By opting not to release Star Fox 2 in favor of waiting for the Nintendo 64, Nintendo ensured that Star Fox would again be on the cutting edge. If Star Fox 2 had come out when intended it wouldn’t have been nearly as visually impressive as the first game, despite being noticeably more advanced than its predecessor. The original Star Fox was a technical marvel when it was first released, but as we saw in part 1 it aged very quickly as the 3D technology continued to rapidly improve in those early years of polygons. In addition to giving the members of Star Fox team a distinct voice and personality, the voice acting also allows the game to deliver story and character interactions during gameplay without splitting the player’s attention like the first game did with it’s text chatter during combat. The characters are still basically the embodiment of specific archetypes, but they have a lot more personality and a bit more nuance than they did in the original game, which is largely thanks to the presence of voice acting. The game’s story isn’t spectacular by any means, but compared to other action games of the time and especially compared to the original game, the story is certainly above average. The game begins by telling the story of the original Star Fox team, led by Fox’s father, and their tragic defeat at the hands of Andross. Star Fox 64 also expands upon the characters and backstory, and overall has much more fleshed out narrative elements than the original. The Lylat System itself is also a bit different than it was in the original game, with noticeably more planets and some of the existing planets in different locations. Star Fox 64 presents Andross’ attack on the Lylat System as an unexpected turn of events, and certainly not the second time it had happened. Star Fox 64 is an expanded retelling of the original game rather than the direct follow up that Star Fox 2 was set to be. One of the biggest differences between what Star Fox 2 would have been and what Star Fox 64 ended up being was that it wasn’t a sequel in a story sense. Though many of the core ideas originally intended for Star Fox 2 were implemented in Star Fox 64, it was in fact an entirely different game. On July 1 st 1997, just over four years after Star Fox came out and about two years after Star Fox 2 was canceled, the second official release in the Star Fox series was finally available, known as Star Fox 64. By mid 1997 there had been a decent stream of releases since launch, including Wave Race 64 and Mario Kart 64, but there were still a relatively small number of games available for the system. With the launch lineup for the Nintendo 64 consisting only of two games, one of which being the outstanding Super Mario 64, early adopters were craving any new releases as we entered 1997. Luckily it would, and after the Nintendo 64 suffered some delays getting to market, it finally made it to store shelves in late 1996. By the time Star Fox 2 was canceled, the Nintendo 64 was well into development, and fans could only hope the series would live on in the next generation. The cancellation of Star Fox 2 so far into development is one of those game cancellations that was hard to accept for fans. In part 1 of this journey back through the history of Star Fox we took a look at the first game in the series and the sequel that never was.
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