Star Fox

Star Fox
Developer	Nintendo EAD
Publisher	Nintendo
System	Super NES
Release Date	JP February 21, 1993 US March, 1993 EU June 3, 1993
Gallery	GH Gallery
Rating	ESRB: E

Star Fox is an space rail shooter game for the Super NES that acts as the first game in the Star Fox series. In Europe, the game is known as StarWing due to copyright issues. This game was also the first game to use the Super FX chip. Because of this, the game features 3D graphics that were uncommon and impressive at the time.

Story

Star Fox is an elite mercenary unit hired by General Pepper to defeat Andross. Fox McCloud, with the help of fellow pilots Falco Lombardi, Peppy Hare, and Slippy Toad, is on the job.

Gameplay

The player controls Fox's Arwing throughout the game. The game is a third-person rail shooter. The player can dodge obstacles and shoot down various enemies. At the end of each level, there is a final boss the player must defeat. After finishing each level, the player gets a score based on how many enemies they shot down and how well they defending their teammates.

Star Fox was different from other rail shooters in several ways. For one thing, the player had some amount of control over their speed. Also, the player could bump into objects in the level without immediately having their ship destroyed. Also, there was a certain amount of localized damage.

In each level, the player's wing mates will appear on the screen either chasing an enemy or being chased themselves. If they are being chased, not helping will result in their Arwing being damaged or shot down. If they get shot down, they won't return.

The way the game's difficulty was set was also unique. Instead of simply having the player choose between Easy, Medium, and Hard like most games, Star Fox as has a different set of levels to play through with different degrees of difficulty. This increased the replay value quite a bit. Each path began with Corneria and ended with Venom, however, each path had a unique version of the level.

Legacy

Star Fox has gone on to spawn a large series of games.

Star Fox characters Fox McCloud and Falco Lombardi are both playable characters in the Super Smash Bros. series. Star Fox has also been used for one of 9-Volt's microgames in Warioware: Smooth Moves

Sequels

After finishing Star Fox, Nintendo EAD starting working on Star Fox 2. The game was originally canceled, only to be released years later with the Super NES Classic Edition. Eventually, Star Fox 64 was the next game in the series to be officially released.

Ports and Remakes

• Shortly after the game's release, Nintendo released Star Fox Super Weekend Competition. This was a shortened version of the game featuring only three levels.
• Star Fox 64 was partially a remake of the original Star Fox, mostly in terms of the storyline. The gameplay featured mostly original content and leftover features from Star Fox 2, although some classic Star Fox stages and enemies were similar to the original game.
• In 2017, it was one of the games included in the Super NES Classic Edition. Oddly enough, despite the various iterations of the Virtual Console releasing Super NES games, this was the first actual port of the original Star Fox.
• In September 2019, it was among the first wave of Super NES games that were made available to play on the Nintendo Switch for anyone subscribed to the Nintendo Switch Online service. This version included two player and online options.