Star Fox 2
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| Star Fox 2 | |
| Missing image Sf2screen2.jpg | |
| Developer(s) | Nintendo |
| Publisher(s) | |
| Release date(s) | Cancelled |
| Genre | Scrolling shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Not Available (NA) |
| Platform(s) | Super Famicom, SNES |
Star Fox 2 is a cancelled video game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that was a part of the Star Fox series and a sequel to Star Fox.
Star Fox 2 was also the former tentative title for Star Fox: Assault that was released for the Nintendo GameCube.
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Gameplay
The game's premise is simple. To defend Corneria, the player must intercept incoming missiles and other enemy offensives, attack bases on neighboring planets, fight bosses and battleships, and ultimately defeat the evil Andross in a climactic battle at the infamous planet Venom. On the map screen, the area will have a number of occupied planets, two battleships, and a constant stream of enemies and bosses to engage. The exact number of enemy bases and bosses depends on the difficulty level; on higher difficulties, freed bases and destroyed battleships may also be replaced by enemy counteroffensives.
There are three types of Arwing available, based on the pilot you chose: a slow and durable 'assault' model, a fast and light interceptor, and a more balanced general-purpose fighter. Each Arwing has its own limited-use special ability. The balanced ship piloted by Fox or Falco, for instance, has the Nova bomb from the original game.
The player must intercept fighters, missile groups, and other attacks sent to destroy Corneria in an all-range space battle; if too many of them get through, they will damage the planet and eventually destroy it. The battleships involve the player piloting their Arwing inside the enemy ship and getting past a number of obstacles to destroy the central power core; the battleship will attack Corneria with a massive 'Planet Beam' if the player does not engage them soon enough. To attack enemy bases, the player must first hit series of targets on the surface to open up external gates, then descend further into the planet and destroy the base's core. In both scenarios, the Arwing can engage into a walker mode which still has the weapon capabilities of the flying mode; and regardless of what the player is doing at the moment, the overall enemy attack always continues in real-time. Finally, when the player seems to be doing too well, Andross will send out mercenaries and other bosses, who hunt the player down and challenge them to a one-on-one duel.
The player does have one advantage in the form of a massive planetary defense beam, which will destroy some incoming missiles on its own. On higher difficulty levels, however, the planetary defense beam itself can be seized by enemy 'viruses', turning it into a significant threat to Corneria on its own.
Sf2screen.jpg
Cancellation
Star Fox 2 was most likely cancelled because:
- It was too expensive to develop for a system at the end of its prime,
- Nintendo did not want to drive customers' attention away from the yet-to-be-released Nintendo 64, and,
- Nintendo was already planning a Nintendo 64 Star Fox-title and did not want to release two separate games.
Although the game was cancelled for the SNES, a lot of the gameplay and ideas were salvaged and transferred to Star Fox 64.
- "We borrowed several ideas. All-Range mode, Multi Player mode, and the Star Wolf scenaria (sic) all came from Star Fox 2. I'd say 60% of SF64 comes from the original game, 30% from SF2, and 10% is entirely new." — Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo Power [1] (http://www.miyamotoshrine.com/theman/interviews/0197.shtml) (January 1997)
Emulatable ROMs of two very buggy early alpha versions and a still-slightly-buggy near-final version can be found on the Internet, along with a fan-made translation patch that fixes most bugs and removes debugging functions.
See also
References
- Translation patch from AGTP (http://agtp.romhack.net/starfox2.html).
External links
- Star Fox 2 information at SNES Central (http://snescentral.edgeemu.com/Unreleased/Unreleased/StarFox2/)