First a frog was piloting and now there's a chameleon too?! Everything is allowed these days, next you are going to tell me that a pig piloted as we-- OH GODDAMMIT, PIGMA!

If the original Star Fox left a mark in gaming history for what it was, Star Fox 2 did the same for what it wasn't, or rather for what it couldn't be. A lot of factors, like N64 nearing its release and the incredibly high costs, resulted in the game just... never releasing. It was stated by several developers that the game was indeed fully finished, but never saw the light of day, and was left to wither inside the cold and agonizing walls of the Nintendo archives... or so we thought!

In 2017 it was finally officially released, being included in the SNES Mini as the special 21th game, and it was treated as an HUGE event both by fans and Nintendo itself, one that would be repeated some years later when it released on the NSO, and how not to? The game that never could was finally given the chance to spread its (ar)wings and fly into glory, and after playing it, man, I really got to say that...

...it sure is Star Fox again!... kinda...

Ok, I wanna preface by saying that, taking into account this was set to release 3 years after the original, it really shows it sequel status right off the bat. The game beings with a much more impressive cinematic and in general has more spectacular sequences, the pixel art on the characters is honestly amazing, and above else, the fact it breaks free from the pre-fixated routes and now basically lets you explore the whole Lylat system, selecting the objective you please and having some possible random battles against missiles and the enemy Star Wolf gang in space is a direction I didn't know I needed, but it feels like the natural progression for the series and it has so much potential... and that’s the problem: it has potential, but lets most of it untapped.

Star Fox 2 is flashier and it has bigger ideas, yes, but, just as the progression itself, its surprisingly directionless. Most of the magic and originality the previous iteration had is not only lost and doesn’t have the same kind of impact, but it also completely set aside most of the personality and identity that made it so unique. The almost abstract feeling is scrapped in favor of the redundancy of the asteroid filled space and the boring, samey giant space ships and planetary bases; they repeat over and over, adding enemies yes, but instead of going for original and interesting designs, they just stick to normal space-craft or one similar to animals which, not gonna lie, the enemy robot scorpion is rad as hell, but still. At first, with the whole preventing Corneria from getting to damaged by enemy weapons thing, it really feels like a war is taking place in the system, but five minutes in, it loses all the impact it had and becomes routine, and not a cruel and harsh routine, just a boring one. There are efforts here and there that clearly show they wanted to sell this idea of a conflict at a bigger scale, but it get dragged down by how it all the repetition and the loss of identity of the planets (you don’t get to spend much time on the planets themselves, but in the little while you do, they have little to none identity, like, in this one Venom looks exactly like Corneria did in the original game, which…huh?), and I don’t know about you fellas, but when a game that lasts less than an hour feels repetitive, something might be wrong over here.

I belive that the biggest example of what was lost from game to game is Andross: in the first game his presence is minimal, yet is always present at the same time, he’s incredibly menacing and his fight leaves a huge impact… while in 2 he appears just as the game starts, he says the word ‘’awesome’’ and his final fight is not as impressive or spectacular, in fact is even easier and more tedious… just goes to show that the Ape cube can’t save it all…

And I mean the gameplay is… fine? Is more Star Fox, and the introduction of the combat on ground with the new ship (which I’ve called Duckwing and I believe that’s the best name I’ve come up with in my entire life), how surprisingly hectic and fun it is considering it has tank controls and being able to change the form of the ship anytime you want is a really cool mechanic that makes encounters interesting. Combine that with the better (not by much) framerate and it honestly the combat alone could carry the game!... Too bad the space battles suCK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I don’t know who was the madman that thought that making all space counters in first person was a good idea, but that, combined with the already mentioned repetition, even in the Star Wolf encounters, and that they make most of the bulk of the game and we are left with the recipe for a good ol’ snore. It isn’t fun, it doesn’t tell anything, it basically pads the experience and its even frustrating… and I don’t know why it had to be like this.

Taking into account its flaws and its short duration I… it’s honestly hard to believe that this game was truly finished. I couldn’t call it bad since there’s still a bunch of cool stuff, but that’s all it feels like, just cool ideas, and instead of them improving on the core idea of the first game, they just left some incredibly good stuff behind, and it honestly just feels like Star Fox because it has the name of the series and Slippy is it, and while I’m glad it exists and it’s ideas went on to inspire other entries in the series, as it stands on its own is… a cool history piece, something which already was, and could have gone beyond that, but just didn’t…

…But the worst thing about is once again tHE COMPANIONS MOTHERFUCKER I KNOW THAT X IS FOR USING THE BOOST STOP OBSTRUCTING MY VISION WITH THE TEXT BOX SHUUUT UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

For my 50th review I started to think about the perfect game to review for this occasion. I looked through all the games I had played and couldn’t really find anything that caught my eye. That is until, my eyes dotted to this one.

Star Fox 2.

The game was created straight after the original star fox. But after Nintendo were starting to support the N64…it seemed silly to continue to support the snes, especially spending money for a chip which is pretty expensive and will probably barely sell. So the game, even though being finished, was shelved never to be seen again. That is until…they created the mini snes. That is when we finally got to play star fox 2 at long last. Now I didn’t get to play it until it was brought to the switch and after I finished the original star fox but oh man…was this an improvement.

The gameplay is pretty much like the previous game but a tiny bit different. We now get to choose our main pilot and our partner. We also get to try and defend a planet and slowly work our way up to confronting andross head on. For me gameplay doesn’t really get that repetitive and if anything I enjoy it far more than the original star fox. It’s a lot less linear and pushes itself as a more non-linear experience that I can’t help but enjoy.

So…for a game that was never released till now I can kind of understand why. It wouldn’t make sense for Nintendo to waste money on something they weren’t gonna support anymore. It is still a shame that the game didn’t appear for so long and had to wait for a little mini console for it to be even considered for a release. In the end, it’s still a really enjoyable game that I advise people give a try straight after star fox.

Decent sequel, great gameplay, cool music, simple story, good choice for my 50th review

I wish there was only one Star Fox for the SNES, and it had the top-notch planet, enemy, and boss design of the first, with the fun variety and non-linearity of the second. And then, I wish that the reason they failed to make the sequel work was because every level was the same rail-shooter with the same dishwater-bland levels in space where you turn your ship into a walker and blow up the core of the base over and over again just to get to venom to fight a lamer version of the same Big Andross-Face, and then I wouldn’t have bothered playing it when Star Fox 64 already exists because there would be enough people on this websight saying not to because it sucks

(played on normal as falco & fay)

The big thing everyone knows about this one is that it was initially unreleased. Says it was finished in 1995-1996 or so, then shelved, then dumped online, then released officially like two decades later. By now it's not great really, but in the context of the SNES library it's a pretty good one.

...just, a way too short one as well. Like 30 minutes even with no skill. The structure is a bit odd as well, I definitely prefer the linear approach of the original and 64. That aside, generally improvements are made over the original. It runs a lot smoother and there's a bit more variety, and I like the new ship models and characters. One thing of note is it doesn't have that same feel of like innovation and wonder as the original did, how crazy it was for its time, etc., it kind of really is just, Star Fox Two:tm:. More of the same with improvements. I think this is the better game, but 1 has more charm to it and generally a more interesting aura. Whatever the case, they make a hell of an odd duology in the 16-bit era, and I find them both to be somewhat underappreciated.

I disagree with the “I can see why it was cancelled” takes; I think Star Fox 2 could have stood on its own as a game for aging systems as most people were already engaged in the 32-bit era. There’s a lot of DNA with the likes of Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Command. It takes about an hour or less to beat even if you don’t know what you’re doing, but the replay value comes from improving your end rank as well as playing on higher difficulty. Game magazines of the time probably would have shit on this, but if you were a loyal SNES owner of the time, this would have been a definite favorite.

Call me nuts for liking this game as much as I do, but I can't help, but think how ambitious and cool this title is mixed with a bunch of neat character and enemy designs along with some cool ascetics to boot. Star Fox 2 really saw the visual style and flow of the original Star Fox game and designed to match it with it's own unique twist and stakes.

Like if you look at the original Star Fox and look at 2, it's almost an inverted version of itself with having to defend a point rather than simply getting from start to finish. Due to RNG, player skill, and difficulty the layout of a playthrough will play out differently each time while it's a constant race with the clock to make sure you're not dilly dallying with each area you visit. As well, most playthroughs are roughly under an hour giving both a nice sense of pacing and urgency when going through each level or stage.

Where Star Fox 2 can fall apart for most is the all range dog fights that have a strong tendency to both get confusing and feel like they are purposefully wasting time. The sad truth is that their really isn't much a fix to it as the main problem is due to hardware, viewpoint, and the backgrounds they use for space. Thankfully, most fighters don't take that long to take down, and a lot of the chase missions with missiles are fairly easy on the eyes, but overall it's a pretty unavoidable fumble on the games part.

Thankfully, a lot of the main game's action is built around bases, and use of the arwing walker that feels rather easy to use and makes for an interesting combat vehicle. While I wouldn't say the bases have particularly interesting bosses, they are at least serviceable, and provide for a fine enough challenge. Although, when I think back on Star Fox 2's boss roster is fairly lackluster when compared to the originals stronger set up.

Still, I do think Star Fox 2 is a really neat fixture in both Nintendo's worst kept secret, and a dash of hope for an 8 year old me clinging for this game's release. It really did do a lot of interesting and neat concepts for the Star Fox series that honestly feels more impactful than anything Zero did as well as giving us the same kinda feel of the original SNES game. If you like Star Fox, I really don't see how you can go home not liking this one; just temper your expectations as it really is it's own flavor compared to our usual On-Rail Shooter.

If nothing else the scope and visuals are astounding, this is tech that nearly matches the peak fidelity of 32x with Nintendo's trade optimization tricks and 2D/3D hodge-podging. The change to a mission based structure is fine but these levels are extremely low effort, they're all like one hallway with 2 pincushions to shoot. The dogfights are pretty bad until you learn to cheese them with the charge shot. Music is way worse, neither rockin' nor movin', it's a shame.

It's easy to see why this was canned when the game still needed a huge amount of content to fill out the world, and the cost of FX-2 boards would eat out their profits.

Damn, can you believe they made two of these!?

I kind of understand Nintendo's logic in not releasing this, even if I don't think it was the right thing to do. The N64 was on the horizon and they probably didn't want to spend more money putting this on carts, shipping it out, and ponying up for marketing on something that would have sold in very low numbers. There's an alternate history where Star Fox 2 is on a ton of YouTube "hidden gems" lists and it costs eleven hundred thousand dollars for a loose cart on Ebay.

It is surprising to me that Nintendo eventually came around and released this game on the SNES Classic, as it is way more in-character for them to not move an inch on something like this. It's nice that Star Fox 2 is legally playable, but I have a Retropie and it doesn't benefit me in the slightest to toss Nintendo 80 or a hundred dollars for the SNES Classic, so I enjoyed Star Fox 2 the traditional way and pirated it, uh I mean I broke into the Nintendo vault and stole a copy of the original ROM, no wait, shit, I mean I uhhh... Coded it from scratch in a way that did not use the original game's framework but perfectly approximated it, thus making it a transformative work and therefor legal. Yes. Yes, that's what I did.

Overall, I like the way Star Fox 2 is structured much more than the first game. The real-time strategy element of maneuvering your ships across planets, taking out approaching enemies, their spawn points, and bases while defending Corneria makes Star Fox 2 feel like such a natural progression from the original while also giving it a very unique identity. The framerate is still bad - which is understandable given what this is - but it is perhaps speaking to the strengths of Star Fox 2's features that I never found myself pulled out of the game by any of its technical shortcomings. I also really like the designs for newcomers Miyu and Fay, and I'd like it if they start showing up as regular members of the crew. Course, that would mean getting new Star Fox games and uhh, ha ha ha haaa.... aaaa...

Star Fox 64 is still my favorite game in the series, as I suspect it is for most people, but Star Fox 2 is an easy runner-up. Granted, I've only played three Star Fox games (no, Star Fox Adventures doesn't count.)

Star Fox 2 is one of the best abandonware games I’ve played. It feels like it successfully evolved the series from the snes into a sleeker more immersive experience with excellent world base systems that act as smaller missions between the more static larger targets. Sort of think like a strategy game but with rpg battles that are really just Shmup segments. I haven’t actually finished at time of writing but I feel pretty strongly about this one. Also the lynx and dog are mega cute <3 plus the star wolf crew 🤘

Star Fox sempre me pareceu uma série meio parada no tempo. O que nasceu como uma experiência típica de arcade no pleno auge do SNES logo na geração seguinte sofreria um reboot que de tão similar à obra original poderia se passar por remake. Após um breve período de experimentalismo na sexta geração de consoles (algo completamente acidental, ocasionado através da infeliz canibalização de Dinosaur Planet), a série passou por um longo hiato para então receber um remake do reboot e, então, um reboot do reboot - reboot tão mal recebido que talvez a série ganhe um reboot do reboot do reboot no futuro.

Jogar Star Fox 2 me faz pensar que talvez seria melhor dizer que a série está perdida no tempo, em vez de parada. Nessa sequência cancelada que ficou quase duas décadas na geladeira vemos vários elementos originais e interessantes já poderiam estar sendo utilizados e desenvolvidos pela série há muito tempo: um sistema de estratégia em tempo semi-real, um mapa menos linear e mais dinâmico, mais tipos de missões e até um senso de urgência embutido no dano que Corneria recebe se você demora demais numa missão ou combate. Curiosamente, essas adições não fazem o jogo perder seu espírito de arcade. Pelo contrário, sua curta duração e a forma como a pontuação se integra com os novos sistemas é até um incentivo para você jogar repetidas vezes em busca de scores cada vez maiores.

O que seria de Star Fox se a franquia tivesse dado prosseguimento às ideias de sua sequência abortada em vez de repetir a primeira aventura da Raposa Estelar de novo mais uma vez one more time?

Really not that good of a game, but it's nice that it's finally available, and I did have some fun with it despite the consistently piss-poor framerate. I like the non-linear approach to getting to the end. Favorite part of the game is probably the walker sections, I liked those. I really didn't like the flying bits where you moved around in a 3D space as opposed to just constantly moving forward, those were disorienting. Music's good though. All in all, an interesting title, but not really worth playing.

Starfox 2 is in a dilemma which, as far as I know, is unique to this one game alone. Completed in 1995, Starfox 2 was supposed to be the direct sequel to the revolutionary classic Starfox. But veterans should already recognise from the date why it was completed but not released. The N64 was on the horizon, the SNES was an aged console and Nintendo feared that the once revolutionary 3D graphics of the SNES would look outdated in comparison. Eventually, Starfox 2 was shelved for seemingly eternity. A few years later, a dumped ROM was released, which was apparently an early build of the game. However, the mystery remained as to what the official 100% finished game would have looked like. In 2017, this eternal question was finally to be answered with the help of the SNES mini.

But was all the waiting really worth it? Can a game that was technically released only a few years ago, but is based entirely on outdated 3D technology from the 90s, still be convincing today?
I can answer this question with a deliberate "yes" and would even go so far as to say that Starfox 2 overshadows its predecessor by far. On a technical level alone, the game uses pretty much the same visuals, but runs much smoother than Starfox 1. Or at least as smoothly as a Super FX game can run. Starfox 2 also uses a lot more textures, but this is probably only noticeable if you play both games in succession.

The biggest difference to Starfox 1, however, is in the gameplay. Instead of choosing from 3 different routes, which you travel with your Arwing in typical rail shooter fashion, in order to finally defeat Andross himself, Starfox 2 is about the direct defence of Corneria itself. On an open star map, Andross has taken over various planets and sends space cruisers and bombs from them to blast Corneria off the face of the solar system. The goal now is to liberate the infested planets from Andross' army and at the same time protect Corneria from as much damage as possible. Starfox 2 has a tactical element here, where the player must always decide which targets should be attacked first in order to defend themselves as efficiently as possible against Andross' squadron. Once you have decided on a target, contrary to expectations, you do not get into the rail-shooter gameplay of the predecessor. In fact, Starfox 2 introduces what would later be known as the all-range mode in Starfox 64. Most of the "levels" are in this mode and work surprisingly well despite the absence of an analogue stick. However, Starfox 2 does not yet have manoeuvres like U-turn or somersault. When selecting the attack targets and completing the levels, it is also noticeable that both on the map and in the level itself, the enemies move further and further in the direction of Corneria.

So it is always important to note how much time you spend in a level. Because too much elapsed time means another blow to Corneria. And if the damage level reaches 100%, it's Game Over. The only point where time doesn't pass is when you're not interacting with the map, so that should be used to plan the next steps. Not enough tactics, Starfox 2 adds an expanded character roster. There are now 6 members in Team Starfox, whose Arwings have different strengths and weaknesses. Fox and Falco form the middle ground with common stats with a slight propensity to attack. Peppy and Slippy are tanks. They have the largest life bar and can heal themselves with their special weapon. However, the weapon output and speed is quite low. Finally, we have the two new members Miyu and Fay, who have an enormous attack but can't withstand much. This was also to be the only appearance of the two glass cannons in a Starfox game. Depending on the difficulty, you should adjust your team accordingly, which this time consists of only two people. Unlike in Starfox 1, there aren't really 1-ups either. If the two team members die, it is also game over. The Arwings have also received a new form. As a walker, you mainly move around on the individual planets, which makes the game more in the direction of a 3D person shooter, which is a refreshing change from the typical space glider.

This game also marks the first appearance of the infamous team star wolf antagonist, who must be defeated in a similar way as in Starfox 64. Once you have finally eliminated all opponents, the way to Andross is free, who defeats in much the same way like in Starfox 1. The only difference is that this time he doesn't spit out bathroom tiles.

If you look at it in the context of the time when Starfox 2 was originally supposed to be released, I would stick to the statement that this sequel is much better than Starfox 1. The better performance makes it much easier to maneuver the Arwing or Walker and that tactical element, may be unusual for the series, but it gives the player much more creative freedom to choose how to play the game, and I find it a shame that none of the sequels have attempted a similar system again. However, Starfox 2 is far from perfect. Above all, the level design is rather short and attacks on Andross's spaceships usually don't last much longer than a minute. The longest encounters are the fights against the Starwolf members and the interior of the large battleships, which consist of simple interconnected battle rooms, with the respective reactor core as the target. This was the highlight of the game for me. In terms of difficulty, you should rather throw yourself into the hard mode, because only there can the game show its true strengths. Normal mode is ridiculously easy and you only see a few of the planets, since logically you can only visit the infested ones.
In conclusion, however, it remains to be said that Starfox 2 is a lost classic that can actually surpass its predecessor by far thanks to the strengths of a strategy and better maneuvering system. The significantly better frame rate also makes it significantly more enjoyable to play than Starfox 1. However, Starfox 2 will probably never come under the nostalgia umbrella of its predecessor. Because Starfox 2 is officially only 5 years old. Still, Starfox 2 gets my highest recommendation for retro lovers. Especially if you want to see the origin of many mechanics from Starfox 64.