Fox" has become a Nintendo franchise, with five more games and numerous appearances by its characters in other Nintendo games such as "Super Smash Bros.". Originally a sequel titled "Star Fox 2" was in the works for the Super Nintendo, but it was never released, though according to programmer Dylan Cuthbert, the game was actually completely finished. Although "Star Fox 2" was never released, some of the ideas and gameplay were salvaged for 1997's "Star Fox 64" (released throughout Europe under the title "Lylat Wars") for Nintendo 64. Eventually, a handful of ROM dumps of "Star Fox 2" at various stages of its development were leaked onto the internet, and a fan-made translation of "Star Fox 2" from Japanese to English was released in the form of a patch that could be applied to one of the ROM dumps.

In 2002 "Star Fox" made the jump to the Nintendo GameCube, with Rare's "Star Fox Adventures". "Adventures" was the first "Star Fox" game to incorporate an action RPG element, where the player took control of Fox McCloud on the world of Corneria and Sauria. In 2005 "" was released for the GameCube, this time developed by Namco. It incorporates a third-person shooter aspect into the game, but also makes a return to its roots as a shooter that made the first two games of the series so popular. "Star Fox Command", released for the Nintendo DS in 2006, marks the franchise's first game on a portable system, as well as its first foray into online gaming. It used many features from the unreleased Star Fox 2.cite web | title =Nintendo DS Game of the Month: August 2006|author=Craig Harris|publisher = IGN.com | year = September 6, 2006|url=http://ds.ign.com/articles/731/731088p1.html| accessdate=2006-09-17]

Although not a sequel, there is a Star Fox micro-game in for the Wii complete with three stages where you pilot the Arwing with your Wii Remote through Corneria, Sector X, and Titania. At the end of each level, the player fights R.O.B., who is armed with a large NES Zapper. In addition, the game's sound test features full versions of the stage themes as well as the boss theme.

References

External links

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* [http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/review/406/starfox.php Star Fox SNES review] from Mean Machines Archive