Star Fox (video game)

Star Fox (released as Starwing in Europe) was the very first of the Star Fox series. It was released in 1993 simultaneously as a Super NES video game and monthly companion comic series in issues 45 to 55 of Nintendo Power, written and illustrated by Benimaru Itoh. The story follows the team from their days as outlaw resistance fighters on Papetoon, to them becoming an elite Arwing fighter squadron. The first issue was published before the actual game was released anywhere in the world, making it the very first glimpse Nintendo players and comic readers alike would see of the game's story, setting, and characters. [A copy of the comic can be found at this link.]

The Super NES game was the first game to include the Super FX chip, a co-processor that provided (at the time) cutting edge 3D polygon graphics, years before the Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation and Nintendo 64 game consoles made this the norm in console video game design.

Star Fox was the second best-selling title of the franchise, only outsold by Star Fox 64, Star Fox's own Continuity Reboot only four years later in 1997. 64 so overshadowed its predecessor that many Star Fox fans today are actually unaware of the Super NES game's existence.

A 1995 sequel, Star Fox 2, was completed in development, but cancelled and unreleased, only to be released later on the Internet as a ROM which has since been Fan Translated to English.

Star Fox and Star Fox 2 are a different Darker and Edgier Canon compared to Star Fox 64 and its sequels (though it's more accurate to say that 64 was Lighter and Softer than them), with different character backstories, personalities and very different character ages.

This page covers both the video game and the comic, which were published at the same time as companion media.

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Star Fox (game and comic) provides examples of:

• Action Girl: Fara Phoenix. Though she makes her first appearance as a hostage, she is the Arwing's chief test pilot for a reason. She is a member of Star Fox, and just like the rest of the team, she demonstrates an amazing level of skill. Her only mistake was to greatly underestimate the power of the Attack Carrier, a mistake she never repeated in any other instance.
• Adaptation Expansion: The comic adaptation of Star Fox was released before the game itself was released anywhere in the world, as a way to incorporate a Backstory and a deeper plot. The comic was able to reveal the Star Fox universe in far greater detail than was possible in the game with the technology of the time: in fact, one of the strategy guides in Japan had illustrations by the same artist detailing even more of the game's storyline. However, thanks to Star Fox 64 being both a reboot and an Alternate Continuity, everything before it's release is technically Canon Dis Continuity.
• Air Vent Passageway: Inside Andross's base, Slippy and Peppy manage to break into Venom's control center via a vent.
• Almost-Dead Guy: As the crippled freighter ship crashes, a lizard stumbles out of the smoking wreck. He cryptically says, "Beware the Stingrays...!" before collapsing.
• AndThereWasMuchRejoicing

-->Fox: Flat as an ape crepe!\\ Falco: Yahoo! Papetoon pancakes!

• Anti-Heroes Just Like Robin Hood: The Star Fox team was this in the beginning of the main story, having been exiled to Papetoon, and robbing Andross's scows to give aid to Papetoon's oppressed people.
• Angels Pose: In the comic, [on the second page of act 8.]
• Anyone Can Die/Final Death: In both Star Fox 1 and Star Fox 2, any of your wingmates who are shot down are Killed Off for Real. This was dropped with 64 and hasn't been seen since. According to Takaya Imamura, the reasoning behind this element of the game was to make the player feel the tragedy when they lose a wingman they've grown attached to.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Andross warns General Pepper that McCloud is trying his patience.

--> "He has destroyed my Cornerian Army, wiped out my space defenses, and kidnapped my favorite android pig, Herbert."

• Attack Its Weak Point: Fox spots some blinking red transmitters on the stingrays' tails, and orders his team to target those. This comes in handy later when Andross sics a dragon on them.
• Autobots Rock Out: Thanks to music by Hajime Hirasawa, who left Nintendo after working on this game. The 1993 game and unreleased 1995 game had a much greater share of rock-themed soundtrack than Star Fox 64 or its sequels. Some of Hirasawa's compositions were rearranged for Super Smash Bros Brawl, both by him and by fellow composers like Kenji Ito.
• Badass: This game and it's tie-in comic was actually moderately more Badass in characterization than the Narmier characters in Star Fox 64.
• Badass Biker: Falco used to be one.
• Batman Cold Open: Fox and his desperadoes shooting down one of Andross's ships in the prologue.
• Berserk Button: Do NOT imply that Fox McCloud and the band that he leads are thieves, or suggest raiding anything other than Imperial freighters. He does NOT take kindly to it.
  • "WE ARE NOT THIEVES"
  • Also, don't call him Junior.
  • Fox gets even more furious upon finding out that Andross killed his mother with a car bomb meant for his father, and that his father being lost in the Black Hole was the result of Andross's sabotage of his ship
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Fox and Fara dogfighting in their Arwings.
• Best Served Cold: Andross rose up the ranks in the Academy to get revenge on those who wronged him.
• Big Damn Heroes: Star Fox leaping out of a cargo container to kick some lizard tail. Falco comments that they probably weren't expecting such "hazardous cargo."
• Big "Shut Up!": Andross does not take kindly to his sanity being questioned.
• Bond One-Liner: After Slippy takes out the kidnapper, Falco complains that they could have used his help earlier. Peppy cheerfully says to go easy on him; "He really cleaned up!"
• Bow Ties Are Cool: Fara's dad.
• Call to Adventure: General Pepper's holo-telegram.
• Call Back: When Fox radios Slippy to ask if he has enough legroom, Slippy replies, "It's better than Peppy's saddle-bag!" (Slippy was crammed behind Peppy's cockpit seat in a previous chapter.)
• Chekhov's Boomerang: Herbert.
• Child Prodigy: Young Fox was in the best of his class at the academy. "He could fly circles around a flea, endure days of gravity training, recite the Cornerian Constitution backwards and belch on command." Fox's father was justly proud.
• Cliffhanger: The team cockily chases Slippy's kidnapper to Sector Y, only to find that he's disappeared from radar. Making matters worse, they're running low on fuel. And the stingrays are moving in...
• Conveniently an Orphan: Fox. They Never Found the Body of his father, but Fox's mom Vixy was confirmed to be (accidentally) killed by Andross.
• Cool Shades: One of General Pepper's most distinguishing features, along with his distinctive uniform and the lollipop he was always sucking on.
• Crazy Enough to Work: The team laments that they can't get to Andross without first getting to Venom, which is impenetrable. Fox knows of a route that Andross might not have considered: "We'll go through the Black Hole!"
• Custom Uniform: Fara's black Arwing. After it's blown to pieces, she gets a pink replacement.
• Cute'Em Up: The level 'Out of This Dimension' is to the rest of the game what Parodius is to Gradius.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Andross promises to "shatter [Fox's] soul like glass."
  • "Rip out their lying lizard tongues!"
• Cut the Juice: Peppy blasts Herbert to smithereens, removing Andross's energy during his duel with Fox.
• Danger Deadpan: Even with her Arwing on fire, Fara acts as if everything is peachy keen. She's a test pilot, so it's likely she was trained this way: her flight data would be of future utility even if she died.
• Darker and Edgier: The original Star Fox story is much darker than both the later Star Fox games and the later comics: Any wingman shot down is killed, Andross' Start of Darkness was when his parents were killed in a military accident, Fox's mother is unambiguously killed with a car bomb, that was meant for his father, and at one point the characters restrain Fox because "he's beyond reason and he'll kill himself."
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Vixy Reinard and Fox McCloud Sr.
• Derelict Graveyard: Fox notices many other floating ships that have gotten lost in the Black Hole, freaking him out.
• Die Hard on an X: Fox, Falco, and Peppy stowaway on a cargo tube being loaded into a star freighter. After the ship exits Papetoon's atmosphere, the three climb out of the cargo hold to hear a battle happening on the floor above them. Some lizards have taken over the ship.
• Died Happily Ever After: Of a sort. Inside the Black Hole, Fox finds himself lost, unable to find a way out. Suddenly, the image of his father appears in front of him, calling out "Junior! Follow me!" Fox flies into a white light at the end of the tunnel. Really, Fox Senior is alive, in Another Dimension
• Distressed Dude: Poor Slippy gets nabbed by Andross in Act 6. He then proceeds to rescue himself. Apparently, Slippy has been subject to some BadassDecay.
• Divided We Fall: The leaders of Corneria were too scared of Andross, and Fox and his friends were denounced for inciting a rebellion. They fled Corneria and lived as outlaws on Papetoon.
• Do Not Call Me Paul: Do not call Fox "Junior." Just don't.
• Don't Sneak Up On Me Like That: General Pepper's lieutenant bursts into his room to alert that Fox has hijacked an Arwing; Pepper is so surprised that he spills his coffee.
• Driven by Envy: Falco chafes at Fox's leadership. Hasn't he gotten enough glory?
• Dummied Out: Fara Phoenix was in early alpha builds of the VideoGame/StarFox2, but she got replaced by two new female characters in later builds. However, Star Fox 2 was never actually released.
• Dynamic Entry: At the Papetoon spaceport, Peppy mentions that Slippy is spending the trip in a cryo-mud bath. Later, as the hostage-taken is about to escape, Slippy bursts out of one of the bath tanks. The lid falls on top of the lizard's head, knocking him out cold.
• Early Installment Weirdness: The comic is essentially the entire Plot to the original Star Fox as shown on the SNES. Since the franchise was rebooted with Star Fox 64, there are many different things that fans who got into the series after Star Fox 64 wouldn't recognize. The characterizations of the Star Fox team and even the Lylat System itself are substantially different from their better-known appearances in Star Fox 64.
  • Fox McCloud is 24 years old, and fiercely self-reliant, having already launched his CDF career, and subsequently wrecking it when he provoked Corneria's powers-that-be to exile him and his friends. This Fox is less in it For The Money than he is in the reboot, believing that the assets they stole from Andross should be liquidated for the benefit of Papetoon's needy downtrodden.
  • Falco Lombardi is 28 years old, and not a Bishonen: his head sports more of a feather mohawk than the pointy tip in his usual appearance. All this works to make him more masculine in appearance. One thing that didn't change much about Falco's characterization, was that he is Only in It For the Money, much to Fox's annoyance.
  • Peppy Hare is not yet middle-aged at 38, and not old enough to be a Parental Substitute to a Fox who is already fully-grown. However, Peppy is still the best friend of Fox's father, so he is still the team's Cool Old Guy, and his affection towards Fox makes him the perfect Big Brother Mentor. His perky chirpy personality also makes him a lot more... peppy. In addition, Peppy has telepathic powers, which he uses at least twice to find both the positions and numbers of enemy soldiers without directly seeing them.
  • Slippy Toad is 19, and this portrayal of him is notable for having no gender confusion possible, being unambiguously male and boyish (reflecting his deep baritone voice in the original game), all the while constantly wearing a bead necklace. (Which so happens to be filled with various grenades) Later on, when Slippy's sound become more feminine, his appearance was made more masculine in contrast, and his necklace had to go. Slippy also had a constant stutter, and periodically punctuated his lines with "ribbit" -- which vanished entirely from his rebooted persona.
  • In the rebooted continuity, Star Fox is the name of the mercenary team run by James McCloud, and revived by his son Fox McCloud after Pigma's betrayal. In this continuity, they were initially a group of freedom fighters on Papetoon organized by Fox McCloud Junior, while Fox McCloud Senior was part of the CDF, and had no mercenary team to speak of.
  • In this game and the comic, Andross' forces are almost all lizards, which are the enslaved natives of Venom. While lizards are seen in Andross' forces in Star Fox 64, the lizards appear to be outnumbered by primates.
  • In the original story, Arwings are new, experimental Cornerian-developed fighters, but General Pepper did not have time to train pilots experienced enough to handle them so he hastily hired Star Fox for the job. In Star Fox 64 and onward, Arwings are custom high-tech combat ships that have been synonymous with Star Fox from the start.
  • In the game, and the comic, Fox McCloud Sr. is presumed dead because Andross designed a gravity bomb that generated a massive artificial Black Hole, which actually trapped him in some sort of alternate reality, which Fox used as a WarpZone to reach Venom. Inside, Fox found a graveyard of lost ships. While the game's description of the black hole is very simplified, going there in-game reveals it to be a ship graveyard and warp zone that can indeed reach Venom. In later games, James McCloud and the original Star Fox team (including Peppy Hare and Pigma Dengar) were sent to Venom to investigate strange activity, but Pigma betrayed them, leaving only Peppy to limp home.
  • The planet Titania is a giant artificial freezer controlled with a WeatherControlMachine, instead of a naturally occurring desert. Both versions are still single biome planets.
• Ejection Seat: Fara is able to bail out of her Arwing as it goes down. Her cockpit deploys helicopter rotors to slow her dec6ent, while Fox swoops in with his Arwing and catches her between his wing.
• Elaborate Underground Base: Star Fox's hideout on Papetoon.
• The Empire: Andross is explicitly said to rule an empire, with friends and foes alike referring to him as "Emperor" Andross.
• Evil Gloating: Fara's hostage-taker. "Some hero you are, Fox McClown!"
  • Andross can't resist crashing General Pepper's HQ to deliver one of these.
• Evil Laugh: Andross, of course. We also see a lizard laughing after stealing Fara's Arwing, with Slippy in tow.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Fara overhears Falco's intent to usurp Fox as team leader. This is likely due to the size of her ears.
• The Exile: Andross was exiled and stranded on planet Venom. In addition, the Star Fox team fled to Papetoon after being deemed "dangerous radicals" on Corneria.
  • Fox McCloud and his companions were originally Ace Pilots in the Corneria Defense Force. But after the incident that created the Black Hole and caused his father's disappearance, Fox and his friends protested. The Cornerian leadership was terrified of Andross's growing power on Venom, and exiled the crew to Fox's ancestral home planet Papetoon to try to avoid Andross's wrath. It didn't work, and Venom soon conquered Papetoon and invaded Corneria, turning the latter into a tense war zone while Fox and his friends spent the next few years as freedom fighters, trying to hide and survive while occasionally stealing from Andross' forces and distributing the goods to Papetoon's inhabitants. At the beginning of the main story, General Pepper suspends their exile and, they smuggle themselves back to Corneria.
• Ejection Seat: Fara is able to bail out of her arwing as it goes down. Her cockpit deploys helicopter rotors to slow her decent, while Fox swoops in with his Arwing and catches her between his wing.
• Elaborate Underground Base: Star Fox's hideout on Papetoon.
• The Empire: This version of Andross is explicitly said to rule an empire, with friends and foes alike referring to him as "Emperor" Andross.
• Evil Gloating: Fara's hostage-taker. "Some hero you are, Fox McClown!"
  • Andross can't resist crashing General Pepper's HQ to deliver one of these.
• Evil Laugh: Andross, of course. We also see a lizard laughing after stealing Fara's arwing, with Slippy in tow.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Fara overhears Falco's intent to usurp Fox as team leader.
• Expospeak Gag: "I'm thinking it is our sacred duty to relieve these lizards of the burden of command."
  • "Call it a professional assessment."
• External Combustion: Fox's mother Vixy Reinard's death was because of a car bomb rigged for James. Not to be outdone, Andross rigged James' Arwing to blow.
• Fanservice Fara has a very visible cameltoe under her jumpsuit.
• The Fifth Ranger: Fara Phoenix.
• Fun with Acronyms: It's uncertain whether the Super FX chip was named after Star FoX or vice versa.
• Generation Xerox/I Am X, Son of Y: Fox McCloud Jr. is always being compared to his missing father Fox McCloud Sr., and in Flashbacks Sr. looks practically identical to adult Jr. (This was before the 64 Continuity Reboot gave James McCloud his trademark Cool Shades.)
• Never Found the Body: The sabotage that created the Black Hole caused sucked Fox McCloud Sr. into it. He lived.
• No Export for You: The companion comic by Benimaru Itoh was made in the Western left-to-right horizontal text style rather than the typical Japanese right-to-left vertical text style, and this Western-style format was also used later with Manga/FarewellBelovedFalco. But whereas Farewell wasn't officially published outside Japan, the Star Fox 1 comic wasn't officially published in Japan. But they both enjoy Canon status within their respective continuities.
• Orchestral Bombing: Just like the entry for Autobots Rock Out above, this is also thanks to Hajime Hirasawa, who left Nintendo after working on this game. The 1993 game and unreleased 1995 game had a very differently styled orchestra soundtrack than Star Fox 64 or its sequels, with a heavier emphasis on Fanfare. Some of Hirasawa's compositions were rearranged for Super Smash Bros Brawl, both by him and by fellow composers like Creator/KenjiIto.
• Percussive Prevention: Falco violently decks Fox to prevent him from going on a dangerous unauthorized mission alone. Falco then decks Fox again while he's down, while reminding Fox of how much he cares about him. Falco almost hits him a third time, when the others remind him that putting Fox in solitary confinement is a more sensible option. Fox later escapes from confinement and returns the favor on Falco, knocking him out of the Arwing cockpit onto the ground.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Fox's scarf.
• Single Biome Planet: Averted more often than 64 did, but there are still a few notable examples.
  • Papetoon appears to be mostly desert with sparse arid vegetation and an exotic karst topography.
  • Titania is an ice planet. But it turns out this is just a weather machine. In the Continuity Reboot, Titania was changed to a desert planet, and Fichina became the ice planet.
  • The monotony of planetary appearances was justified by the game using prerendered bitmaps for planetary backgrounds. It was understood that planets like Corneria and Fortuna had more variety than was shown, and Fortuna was actually shown to have three different biomes in its playable area.
• Space Whale: Fox McCloud Sr. survived, but became permanently trapped in a parallel dimension. He was only able to interface with others again as a voice, and visually only as a giant baleen whale that would emerge temporarily from the Black Hole.
• Speaking Simlish: Since there was very little in the way of voice acting, most vocal speech and inflection was simulated this way, and was one of the game's more memorable features. Regardless of what characters had to say, they said it one of only a few different varieties of moderately expressive gibberish. However, there were a handful of English language sound clips, including General Pepper saying "Good Luck!" at the briefing screen, Fox saying "Let's Go!" at the continue screen, and a few lines of voice-acted script of Fox and Pepper in the game's ending.
• Species First Name/Species Last Name: Fox McCloud, Falco Lombardi, Peppy Hare, Slippy Toad.
  • Punny Name: Fara Phoenix's surname is pronounced "fennecs".
  • Then there's Vixy Reinard, whose first and last names are both fox terms.
• Stop Helping Me!: Falco loathes having to be helped by Fox, even if he really needs it.

Falco: (after being saved) Mind your own business, Fox!

• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: In the Nintendo Power comic, after Fox learns that Andross killed his mother.
• Unrealistic Black Hole/Our Wormholes Are Different/Warp Zone: Created when Andross sabotaged the device Fox McCloud Sr. was taking into the Asteroid Belt. The Black Hole sucked in fully a third of the Asteroid Belt, and remained in interplanetary space. Unlike real black holes, this one was fully visible as a purplish maelstrom in outer space, and it functioned more as a Warp Zone to other locations in the Lylat System.
• Utility Necklace: Slippy's necklace beads contain knock-out gas and grenades, as needed.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Fox and Falco have a tendency of pressing each other's Berserk Buttons and exchanging moments of Percussive Prevention, but they're still good friends in spite of it all. Falco seems to express his most honest words of caring towards Fox while busy beating the shit out of him.