Star Fox 2
Star Fox 2 is a rail shooter video game developed by Nintendo and Argonaut Software and published by Nintendo. Originally developed for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it was completed in 1995 but did not see an official release until 2017 on the Super NES Classic Edition.
| Star Fox 2 | |
|---|---|
SNES Classic icon artwork | |
| Developer(s) | Nintendo EAD Argonaut Software |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Director(s) | Katsuya Eguchi |
| Producer(s) | Shigeru Miyamoto |
| Programmer(s) | Dylan Cuthbert Takumi Kawagoe Yasuhiro Kawaguchi |
| Artist(s) | Masanao Arimoto |
| Composer(s) | Kozue Ishikawa Yumiko Kanki |
| Series | Star Fox |
| Platform(s) | Super Nintendo Entertainment System |
| Release | Super NES Classic Edition |
| Genre(s) | Multidirectional shooter, real-time strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Like the original Star Fox (1993), Star Fox 2 pushed the graphical capabilities of the SNES with Argonaut's Super FX chip. Dylan Cuthbert was lead programmer, with Shigeru Miyamoto returning as producer and Katsuya Eguchi as director. Star Fox 2 introduces semi-real-time gameplay, new ship types, new playable characters, and a more advanced 3D game engine. The story continues the battle against Emperor Andross, who seeks to destroy the Lylat system.
By 1995, 3D technology was advancing quickly and the 3D game market was expanding, with competition from the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn consoles. Concerned that the 16-bit graphics of Star Fox 2 would compare poorly against newer games, Nintendo instead prioritized its upcoming Nintendo 64 console. The Nintendo 64 game Star Fox 64 (1997) incorporated some concepts introduced in Star Fox 2.
In the years after the cancellation, various prototype ROM images were leaked online. In 2017, Star Fox 2 was officially released for the first time as one of 21 games included in the Super NES Classic Edition. In 2019, it became available for the Nintendo Switch to subscribers of the Nintendo Switch Online service.