The late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata was well known in many circles for his Iwata Asks interview series in which new hardware and software launches would see him asking the developers about the experience and other such things. Although the series more or less was retired with his passing, Nintendo will still bring back the format every now and then for a special occasion. The rapidly approaching launch of the SNES Mini is one such occasion, and a new interview was recently posted regarding the development of Star Fox 2.
Nintendo just conducted an interview in which Shigeru Miyamoto, Takaya Imamura, and Tsuyoshi Watanabe reminisce on their late careers with the SNES. Everything form the polygonal design of the Arwing to the button layout of the SNES controller is talked about, leading to plenty of interesting insights. For those of you wondering, Star Fox 2 was mostly held back until now because the complex design of the games graphics would’ve necessitated a Super FX Chip 2, which would have noticeably raised the price of the game. With the N64 just around the corner, it was decided that the project shouldn’t be released, and it eventually went on to inspire Star Fox 64.
What do you think? What did you think of Star Fox when it came out? Will you be getting a SNES Mini? Drop us a comment in the section below.
[source nintendo.com]
Comments 37
I'm still shocked we finally got it.
I hope it doesn't stay exclusive to the SNES mini and they release it on Switch at some point, so us mere mortals can play it too.
If only star fox zero was ambitious.
Please!!! 3 months after SNES mini release, release Starfox 2 for switch
"If you think about it now, we were awfully ambitious."
I miss those days. The Gamecube was the last time they were ambitious in terms of power.
"Nintendo just conducted an interview in which Shigeru Miyamoto, Takaya Imamura, and Tsuyoshi Watanabe reminisce on their late careers with the SNES. Everything form the polygonal design of the Arwing to the button layout of the SNES controller is talked about, leading to plenty of interesting insights. For those of you wondering, Star Fox 2 was mostly held back until now because the complex design of the games graphics would’ve necessitated a Super FX Chip 2, which would have noticeably raised the price of the game. With the N64 just around the corner, it was decided that the project shouldn’t be released, and it eventually went on to inspire Star Fox 64."
Small typo.
The Star Fox games are what I'm least interested in playing. In this day and age they're hideous looking and have a terrible framerate. If I could, I'd have them along with Kirby's Dream Course replaced with Terranigma, Secret of Evermore and Chrono Trigger.
As long as Amazon UK don't let me down I'll be getting one
After all the difficulties people had getting a nes mini and all these stories about orders getting cancelled with various retailers I'm still a bit nervous.
So until it actually gets delivered I won't be fully convinced
When Starfox was originally released I was amazed. I know it's nothing by today's standards, but it was great then to have a console that could do 3d. The Mega drive couldn't do this. 😊 I felt like I was playing a game that cost millions to produce. Bit innocent now I know, but there you go ☺️
It wasn't as good as SMK, which I and a lot of people considered to be the SNES's best game, but it was still good.
That was a great read. Interesting to know that the Japanese /European SNES was designed by Miyamoto personally.
Fun read - took me back to when Starfox released. I finally got a SNES with the Starfox bundle (my parents could only afford hand me down consoles, I got my NES when the SNES first came out because people were selling) and this was the first new console or games system I ever owned.
It felt so new and fresh seeing the polygon shapes and gameplay. Seems dated now but I can remember kids at school talking about the FX chip as if they even knew what it was.
@Mart1ndo The Megadrive had a few 3D games, Virtua Racing being the biggest one. There were a few flight simulators too. They look terrible today but so too do both SNES Starfox.
@OorWullie
Come on man. SNES looks a hell of a lot better than MD.
@Mart1ndo
Megadrive's Virtua Racing is leaps and bounds looks better than any SNES 3D game. I remember it coming in a rather huge cart at costing almost twice the price of other MD games. Nevertheless it was a huge deal at the time bringing the arcade gameplay in a awesome looking port.
@tangram
Should have went to Spec-savers.
@omagickarp In a way it was ambitious. They changed the controls entirely and it ended up being the worst star fox we have ever seen.
I bought it for 15£ thinking it would be a good way to say good bye to the Wii U, played an hour and now it's gathering dust and I have no intention to play it ever again.
We need Miyamoto to fix the Star Fox franchise!
Meh... I liked Star Fox Zero... so much better than Dinosaur Planet
While I do own every Nintendo console, I am only really old enough to remember what it was like from the N64 era on. But I've played many NES and SNES games and some are great, some are over hyped but still good. StarFox, for as cool as it probably was at the time, would probably be laughed at if something comparable was attempted today. In the modern era of gaming I just don't see people enjoying the more cartoony idea of humanoid animals as playable characters. No matter how good the game play, it would be viewed as a kids game and passed over by self proclaimed "hard core, real gamers"
@TrubbishForMayor I completely agree. If it remains an exclusive I'm going to be so mad. I also hope they release a reproduction cartridge for it for us SNES collectors.
@Heavyarms55 But you have to look at the larger demographic of Nintendo players. They're in it for the fun, not the "hardcore" part. Honestly, I think the switch is better off without those "MLG" call of duty gamers. We don't need over competitive screamers playing splatoon.
@subpopz They had planned to get the then Ultra64 out almost a year and a half earlier than the actual date it finally launched. They would have been competing against themselves with Mario 64 vs Starfox 2 and it would have looked like garbage and drew attention away from their new system too.
Iwata Asks was so cool I still hope they bring it back in some form. You rarely find such insight into the development of non-major titles like Rhythm Heaven Fever – that one was very entertaining to read.
@samuelvictor
I'm seriously not blinded. Back in the day I swapped my SNES just for a couple of days with a friend. I couldn't wait to get my SNES back. I was shocked by the poor quality of, not only the games but the console itself. The cables were really thick and hard to bend. It just didn't look a classy as the SNES.
I'm not a fanboy I play all the consoles from all the manufacturers, and have always done, but I know what I like and I wasn't impressed with the MD.
Btw I played Virtual racing in the arcade and on the MD. In the arcade you could hear my jaw hitting the floor. No other game ever made that kind of a impact on me graphically. On the MD it was ok. An arcade port as such. My friend had it. Good golf games on MD.
I have the the Mega drive ultimate collection on PS3. I'd never sell it.
@samuelvictor This might be a bad example, because so many of the modern games in the series bombed, but Sonic the Hedgehog features humanoid animals as playable characters.
@Heavyarms55 Almost no SNES games actually used high resolution mode though (I know Kirby 3 and Seiken Densetsu 3 did), so for most games, Genesis had the same resolution or higher.
@Asaki Sonic isn't new...
@omagickarp As was stated, ambition was not the problem with Star Fox Zero. The problem was that it was too ambitious for the time frame and probably budget it needed to be completed within. During production, it turned into a stopgap game that just needed to exist so there was something to release on Wii U.
I actually really enjoy the game, but there are some decisions in control, like making the reticle not show the correct aiming in the non-gamepad view and not enough stretches of the game that need the cockpit view on GamePad to make the feature feel worthwhile.
To me, there are moments of brilliance in the game, but it needed a serious time and priority boost in order to bring all the crazy elements together. The business timing, however, was horrible — remember, inside Nintendo, the decision about when to release Switch was privately known and came during the production of Star Fox so, Miyamoto likely had a sudden priority shift.
Anyway, as much as I like the game, I recognize why it didn't work for others. It was a relatively rare example of an undercooked high profile game release from Nintendo and had Paper Mario Color Splash in the same year to make it a trend.
Star Fox Zero was definitely ambitious, though. Miyamoto and Aonuma even joked about it that one game awards show. They knew what they were up against and the floor dropped out under Star Fox Zero, while BOTW became a key release for Switch.
I loved the joke at the end of this article: "Will you be getting a SNES Mini?". LOL.
No. No I will not. None of us will be.
I'm trying to get a Super Nintendo classic LOL it's all up to Nintendo on whether I get one or not.
@Rhaoulos give the star fox franchise to sakurai or let platinum games make the next one.
@aaronsullivan star fox needed to be revitalized in the same way kid Icarus uprising did for kid icarus series. Expand the universe in some epic way not another star fox 64 reboot scenario. Maybe star fox wasn't the series to showcase unique gameplay of the Wii u.
@samuelvictor
I genuinely didn't mean to offend anyone with the MD comment. I kinda forget there are Sega fans on this site also. Hell we all love gaming.
Awfully ambitious when they threw Argonaut under the bus and farmed code and concepts so Miyamoto could make Star Fox 64.
@SLIGEACH_EIRE agreed big time on the 3 RPGs they should have included!
I have a pre ordered SNES mini because they were available for pre order from ebgames here (Australia) for 3 whole days. I guess it pays to be in a smaller population with less Nintendo fanatics around to compete.
@PtM no chance, the SNES mini will be a system on a chip running emulator software. There are lots more FX chip games out there that aren't on the mini and there are lots, 8-10 or so of different SNES enhancement chips.
I would like a re-release of Star Fox Zero on the Switch without the jacked up controls!
Oh, so that explains it! Now that they're releasing their own clone system (with some extra juice over the original system, I assume), this is actually the first time it can actually be released.
I suppose technically it could've been a digital release on Wii or Wii U, but it would've required either rebuilding the game from scratch or writing a custom SNES emulator with support for such an extra theoretical graphics chip, since the emulator used to run the SNES games on the Virtual Console wouldn't have been able to run it.
@TrubbishForMayor
me too
@SLIGEACH_EIRE You want them to be eaphically ambitious but say their most graphically ambitious hasn't aged well at all.
If they make an N64 Classic they should add Ura Zelda or Mother 3
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