Star Fox (video game)
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| Star Fox | |
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| Developer(s) | Argonaut Software Nintendo |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Designer(s) | Katsuya Eguchi Yoichi Yamada |
| Release date(s) | JPN February 21, 1993 NA March, 1993 EU June 3, 1993 |
| Genre(s) | 3D Shooter, scrolling shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Platform(s) | SNES |
| Media | 8 Mbit Super FX cartridge |
- For other uses, see Star Fox.
Star Fox (スター フォックス Sutā Fokkusu?) (also known as Star Wing in Europe due to trademark issues) 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 game to include 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, music composed by Hajime Hirasawa and obstacle course style gameplay. Star Fox was developed by Argonaut Software and Nintendo, and was published by Nintendo.
The storyline involves Fox McCloud and the Star Fox team must defend his homeworld of Corneria against the attacking forces of Andross.[1]
The game was very successful, and became one of Nintendo's major franchises with several sequels released since.
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[edit] Gameplay
Star Fox is a rail shooter in a third-person 3D perspective. The player must navigate his spacecraft, an Arwing, through environments while various enemies (spaceships, robots, creatures, etc.) attack him.[1] 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 teammates. At the end of each level there is a boss that the player must defeat before progressing to the next level.
There are unique elements of Star Fox that make it a little different from the standard scrolling shooter. Most scrolling shooters force the player forward at a constant speed. While this is true for Star Fox as well, there are thrusters and retro-rockets on the Arwing that allow the player to temporarily speed up and slow down accordingly.[1] These can be used to maneuver around enemy attacks as well as 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.[1] 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.[1] This slightly 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 it 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 do correspond with a certain level of difficulty, but each route has its own series of unique levels.[1] This gives Star Fox somewhat more replay value than other scrolling shooters that have the same 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.[1]
In each level, the player is accompanied by three computer-controlled wingmen: Peppy Hare, Slippy Toad, and Falco Lombardi.[1] 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.[1] They can only be damaged a little by the player's own lasers (they will notice it none the less). 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.
[edit] Plot
[edit] Setting and characters
This game takes place in the Lylat system, a solar system in the fictional Star Fox universe that is inhabitted by animal races (i.e. foxes, frogs, dogs, birds, rabbits, monkeys, 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.[1] 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.[1]
[edit] Storyline
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.[1] 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.
[edit] Development
While the game was originally released as Star Fox, the title had to be changed in Europe (to Star Wing) since a trademark on the name was already held by a video game called Star Fox, which was released in 1983 on the Atari 2600. There are also claims that it was because of another game with the same name by Ariolasoft for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC home computers. The British Nintendo Official Magazine claims it was because there was a company called Star Vox in Europe, so Nintendo changed the name to avoid conflict.
[edit] 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 in the Easy difficulty level. 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. Random enemies and objects appear and can be shot, occasionally allowing the player to recharge their shields and gain extra lives. A spinning ring also appears periodically, allowing the player to escape. The player is then taken to a random level, usually changing difficulty levels in the process.
The other Easter egg (found in the Asteroid Field in the Hard difficulty level) takes the player "Out of This Dimension". The player flies through space and shoots down paper airplanes for a time. The "boss" of this level is a large slot machine with no life meter, and the boss's theme music includes the chorus from "When the Saints Go Marching In". Shooting parts of the machine cause its rollers to spin and then stop in various configurations. Some configurations cause it to flip over and launch a stream of enemies 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 times "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. 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. Enemies occasionally appear from behind the letters to attack the player. It is not possible to beat this level — if the player allows their ship to be destroyed, they start over at the beginning of the level and repeat the whole sequence. The only ways out are to lose all lives or reset the game console.
[edit] 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.[2] 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."[2]
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.
[edit] Reception
| Publication | Score | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| EGM | 8.75 of 10[3] | |
| Famitsu | 34 of 40[4] | |
| Compilations of multiple reviews | ||
| Game Rankings | 88 of 100 (based on 4 reviews)[3] | |
The game took the #115 spot on EGM's "The Greatest 200 Videogames of Their Time."[5]
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[edit] Sequels
Due to its success, Star Fox has become a Nintendo franchise, with four sequels 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. Star Fox 64 featured a rewrite of the storyline as well. 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-adventure element, where the player took control of Fox McCloud on the world of Dinosaur Planet. In 2005 Star Fox: Assault 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, and appears to be a more or less full revival of the cancelled Star Fox 2. Although unknown if it's a fact or rumor, Shigeru Miyamoto has said he's interested in bringing Star Fox to the Nintendo Wii.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l (1993) Argonaut Software: Star Fox Instruction Booklet (in English). Nintendo of America, 3,.
- ^ a b IGN: Star Fox: Super Weekend (Official Competition Cartridge). IGN. Retrieved on 2006-08-08.
- ^ a b Star Fox Reviews. GameRankings. Retrieved on 2006-08-08.
- ^ GameStats: Star Fox Articles. GameStats. Retrieved on 2006-08-08.
- ^ The Greatest 200 Videogames of Their Time from Electronic Gaming Monthly. EGM. Retrieved on 2006-08-08.
[edit] External links
| Star Fox • 64 • Adventures • Assault • Command Characters |
