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Prerelease:Star Fox 64

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This page details pre-release information and/or media for Star Fox 64.

Hmmm...
To do:
Acquire April and May 1997 issues of 64Dream for early screenshots.

Star Fox 64 was a never-ending experiment meant to fully utilize the Nintendo 64's capabilities. Simultaneously, it was intended to be a huge facelift to the first entry's rudimentary 3D graphics and an exploration of concepts lost with the second game's cancellation.

Development Timeline

Summer 1995

Development on Star Fox 64 began as Star Fox 2 was nearing completion. Series godfather Takaya Imamura and programmer Kazuaki Morita started working around Summer 1995. They did not have the final Nintendo 64 hardware available; they had to make do with a bulky dev computer and a modified SNES controller. 3D graphics were new at the time, requiring Morita to learn them. Rather than come up with an entirely new concept, the pair decided to start with Star Fox, which they thought would be better for easing into 3D.

Morita's first prototype stage was simply a cube, which they affectionately nicknamed "Star Box".

Shoshinkai 1995

Imamura and Morita continued their experiments for six months. At first they simply focused on recreating the experience of Star Fox 1 on the N64. At this stage, it heavily resembled the original game, but with upgraded graphics. They were not satisfied with the controls, but it looked good enough to them, and they decided to pursue the idea seriously.

The higher-ups at Nintendo were not keen on the idea, and were waiting for the two to give up. That changed when a mere 10 seconds of their work (the asteroid and snow levels) were shown off at Shoshinkai, accompanying the announcement of the Nintendo 64. At the time, it was simply referred to as "Star Fox".

E3 1996

Following Shoshinkai, more staff joined the team. Miyamoto wanted to move beyond the previous game besides just improving its graphics. They removed the option to change control schemes at this point to standardize them, and focused on making the gameplay feel faster than the sluggish original. They also felt that SF1 was too difficult, and so set out to make 64 easier. Miyamoto even suggested they let the Arwing transform into a humanoid mecha, but the team "hated" the idea and came up with the Landmaster and Blue Marine instead.

By E3 1996, they were able to show off early versions of Lylat, Corneria, Meteo, and Titania, the first Landmaster stage. Around this time, the game was renamed to "Star Fox: The Cosmic Crisis".

Shoshinkai 1996

After E3, the team tried incorporating concepts from Star Fox 2, which by this point had been pretty much dropkicked by Nintendo despite being complete: For example, the Star Wolf team, versus mode, and all-range mode. Miyamoto estimated that 60% of the game's ideas came from SF1, 30% came from SF2, and only 10% was entirely new. At first he was wary about implementing the all-range mode, as he couldn't show off as much changing scenery or the cinematic aspects he wanted, but by the end of development he had come around and wished they had included a couple more 360-degree bosses.

Programmer Takao Shimizu wanted to differentiate the game from other shooters where, if the player hit a wall and struggled to continue, they could instead branch off onto a different route rather than completely giving up. These branching paths were developed as a compromise between the static difficulty routes of SF1 and the freeform gameplay of SF2.

Early versions of many levels, the game's intro, all-range mode, Star Wolf, and versus were shown off at Shoshinkai that year. At the time, the game was simply called "Star Fox 64", a name which ended up sticking (something remarkably common with N64 titles). The developers implemented full voice-acting as well, which hadn't been attempted at the time. They tried voicing the characters themselves and were really excited about it, but upon hearing the results people outside the team said it was "unforgivably bad," so they broke down and hired professionals.

Release 1997

In the months leading up to release, the game underwent more changes. Miyamoto suggested adding "NPC" characters to the game, resulting in the creation of Bill and Katt, who would reappear in later levels to make the player feel like their choices mattered.

Heavily influenced by Thunderbirds, the British puppet TV show, Miyamoto wanted to give the game a "created" feel rather than pursuing realism, resulting in the player's mouths being simply animated like puppets. They also considered giving Saucerer visible strings like it was being held up and having an old man's head visible behind the set.

Several levels were added and dropped before release, and Lylat was rearranged. They had long planned to include a third route to Venom, and used versus mode to test out Fox running around with a bazooka for a potential Andross fight, but scrapped the idea when they ran out of time. While they had worked on multiple underwater stages, most were cut besides Aquas because they slowed the pacing down. In hindsight, perhaps this was a good decision.

Interviews

Videos

Shoshinkai '95

E3 '96

Shoshinkai '96

Spring '97

Backup

Screenshots

Images taken from trailers and magazines.

Shoshinkai '95

Promotional material released for the November 1995 Nintendo Space World Expo.

(Source: "Promotional Video (Software)" - Nintendo 64 B-Roll (Space World 1995) (HD), Unseen64)

Corneria

What appears to be early Corneria City. The Arwing was lower-poly, while lasers were 2D sprites. The city seems covered in snow and heavy fog. There were 2D cutouts of buildings and a tunnel.

There was an unused, common robot enemy. Outside the city, the player fought several in a row. Judging by his four-barreled arm, he may have become Granga. Snow particles can be seen, and the trees appear dusted. The terrain has a more sandy color.

A close recreation of the Attack Carrier boss from Star Fox. There appears to be ice shards along the ground. The ground texture resembles Fichina's.

Meteo

What appears to be early Meteo. There are artificial structures along with the asteroids.

E3 '96

Promotional material released for the May 1996 Electronic Entertainment Expo.

(Source: Nintendo - N64 - Press Conference B-ROLL 2 of 2)
(Source: Nintendo of America E3 1996 Promotional Video - Retro N64/SNES Games)
(Source: Nintendo Power June 1996)
(Source: Nintendo1996 Promotional N64 Stock Holders Video)

Lylat

SF64 1996 Shoshinkai Lylat 1.gif

An early representation of the Lylat System. While Meteo and Battleship existed at this time, no space stages are represented. Perhaps it was not meant to be a functional map screen, but a test, or part of the intro.

Corneria

Meteo

Titania

Titania did not have signs of an ancient civilization at first.

Shoshinkai '96

Promotional material released for the November 1996 Nintendo Space World Expo.

(Source: Star Fox 64 1996 Teaser Nintendo 64 '96~'97 Shinsaku Software Intro Video)

Corneria

The snow theme was dropped by this point.

Meteo

Titania

Sector X

Zoness

Pristine Zoness before its polluted makeover. There appears to be an extra crewman character on the Sarumarine, whose lines can be heard in the developer's dub.

The crewman's portrait is distorted when the Sarumarine is underwater. The texture offset is improperly set, either intentionally to create a weakened signal effect, or by accident. Regardless, when using different pixel wrap lengths in Texture64, the following textures can be made out:

1996 Shoshinkai Zoness 5.png

Sector Y

Appears to be all there is of the level, as the score is zero, the shields have taken no damage, and the player does not move forward. Perhaps an early test. The battleships fire lasers at each other, which explode upon impact.

Fortuna

Versus

SF64 1996 Shoshinkai Versus.png

First glimpse of versus mode. The sky texture seems to be borrowed from E3 Titania. Many of the textures were in the leak, including the faces on the building.

Intro Demo

Spring '97

Promotional material released in the run-up to the game's April 27th release in Japan.

(Source: Dengeki 64 April & May 1997 Issues)
(Source: Nintendo Power May 1997)

Corneria

Meteo

SF64 1997 Spring Meteo.jpg

Old item box texture. Unused enemy formation.

Titania

Sector X

SF64 1997 Spring Sector X.jpg

Lower medal requirement.

Zoness

SF64 1997 Spring Zoness 1.png

Enemies dropped spinning health rings.

Fortuna

SF64 1997 Spring Fortuna.png

Large arrows appeared to mark common enemies.

Solar

SF64 1997 Spring Solar.png

Early shield meter. The gores were just reused firebirds from Corneria at this point.

Bolse

SF64 1997 Spring Bolse.png

Slippy croaked (kero!) Enemy ships are represented on the radar with triangles.

Katina

SF64 1997 Spring Katina 1.png

The early portrait of Bill is visible. Saucerer used to have spiked prongs on top, but no apparent shadow on the map.

Unknown

SF64 Dengeki 64 May 12 1997 Unknown.png SF64 Nintendo Power March 1997 Unknown.jpg

The first appears to be a simple test above a starry background. The second image resembles the section beneath the Sector Y battleship, but the layout and textures are different, and the level has an odd red tinge effect.

Lylat

SF64 Dengeki 64 May 1997 Lylat.jpg

Sectors X, Y, and Z are older versions, with X's sprite existing in the final ROM. Katina used to have a ring before it was given to Titania instead. Aquas, Macbeth, and Titania have white clouds, unlike the final version. Macbeth has something floating behind it (that is not Area 6).


(Source: https://twitter.com/ASISOR/status/1615275194364616709)

SF64 64Dream 1997 Lylat.jpg

Another angle reveals a floating structure in Macbeth's orbit.


(Source: Japanese Instructions Booklet)

SF64 JP Instructions Booklet Lylat.png

Even in the Japanese instructions booklet packed with the game, Sector Y is backwards, and Aquas, Titania, and Macbeth have white clouds.


(Source: Dengeki 64 May 1997)

Older versions of Titania and Sector X. Notably, even Titania's icon on the scoreboard still has clouds, yet no ring like it does on the map.

References