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 andpirated 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.)
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
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.)
6 Comments
@DemonAndGames This reminds me that I ought to buy Star Fox Zero. It's a bad game, but the last time I checked there were still dudes selling wholeass boxes of new copies for cheap because nobody bought that thing.
Nevermind. I'm either misremembering the price or it's gone up, because I want to say they were 20 and now I'm seeing them for ~44, and that's way too much!
Your coding skills are absolutely top notch mate!
@FallenGrace Thanks I did it all in HTML. Bit of a wiz kid.
I'm convinced half the reason they bothered to put it on SNES Mini / NSO is because the original roms got leaked including one that is basically the finished game.
DeemonAndGames
1 year ago
Great review as always! I should really plan a marathon of this series, but I'm a bit scared of going anything past Star Fox, as the opinions on those later games are... divided, to say the least.