Franchise / Star Fox

From left to right: Slippy Toad, Peppy Hare, Falco Lombardi and Fox McCloud.

"Hurry Star Fox-
You're the Lylat System's only hope"

— General Pepper

Birthed from Shigeru Miyamoto's love of Thunderbirds and a need to show-off the 3D rendering capabilities of the Super FX chip, Star Fox^*The first two game were known as Starwing and Lylat Wars in PAL territories, due to perceived issues with the German company StarVox is a long-running Nintendo Science Fiction space shooter franchise that began in 1993 on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, starring a group of ragtag Funny Animals who are fond of flying spacecrafts known as Arwings and spouting lines that quickly enter Memetic Mutation.

The series takes place in the Lylat System, wherein lies the planet of Corneria, kept safe by General Pepper and the Corneria Defense Force. Of course, this military group can't handle every galactic threat that comes their way and finds themselves having to regularly enlist the help of some benevolent mercenaries. Enter Star Fox, consisting of Fox McCloud and his friends Falco Lombardi, Peppy Hare, and Slippy Toad. Together, they assist the Cornerian Army in battling the vile Mad Scientist Andross, their villainous counterparts in Star Wolf, and various other threats to their quadrant of the galaxy... all for a small fee, of course. Gotta pay for food and repairs somehow.

As of 2019, there are eight games in the franchise. The series has also undergone two separate continuity reboots, resulting in three distinct continuities with their own sequels. Most entries in the franchise are rail shooters, though most titles have experimented with everything from the Third-Person Shooter to Turn-Based Strategy genres, alongside the traditional gameplay.

List of Star Fox games

Timeline 1

• Star Fox^*PAL: Starwing (SNES, 1993): The evil scientist Andross was exiled to the inhospitable planet Venom, due to his experiments nearly destroying the Lylat system. He returned, and declared war on the system as payback. With Andross's forces causing undue destruction and having no time to train new pilots for the experimental "Arwing" fighters, General Pepper of the Cornerian Defense Force is forced to hire the mercenary group Star Fox to pilot the new ships. The game was technologically advanced for its time: very few console games back then could showcase 3D rendering at a playable framerate — Nintendo worked with Argonaut Software to manufacture the Super FX co-processor chip to handle the task.
• Star Fox 2 (SNES Classic Edition, 2017^*finished in 1995): Angered by his defeat in the first game, Andross returns to the Lylat system to launch a new attack against Corneria, this time using his new fleet of battleships and giant missiles launched from hidden bases to destroy Corneria. General Pepper again calls upon the Star Fox team for help, with the group now armed with new custom Arwings, a Mothership, and two new recruits (Miyu and Fay). The game featured free-roaming, 3-dimensional flight and Real-Time Strategy (foregoing the linear Rail Shooter gameplay of Star Fox), as well as multiple playable characters with unique transforming aircraft. Infamously, the game was completed in mid-1995 and meant to release that year, but due to Nintendo wishing to emphasize the graphical jump between the SNES and N64, the title was shelved for almost 22 years until the team behind the SNES Classic Edition demanded its release. Many of its unique concepts, including 3-dimensional flight, and overworld map, and transforming walkers, were revisited and incorporated in other entries over the intervening years. Technologically, the Super FX chip was further enhanced during the game's development, with the improved rendering of the Super FX 2 seeing usage in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and the SNES port of Doom.

Timeline 2

• Star Fox 64^*PAL: Lylat Wars (Nintendo 64, 1997): The first reboot in the series, and the only game developed entirely in-house by Nintendo EAD, Star Fox 64 shares the same overall plot and gameplay as the SNES original, but changes many of the details. The game was notable for coming bundled with the Rumble Pak: the first mainstream vibrating controller accessory (coming out before the PlayStation DualShock). A remake titled Star Fox 64 3D was released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2011.
• Star Fox Adventures (Nintendo GameCube, 2002): Eight years after Andross' defeat, a financially struggling Star Fox team is persuaded by General Pepper to investigate the war situation on Dinosaur Planet, where they discover that the actions of the invading Sharp Claw army is causing the planet to literally break apart. Considered the black sheep of the series due to being a Zelda-like fantasy adventure game rather than a Science Fiction shoot 'em up (The game was meant to be a completely different title altogether and had Fox McCloud inserted into it at the eleventh hour). This game introduced Fox's on-again-off-again love interest, Krystal, and was also the last Rare game developed for a Nintendo console before Rare was bought by Microsoft.
• Star Fox: Assault (GameCube, 2005): After the defeat of Andross, Oikonny - Andross' nephew - becomes leader of the remaining forces on Venom. Rather than wait for him to attack, General Pepper orders a preemptive strike, with the Star Fox team assisting the Cornerian Army. However, during the battle, Oikonny is destroyed by an insect-like creature called an Aparoid, beings that ravaged the Cornerian fleet seventeen years prior. Fearing a new invasion, the Star Fox crew is ordered to find a way to stop the Aparoids before its too late. Developed by Namco Bandai, this installment returned to Star Fox 64's linear Shoot 'Em Up style of gameplay, mixing it with on-foot Third-Person Shooter segments.
• Star Fox Command (Nintendo DS, 2006): Just as the planet Venom's forces were thought to be completely destroyed, a race of beings known as the Anglar emerge from its toxic seas to attack the Lylat System. As such, a Star Fox team that had fragmented in the years since Assault must reassemble to fight the threat. Co-developed by Nintendo EAD and Q-Games, the latter being a spiritual successor to Argonaut Software, this is the first portable entry in the franchise. Taking some concepts from Star Fox 2, the game featured mostly free-roaming combat, Turn-Based Strategy (a notable contrast to the Real-Time Strategy of Star Fox 2), multiple playable characters with unique aircraft, and Multiple Endings.

Timeline 3

• Star Fox Zero (Wii U, 2016): Co-developed by Nintendo EPD and PlatinumGames, this is the second reboot, once again following similar story beats as the previous Lylat Wars titles. Its gameplay is radically different from previous titles in that the console's Gamepad screen and motion controls are used to aim the Arwing's weapons independently from the ship's flight path. Shigeru Miyamoto himself headed the project (as he had personally wanted to revive the series since the Wii generation).
  • Star Fox Guard (Wii U, 2016): A Tower Defense spin-off released alongside Zero, serving as a prologue to the game's events, with the player as a Mii working at a mining company owned by Slippy's Uncle Grippy, using armed security cameras to defend the base.

Other major gaming appearances for Star Fox characters outside their own series include:

• Super Smash Bros.: The first game in the series featured Fox McCloud among its original twelve fighters. Falco Lombardi and Wolf O'Donnell joined the series in Melee and Brawl, respectively, and Andross and Krystal appear as Assist Trophies.
• Dinosaur Planet: Fox replaces Sabre in the leaked build, even though this is before the game was rebranded and turned into Star Fox Adventures. Krystal also makes her original debut here, with a different design than the one she has in the Star Fox franchise.
• Starlink: Battle for Atlas: the Nintendo Switch version has exclusive missions, ships, and characters, all of them related to the Star Fox franchise. The exclusive missions feature Star Fox dealing with Wolf and his cronies, who have fled Lylat and are hiding in the Atlas star system, and the entire game can be played using Star Fox and their iconic Arwing starfighters.

In addition to video games, Star Fox has made appearances in comics and animation. With the former, there are two notable comics series based on the series: the 1993 Nintendo Power Star Fox comic strip that served as a canonical retelling and expansion of the original SNES game's plot, written and authored by Benimaru Itoh,^note who also illustrated the licensed Japanese strategy guide and Farewell, Beloved Falco, a 2002 interquel manga released on the Japanese Star Fox Adventures website that covers the events that occurred between 64 and Adventures, while focusing mainly on Falco's background and his relationships with other characters. There's also this German comic from 1997 that adapts the plot of Star Fox 64, released by Nintendo of Europe. As for animation, there's the animated short Star Fox Zero – The Battle Begins, an adaptation of the first mission in Star Fox Zero produced by Wit Studio under Miyamoto's supervision.

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Tropes:

• Action Girl: There's plenty of them. Fara Phoenix, Miyu and Fay, Katt Monroe, Krystal, Lucy Hare, and Amanda.
• Aerith and Bob: Character names in this series fall into two categories: either the name is directly related to the character's species (eg. their name is a pun reflecting their species, ^note Leon the Chameleon, Slippy the Frog. or their species is literally their name, ^note characters like Fox, Wolf, and Panther) Or they have a real name with no relation to their species at all, like James McCloud the Fox. In addition, some characters have animal-themed surnames like Hare and Toad, while others have distinctly European surnames like McCloud, Lombardi, Caruso, O'Donnell etc.
• Airborne Aircraft Carrier: Many boss vehicles hold smaller enemy ships inside them. In addition, the Star Fox team often uses a command ship that carries their Arwings into battle: while the most iconic example is the Great Fox, which appeared from Star Fox 64 through to its destruction in Star Fox: Assault, other motherships were used by the team in both Star Fox 2 and Star Fox Command.
• Always Chaotic Evil: The Sharp Claws, Aparoids, and Anglar. There is also not a single non-malevolent ape like character (other than possibly Dash Bowman).
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: It's not clear what kind of fox Krystal is supposed to be.◊ She is a fox, but foxes aren't blue (except for arctic foxes in certain regions, which have bluish-white winter coats that are nowhere near the cobalt blue of Krystal). According to ''Star Fox 64 3D'' Iwata Asks, Falco is actually a pheasant, which would make his head, at least, very accurate.
  • Katt is traditionally depicted with pink fur, but it suddenly changed to black in Command. Maybe she started dyeing? Maybe she stopped dyeing?
  • Slippy's kids in one of the endings in Command all have different colors.
• Anyone Can Die: invoked In Star Fox, any wingman who gets shot down at any time is Killed Off for Real, while Fox, being the only playable character, has several lives; in Star Fox 2, this trope was unceremoniously extended to all pilots in the game - including the Star Wolf pilots and Fox McCloud himself. This was toned down in Star Fox 64, where any downed pilots (Star Fox or Star Wolf) simply sit out the next mission while their ship is under repair, before being dropped from the series entirely. 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.
  Takaya Imamura: It's pretty tragic when your allies are defeated, so players ought to realize at some point that they’ve begun to feel empathy towards them.
• Art Evolution: While the main characters follow a mildly consistent appearance throughout five games and two comics, they still change appearance a lot more than, say, Mario or Kirby. Mostly, they get progressively cuter.
• Artistic License – Physics: The Lylat system is messed up in the fact that planetary orbits do not exist (although Assault does appear to have a model with orbits of the Lylat system).
  • The original Star Fox and the Star Fox 2 map screen avert this trope. The order of the planets is directly mentioned in the game manual.
• Artistic License – Space: According to official sources, the Lylat System orbits a B-type blue giant star which contains more than four habitable planets. However, in Real Life, B-type stars are extremely unlikely to have habitable planets — or any planets at all for that matter, due to the fact that they're extremely short-lived (their full life spans are only about 100 million years in comparison to our Sun's 10 billion) and they output so much solar energy that they blow away their proto-planetary discs, thus preventing planet formation. If there are planets, they're most likely either barren deserts or volcanic wastelands.
• Art Shift: Does Fox McCloud have blue or green eyes? That depends on what game you're looking at. They appear to have settled on green, but interestingly, in an early promo art for Assault, they appeared to be both◊.
• Ascended Meme: "DO A BARREL ROLL" was used in the subject line for an e-mail advertising Star Fox 64 3D, and an Easter Egg in Star Fox Zero.
• Asteroids Monster: An example appears in Star Fox Command.
• Asteroid Thicket: Asteroid fields are a staple level present in all Star Fox games, even Adventures.
• Badass Biker: Wolf O'Donnell. While he doesn't actually own a bike—he pilots a Wolfen—he does fit the trope in terms of his design and personality. He wears the black leather attire that is standard for the trope in every game he's in, excepting Star Fox 64. His design is still based on this in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but it goes a step further by giving him at least one accessory traditionally associated with the biker motif, including a chain that connects to the belt around his waist and to the holster for his blaster.
• Badass Bookworm: Lucy Hare, who taught Astrophysics during the events of Star Fox Command.
• Badbutt: Starting with Star Fox 64, about half the cast became this, but most noticeably Falco "Time to kick some tail!" Lombardi and Wolf "What the heck!?" O'Donnell.
• Barely-Changed Dub Name: The dub changed Fichina's name to Fortuna and Katarina's name to Katina.
• Battle Couple: Depends on the Continuity. In Nintendo Power's Star Fox, it's Fox and Fara. In Assault and Command, it's Fox and Krystal, at least part of the time. Slippy and Amanda count too.
• Big Bad: Andross is the main villain during the Lylat Wars. General Scales appears to be this throughout Adventures, before he gets replaced by Andross right at the end. The Aparoid queen was this in Assault, and the Anglar Emperor was this in Command.
• Big "WHAT?!": In Star Fox 64, General Pepper gives one of these in reaction to the bill for Star Fox's services if it gets high enough.
• Big Damn Heroes: The Star Fox team tends to show up just in the nick of time. Star Wolf gets a moment like this in Star Fox Assault.
• Brutal Bonus Level: "Out of This Dimension," from the first game. Good luck getting to it at all, but once you do, the level has rather bizarre enemies, and there is no help from your wingmen. The boss is a Luck-Based Mission (which is justified, seeing as how it's a giant inter-dimensional slot machine), and once you beat the boss, the game doesn't actually end. The credits fly by, and a giant "THE END" pops up, which you can just keep shooting at until you get bored and turn the game off.
• Bullet Hell: While most of Star Fox 64 is just a standard shoot-em-up, the penultimate level on the "Hard" path of the game gets a special mention: in Area 6 you will be so busy dodging the fire that you could easily run into the enemy ships which take up half the screen. However, even that is eclipsed by the "Easy" side of Venom on Expert mode. There are times when you face literal walls of enemies, who proceed to spew literal walls of lasers, and your only real option is to hope you have enough bombs.
• Canon Immigrant: Krystal. She was originally the protagonist of Dinosaur Planet before it was repurposed into a Star Fox game.
• Captain Obvious:
  Fox: ROB, can you confirm Slippy's location?
  ROB: Distress signal coming from Titania.
  Peppy: Looks like he's on Titania.
• Car Skiing: The player can pull off this maneuver using either one of the Landmaster's jets.
• Casual Interplanetary Travel: In both the comics and the games, it seems that nearly anyone in the Lylat system who has sufficient funds can simply go from one planet to another, with no long travel times or exorbitant costs implied.
• Celibate Hero: Falco, based on a Fan Scanlation of Farewell, Beloved Falco.
  Katt: Hey, Falco, have you found a girlfriend yet?
  Falco: No way! Never have, never will. I fly solo, babe.
  • The literal translation is:
    Katt: Hey Falco, do you have... a lover?
    Falco: Even now and even before, I have no interest in falling head over heels for someone.
  • Basically, Katt asks Falco if he has a lover, using a gender-neutral Japanese term, so as to avoid any Exact Words situations. Falco responds that he doesn't have, and is wholly uninterested in lovers. Both versions of the manga as a whole paint Falco as someone who can be platonic friends with someone, but is strongly (and even angrily) averse to anything closer than that.
• Charged Attack: From Star Fox 2 onward, the Arwing has the ability to charge its main laser to fire a Homing Projectile.
• Chasing Your Tail: Pretty much every dogfight in Star Fox 64 quickly devolves into this trope. It is possible to trick some enemies with loops, but it does little to break up the constant tail-chasing. If you try this in both Star Wolf battles in 64, they would double-team you in the second battle; baiting you into looping behind your pursuer, only to be hammered by his teammate. And you're all out of boost to try the maneuver again, because you just looped.
• Clip Its Wings: In some of the games, Arwings can lose their wings when damaged, particularly if you fly too close to something big and clip them off. Even without wings, the ships can stay airborne and under the control of the pilot due to the G-diffuser systems installed in them, but maneuvering becomes far more difficult.
• Colonized Solar System: Nearly every planet in the Lylat System has a colony or several settlements on it.
• Color-Coded Characters: This is done so you know who needs rescuing. In Star Fox: Assault, Fox is yellow, Falco is blue, Slippy is green, Peppy is red, and Krystal is purple.
  • Taken even further in Star Fox Command, where all characters were assigned a color to their ship and trail on the map.
  • The games play with Chromatic Arrangement in their outfits mismatching their character color (which is usually based on their body color) for contrast. In their default uniforms, Fox wears green, Slippy blue, and Falco orange or yellow. Peppy is the only one whose shirt color matches his character color consistently. In their Assault suits, Fox kept green, Falco became red, Slippy yellow, and Krystal blue.
• Command Roster: Fox is technically the Ace Pilot of Star Fox, but since he's officially The Leader those character tropes fall mostly to Falco. Slippy is easily The Engineer and Mr. Fixit. Peppy doesn't really fit in most cames, but becomes Mission Control in Star Fox Assault, with Krystal becoming the Communications Officer in his place.
• Conservation of Competence: The size of a force of spacecraft is inversely proportional to its effectiveness. Thus, Corneria's massive fleet is useless (at one point being destroyed by one aparoid, a creature so flimsy it's Assault's second boss), while a rag-tag team of mercenaries can do anything.
• Continuing is Painful:
  • In Star Fox, continuing resets your Arwing to its lowest level - one laser and no powerups. Depending on how late in the game this happens, you could end up being brutalized by late-game foes.
  • Star Fox 64 is usually pretty good about continue points: they push you far enough back so you have time to restore your extended shield and blue lasers before you reach the boss. Usually. The times they don't (Venom 2's dogfight against Star Wolf, for example) dive right into this trope.
  • Special mention goes toStar Fox 2: you get two Arwing pilots to start, and can switch between them freely to mitigate damage. "Continuing" means a pilot got shot down, and the remaining pilot must continue alone.
• Continuity Nod
  • The page picture, a piece of artwork from Star Fox Command, is essentially a redrawing of original promotional material for the original SNES Star Fox (which was actually the boxart for the Japanese and European releases). This is also given a nod in the Star Fox Zero unlockable Sound Test.
  • Also, Andrew Oikonny, ex-Star Wolf, is the first boss in Assault, where he is striving to become a good Big Bad like his uncle was. His ship even transforms into a big head with two flying fists as a Call-Back to Andross's boss fight. Falco is not impressed.
    Falco: What's this, an Andross wannabe?
• Conveniently an Orphan
  • Fox. His dad was killed by Andross (They Never Found the Body). The Nintendo Power comic tie-in reveals that Andross killed his mother as well, in an earlier attempt to kill his father.
  • Krystal one-ups Fox by losing her entire planet as part of her origin. How this happened hasn't been made fully clear yet, however, the fact that she recognized Andross shortly before she got sealed in a magic crystal implies that Andross may have been involved in its destruction.
  • Aside from those two, Falco is the only other team member who does not appear to have any family. Except Katt.
• Cool Old Guy
  • Peppy Hare, also Fox in one of the endings in Command, where he is seen sporting sunglasses like his father and a goatee. General Pepper tries for this, though he falls short.
  • In another of the endings of Command, Falco serves this role, playing mentor to Fox's son Marcus just as Peppy was Fox's mentor. And like Fox above, Falco wears awesome sunglasses.
• Cool Starship: The Great Fox definitely qualifies, as does its unnamed Star Fox 2 predecessor. Both ships serve to transport, service and repair the Arwings, making them functionally equivalent to an aircraft carrier in space.
• Cores-and-Turrets Boss
  • Bolse is a level long example in Star Fox 64.
  • Also the "Atomic Base" cores in the first game, which inspired similar structures in Zero.
• Crew of One: The Landmaster and the Blue-Marine - a tank and a submarine, respectively. "64" has suggestions both ways for the Marine but the Master is explicitly crewed by one person. The Great Fox might also count: it's operated solely by ROB 64 in most games.
• Deadpan Snarker: A number of characters will do this depending on the game and situation. Falco snarks the most, though Fox definitely has his moments.
  Fox: Good to know that the targeting system is as sterling as ever.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Happens briefly to Star Wolf in Assault and Command.
• Detachment Combat: The Great Commander boss from the original Star Fox, though it prefers to fight Fox in its combined mode more than in its detached form.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Fox McCloud's first meeting face-to-face with Krystal. Her appearance sent him into shock for a minute before Peppy's call knocked him out of it.
• Distress Call
  • Both Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Zero begin with a call for assistance, as do several missions in Star Fox Assault. You are playing as a mercenary team, so it makes sense that most games start with your services being called for.
  • Adventures begins with Krystal answering a distress call from Sauria. She gets another one, in the same way (telepathic contact) from Sauria in Assault.
• Do a Barrel Roll: The Trope Namer, although it isn't an actual barrel roll.
• Dodge by Braking: This can be done, though usually with mixed results.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Guess what species Fox is. We also have a wolf named Wolf, a cat named Katt, a pig named Pigma, a chameleon named Leon, and so on. That said, this trope is averted by Falco, whose name comes from falcon, but according to Word of God is actually a pheasant. Caiman is some form of reptile, which may make him a caiman lizard.
• Double Entendre: Some lines play this straight, but others just seem hilarious.
  • "I think you look better in a tank."
    • "Why don't you come down here, Falco?"
    • "I'll pass, Fox."
  • Krystal's been trying to go on a mission alone with Fox since the start of the game.
    Krystal: A mission together at last.
    Fox: Oh... Uhhhh... Yeah.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In Star Fox, and its comic tie-in, the Star Fox team is represented in an unapologetically dark and gritty style, focusing on realistic textures and animalistic expressions. Star Fox 2 largely uses the same style as it's forerunner. Star Fox 64 and it's remake both used a much more cartoony look overall, in keeping with the lighter tone. Additionally, in the original game, its manual, and all official media related to it, the entire Star Fox team is clearly and consistently depicted with identical robotic prosthetics for legs - a design trend that persisted as late as their appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee. This created a popular fan theory that the characters' legs were replaced with prosthetics to handle extreme G-forces without passing out, which just happens to make sense. Future games clearly depict the team wearing suspiciously large boots instead.
• Enemy Mine: Star Wolf and Star Fox have teamed up on two occasions to fight a greater threat.
• Enemy Scan: Slippy does this for you in most games against bosses, allowing you to see the enemy shield. Other characters (Peppy, mostly) provide you with hints about how to beat the enemy.
• Escort Mission
  • Basically every mission has an element of this if you don't want to lose teammates, but there are more classical examples as well. Star Fox Assault had a unique variant where Fox is rescued by others and rides on their wing while shooting down pursuing enemies.
  • Command does this for every single level. You have to protect the Great Fox, from all enemy units, including missiles that specifically target it. Most players agree that it gets tedious very quickly.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The Star Wolf team kicked Pigma off of the team sometime between 64 and Assault, replacing him (and Oikonny, who left of his own accord) with the much less repulsive Panther.
• Evil Versus Oblivion : They may be criminals with bounties on their heads, but when the entire Lylat system is threatened, Star Wolf will put their lives on the line to save it. They help Star Fox fight the aparoids in Star Fox: Assault, and they oppose the Anglars in Star Fox Command.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Wolf seems to attract this, both from Leon and the LGBT Fanbase.
• Everyone Can See It: In Adventures and Assault, Fox tries to keep a lid on his blatant attraction to Krystal. It doesn't work very well. Falco, Slippy, R.O.B., and even Tricky (who hadn't seen them in over a year and had never seen them together in Adventures) manages to figure it out.
• Expy: There are tons of them throughout the series:
  • Mobile Suit Gundam - The unnamed carrier from Star Fox 2 both looks and functions like the White Base, and the Cannon Betrayers◊ from the same game very closely resemble Zeon's Rewloola-class battleships. Even more: in Star Fox 64, the entire Venomian fleet in Sector Y is made of Gundam expies: the whole force is made of mobile suits backed by capital ships. The boss of the level looks like a more simian version of the RX-78-2, and about two-thirds of the way through the mission you encounter a red-painted version of the normal attacking mecha that moves three times faster than the others. As an added bonus, while not the pilot of the red mech, the boss is also wearing sunglasses.
    • Also, in the Benimaru Itoh comic, one model of the android pig Herbert is a clear RX-78 homage.
  • Star Trek - In Star Fox 2, the homing shots fired by Star Wolf pilots look and function exactly like Photon Torpedoes. In addition, the aparoids of Star Fox Assault are an expy of the Borg. They also steal some lines and tropes from straight from them. "Resistance is useless!"
  • Star Wars - In Star Fox, the Space Armada's ships are destroyed in a similar manner to the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi.
  • The mothership in Katina in Star Fox 64 is an Expy of the flying saucers in Independence Day, right down to the location of their weak point.
  • Tricky resembles another triceratops called Tricky from another Rare-developed game: Diddy Kong Racing.
• Eyepatch of Power: Wolf. ^note However, according to some fans who've studied his Star Fox Assault model, he really isn't missing an eye. Wolf's design from Star Fox 2 appears to show more clearly that Wolf does indeed have a left (right?) eye; however, it has a scar over it and seems to be in pretty bad shape.
• Fanfare: Star Fox, Star Fox 2, and Star Fox: Assault all make heavy use of fanfare.
• Face–Heel Turn: According to the Star Fox 64 storyline, Pigma is this trope.
• Fantastic Racism
  • Falco seems to not like primates too much. It's not like he doesn't have a good reason to, though.
  • Andross openly hates dogs in Star Fox Zero, which was borrowed from Star Fox 2.
    "Pepper's dogs...! You're ALWAYS getting in my way!"
• Fighter-Launching Sequence: The launch in the original, with a voice (still a rare thing in the 16-bit days) shouting "Emergency! Emergency! Incoming enemy fighters! Prepare for launch!"
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: Ditto the above.
  • The Cynic - Falco
  • The Realist - Fox
  • The Optimist - Slippy
  • The Apathetic - Peppy
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Fox (sanguine/choleric), Falco (choleric), Slippy (melancholic), Peppy (phlegmatic), Krystal (sanguine/phlegmatic), and ROB (leukine).
• Fox Folk: Fox McCloud is very literally a humanoid fox.
• Friendly Fireproof
  • In the original Star Fox and Star Fox: Assault, your wing men will yell at you when you shoot them, but they aren't otherwise harmed by your blasts. This is generally averted in Star Fox 64, though a few minor characters are immune to your fire.
  • The friendly fire is especially evident on Katina, where you have to help out an allied squadron in the middle of a massive, disorganized dogfight. If you manage not to shoot down one ally, you're rewarded with a special cutscene.
• Fun Personified: Panther, at least when compared to the rest of the cast. Japanese videos tend to show him as one too as seen on Nico Nico Douga.
• Fun with Acronyms: This has nothing to do with the games themselves, but rather the special chip that was used to created the original Super NES game: the Super FX chip was originally called the "Mathematical, Argonaut, Rotation, (and) I/O Chip 1", or the "MARIO" Chip 1 for short.
• Gameplay Ally Immortality: Your main allies in Star Fox 64 and nearly everyone in Star Fox Assault cannot die in typical gameplay no matter how many times they get shot.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Star Fox is a team of Private Military Contractors. Only the Cornerian military ever seems to hire Star Fox.
• Gameplay Roulette: The series has had 3D Rail Shooter, Action-Adventure, Third-Person Shooter, Turn-Based Strategy, and Real-Time Strategy elements throughout the various installments.
• Good Animals, Evil Animals: For whatever reason, all primate like characters are evil (with the possible exception of Dash Bowman). Also, all reptilian and fishlike characters are villains, with there being an entire race of Always Chaotic Evil lizard and fish people in Adventure and Command respectively. Curiously, amphibians get a better rap as all of the frog/toad characters are good guys.
• Good Prosthetic, Evil Prosthetic: All of the members of Team Star Fox possess identical metal prosthetics. Though this was originally a gaffe thought up by the developers as a way to justify the design choice to give them human-like legs, the g-force explanation was provided by various fans of the series because it [[https://www.douglasbaderfoundation.com/dbf/who-we-are/sir-douglas-bader just happens to be a common real world belief that those with them will better endure the G-force their line of work entails. This belief persists in spite of increasing challenges to it in the scientific community, and the question of G defusers rendering it moot in Star Fox. In contrast, many of the bad guys possess artificial body parts varying in variety. Andross survives his battle in Star Fox and reappears with a false eye in Star Fox 2. General Scales from Star Fox Adventures possesses a primitive two-hooked false hand. Fox's rival Wolf O'Donnell has worn an eye patch through most of the series, ungrading to a technological false eye by Star Fox: Assault.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars
  • Pigma has claw marks on his head in Star Fox Assault. It doesn't take much to figure out who he must have gotten those from.
  • Meanwhile, Panther has a white scar on his right cheek. How does one get white scars? Depigmentation is a common effect of scarring.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Not that there are a lack of vocal outbursts, but the sheer volume of G-rated curses in Star Fox 64 is as corny as any Utah slang. This is averted in Star Fox 2:
  Falco: "Those damn missiles...!"
• Graceful Landing, Clumsy Landing:
  • Star Fox: Assault: In the takeoff sequence, the first three pilots, Fox, Falco, and Krystal, all leap gracefully into their cockpits. Slippy, well known as The Load and least competent fighter despite being a Gadgeteer Genius, faceplants into his.
  • Star Fox Zero: In the animated trailer, the Star Fox pilots all jump into their aircrafts. Fox lands gracefully in his seat, Falco does a stylish flip, Peppy lands face first in his cockpit, and Slippy misses his ship altogether and lands on the floor.
• Green Hill Zone: Welcome to Corneria, Planet of Greenishness™
• Gut Punch: According to Takaya Imamura, this is the reason behind the Anyone Can Die element of the first games: to make the player feel the tragedy when they lose a wingman they've grown attached to.
  Takaya Imamura: "It's pretty tragic when your allies are defeated, so players ought to realize at some point that they’ve begun to feel empathy towards them."
• Hate Sink: Pigma tends to get this even more than the big bad of whatever game he's in, due to being a traitor as well as his extremely slimy and unlikable personality.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Despite being fighter pilots pulling off all sorts of crazy maneuvers over the course of their missions, none of the Star Fox team are ever depicted wearing flight helmets. Averted for Red Shirt pilots on both the Cornerian and Venomian sides, who both wear helmets as part of their uniform. Star Wolf also plays this straight, as none of them wear helmets either.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Quite a few happen in Assault. Yet, no one actually dies.
  • General Pepper's flagship is top-to-bottom infected by aparoids. Instead of letting his own body succumb, he would rather let his star mercenary kill him.
  • After fighting and defeating General Pepper, his flagship explodes and hurtles toward the sea in a mangled wreck. However, Peppy Hare, formerly retired Star Fox member, saves him in an Arwing by redirecting his trajectory to crash in a field. They both narrowly survive the following blast.
  • Peppy saves the day again in level 10. After the first part, a shield builds up over the way to the center of the planet, much to the party's annoyance. All of a sudden, Peppy orders everyone to stand way back, and for good reason. As the camera pans toward the Great Fox, it's broken, mangled, and riddled with aparoids. So what does he plan to do? Crash that mother of a ship through the barrier so the crew could get through. ROB 64 says they won't survive the impact, but Peppy does it anyway, against not only ROB's analysis, but also the pleas of his ship mates. Fox manages to snap the team out of it and blast through the Great Fox-sized hole. (Surprisingly, with the Wolf following them.) After they boost through the hole in the barrier, it gradually repairs, eventually cutting through the Great Fox, causing it to explode. The only thing left of it as Star Fox heads toward the core is a blinding light and a thunderous roar. He and ROB survived. Apparently, the tip of the Great Fox also works as an escape pod... despite crashing tip-first into the Aparoid ship.
  • Star Wolf risks their lives keeping the attention and heat of nigh invincible enemies away from Star Fox, and weren't seen escaping the planet as it exploded. They're still around in Star Fox Command if that is anything to go by.
  • Thanks to Anyone Can Die, this can be anyone's fate in the original Star Fox and its sequel, depending on the player's actions.
• Hired Guns
  • the Star Fox team and Star Wolf are both Private Military Contractors. The difference between them is that Star Fox has standards on who they work for, while Star Wolf goes for high-paying, illegal jobs.
  • The opening of Assault indicates that a large amount of Andross's army was composed of hired guns, mostly criminals.
• Homage
  • One of the Star Fox 64 levels is inspired by the movie Independence Day. Another level features Mobile Suit Gundam-like enemies. Both elements show up again, to a degree, in Command. Some lines might well pay homage to Star Wars (like the one directly below).
  • Assault has music from Star Fox 64 mixed into orchestrated versions. Command also has a lot of music based on it.
  • Star Wolf is a homage to an old space-themed Toku show Star Wolf.
• Iconic Outfit: Wolf hasn't been out of 80's leather pants and spiked vests since Assault. In fact, he had been wearing them since Star Fox 2, but in Star Fox 64 his outfit was briefly changed to a military uniform.
• Identical Stranger: Fara Phoenix, from the comics, looks very much like Fox's deceased mother Vixy, despite Fara being a Fennec Fox and Vixy being a Red Fox. They're twin-like enough to inadvertently fool Andross into revealing that he accidentally killed Vixy in his attempt to Murder the Hypotenuse.
• I Got You Covered
  • This happens in nearly every Star Fox game. A notable one occurs in Star Fox Adventures, when Falco comes to help Fox during the final boss fight.
  • Star Wolf also does an important role since Mission 7 in Assault, with Star Fox ultimately failing had they not intervened in succeeding missions.
  • At least one level in Star Fox 64 has the Great Fox cover you.
• Inertia Is a Cruel Mistress: The fate of the "Train boss" if you manage to shoot all of the junction switches — trust us, although this specific ending for Macbeth is an exercise in frustration, the result is absolutely worth the effort, both in terms of numeric bonus to your score, and in terms of how satisfying the resulting events are!
• Inertial Dampening: The G-diffuser system.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: When Wolf thrashes an enemy, Leon seems to envy the enemy for being punished by Wolf... or Wolf for being able to cause so much pain to his foes. Or both. Either way, he's definitely into it.
  • Lampshaded by Panther
    Panther: Uh, set me straight here, Leon; are you envious of the shredder, or the shredee?
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: Peppy says this verbatim in Star Fox 64.
• I Work Alone: Falco's reasons for leaving the team numerous times. He also states this as the reason why he'll never want a girlfriend.
• Jungle Japes: The Fortuna flyover in Star Fox Assault.
• Just a Kid
  • The English dialog of Assault has Wolf refer to Fox as "pup". Being that Wolf is a Wolf, it's an obvious insult to his age and experience. Not that it really means anything.
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl suggests that Wolf is in fact older than Fox. This was confirmed in Star Fox Zero: Wolf mentions that he fought James.
• Kaizo Trap
  • When you destroy the Blade Barrier in the original game, the blade flies off the station as it's disintegrating, and heads straight towards you. If you're directly in its path, and low on health... well, sucks to be you, you have to repeat the last third of the level and the boss fight all over again.
  • The Sarumarine in 64 can do this too when its spiked-ball launcher falls off at the end of the fight. It's not really aimed at you, though, so it's pretty easy to avoid this. On Expert, it can wreck your wings even if it doesn't kill you.
• Kill Steal: Occasionally, you'll find your wingmen chasing after enemies; shooting those enemies will often be met with some words of complaint.
  Falco: "Go find your own target, Fox!"
• Killed Off for Real: Many characters in the Star Fox franchise didn't survive to see the next installment.
  • Anyone who dies in Star Fox or Star Fox 2 is actually dead.
  • James McCloud may or may not be dead, since they Never Found the Body. According to the SNES comic and Star Fox Zero, he is revealed to still be alive, but trapped in an Another Dimension.
  • Vixy Reinard and Vivian Hare are both dead before the story begins.
  • Pretty much all of the bosses in Star Fox 64 minus Andross and Star Wolf get killed.
  • Apparently, Andross did finally die in Star Fox Adventures, but returns as a ghost (which is probably a recording) in Star Fox Command.
  • General Scales.
  • The entire aparoid race gets exterminated.
  • Pigma dies in Assault after being assimilated by Aparoids. Whether or not you count Command as canon, he only reappears as a final boss replacement for the true Big Bad (Anglar Emperor) in two possible endings, both of which are the least likely of any to be canon. And even so, he is still destroyed at the end of the fight.
  • Andrew Oikonny is presumed dead in Star Fox Assault. Due to how it happened, his death could be easily retconned... but he hasn't appeared in any sequels.
  • The Anglar Emperor.
• Late to the Tragedy: In both Star Fox and Star Fox 64, the team arrives when Andross has already conquered most of the system.
• Latin Lover: Panther usually has a Spanish accent of some variety, and fancies himself a ladies man
• Legacy Character: Fox McCloud is the son of James McCloud. Both are considered the best pilots of their universe and generation and both leaders of their teams. One of the possible futures of Star Fox Command takes this further with Marcus: Fox's son and leader of a new Star Fox team. Andross also has a grandson, and one of the endings of Command leaves the possibility of him following in his granddaddy's galaxy-conquering footsteps.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • Almost to a point of Disneyfication: the original Star Fox, its tie-in comic and its sequel were all much darker than anything made after Star Fox 64 rebooted the series. Even though the plot is essentially the same as Star Fox 64, it was delivered in a much grimmer and far less humorous style. The only real laughs in the early games come from the crew's dialogue, and even that is lot less pronounced than the humor in the post-reboot games. Star Fox: Assault, Star Fox Command and Starlink: Battle for Atlas are all more thematically intense than Star Fox 64 was, but even then the series has never been as dark as the original continuity.
  • An example of this from gameplay: originally, any wingmate who was shot down was killed outright. By endgame, a sufficiently poor player could even be left with only a single pilot alive at the endgame. From Star Fox 64 onwards, a wingmate going down means that they'll just return to the docking bay of the Great Fox for a few missions before returning with a fully functioning Arwing.
• Like Father, Like Son:
  Peppy Hare: This brings back memories of your dad! Your father helped me like that, too! You're becoming more like your father!
• Lizard Folk: In the backstory of the original Star Fox, Andross made a shocking discovery that Venom hosted life-forms of humanoid lizards, which he used for his army against Corneria. While 64 doesn't mention this this plot element, about half of his henchmen with dialogue are some sort of lizard. Finally, the inhabitants of Dinosaur Planet tend to fit this trope to varying degrees.
• A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...: Mostly set in the fictional Lylat System, which the instructions manual for the first game says is near the center of our galaxy. The Nintendo Switch port of Starlink: Battle for Atlas was the first time we see humans or Earth mentioned in the franchise.
• Love at First Sight: Fox is awestruck at how beautiful the sleep-induced Krystal was when he first sees her. Likewise, upon freeing her and saving her from falling to her death, there is an instant where they both look into each other's eyes for a moment.
• Luck-Based Mission: The Slot Machine boss from "Out of This Dimension." There is literally no strategy to this boss besides shooting the handle and hoping the tumblers turn up right.
• Mad Scientist: Andross.
• Maniac Monkeys: Andross and Andrew, as well as Dash Bowman in a couple of endings in Command.
• Meaningless Lives: In Star Fox Adventures, there are more Bafomadads (1-Ups) in the game than you can carry at once. This is averted in all of the other games.
• Mighty Whitey: Whether or not one assumes that Fox is coded "white" (which his overall green-eyed redheadness would seem to imply), the entire adventure on Dinosaur Planet still fits this trope. Krystal - not being native to Dinosaur Planet - would have been this in the original game.
• Mind Screw: Out of This Dimension in the original. A Slot Machine for the boss? Really?
• Missing Mom:
  • Fox's mother, Vixy Reinard, is never seen or mentioned in the games. The Nintendo Power comics reveal she was accidentally killed by Andross, who was attempting to Murder the Hypotenuse.
  • Lucy Hare's mother (Peppy's wife), Vivian, was revealed to have died sometime before the events of Star Fox Command due to an unknown illness.
  • Slippy's mother is absent with no explanation; only his dad, Beltino, is ever seen.
• Mission Control: Primarily ROB, who controls the Great Fox, and to a degree General Pepper and Peppy (especially in Assault, where he made room for newcomer Krystal).
• Mordor: Venom. Star Fox 2 and Star Fox Command prove that terraforming it is possible, though.
• The Mothership: The Great Fox.
• Ms. Fanservice: Krystal, especially in her first appearance in Star Fox Adventures. In addition to her skimpy tribal outfit, the game actually played cheesy sexy saxophone music whenever Fox looked at her.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Were Fox, Falco, and Slippy political exiles from Corneria who lived as freedom-fighting bandits on Venomian-occupied Papetoon for years, and then rejoined Corneria to fight the Lylat War? Or were they Private Military Contractors who inherited daddy's battle arsenal and worked with the Cornerian Army to defeat Andross from the start? It depends on the timeline.
• Multiple Endings: Six versions of the ending and the Out of This Dimension ending in the original, good and normal endings in Star Fox 64, and no less than nine in Command.
• My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: At the end of Star Fox Adventures, ROB notices Fox's..."reaction" to Krystal's presence.
  R.O.B.: My sensors indicate that Fox's temperature is rising. Are you all right, Fox?
  (the organics other than Fox laugh)
  Fox: I'm gonna be just fine.
• Nintendo Hard:
  • Star Fox 64 on Expert. The "Easy" side of Venom (approaching from Bolse) is possibly the most gratuitously vicious thing in the series on this setting. Also, the Macbeth level in Star Fox 64.
  • Portions of the original game also count (though perhaps not to the same extent - your wings can survive a few hits at least!). In particular, the draw distance on later levels (closely-spaced pillars popping into frame just in front of you?) and Andross having a RIDICULOUS amount of HP.
• Nitro Boost: "Use the boost to get through!"
• Nobody Poops
  • This trope is Played straight in the original game, in which Fox, Falco, Peppy, and Slippy fight through five consecutive airborne missions without a single break or a base to return to.
  • The last two levels in both Star Fox 64 and Assault are back to back.
• Non-Indicative Name
  • The Star Fox team itself has had three foxes only: Fox Mc Cloud, James Mc Cloud, and Krystal. The team's other members are a bird (Falco Lombardi), a rabbit (Peppy Hare), amphibians (Slippy, and Ammanda in Command), and a robot (ROB-NUS 64).
  • Possibly justified for Star Wolf as Wolf himself, the team's only true wolf, has great egotistical traits.
• Non-Lethal K.O.:
  • In 64, if your teammates are shot down, they're just forced to take a break for repairs. Fox himself crashes and explodes while one of his teammates calls out "FOX!!!" or simply "NOOO!".
  • The same apparently applies to Star Wolf, who manage to survive their Wolfen exploding every single time. The only time they appear to be hurt by this is in 64, where they are seen with bandages and cybernetic eyepieces in your second encounter with them.
• Non-Human Head: Almost everyone!
• No Ontological Inertia
  • All aparoids are destroyed along with the aparoid queen, because destroying the aparoid queen allows the virus to kill them all via apoptosis and taking advantage of their Hive Mind.
  • And in the original, destroying the Slot Machine ends the distortion in the level. Though considering the level being a Mind Screw, we can overlook this.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Averted: the characters in this series can and do age. As an example, Slippy - even though he is approximately the same age as Fox - seems like a kid in Star Fox 64, has a noticeably deeper voice in Adventures and gets engaged after the events of Assault. Additionally, Peppy retires, considering himself too old for flying.
• Not Me This Time
  • In Assault: Star Wolf was initially suspected of being involved in Pigma's theft of the Core Memory. Turns out that, not only were they not involved at all, but they actually kicked Pigma off the team long before it happened.
  • Also a meta-example in the same game: Thanks to the events of Star Fox Adventures, and to a certain extent the next game (since Andross created the Anglars), you'd think that Andross might somehow be pulling the strings on the new menace. Turns out, the aparoids have absolutely no affiliation with him.
• Nubile Savage: Krystal is a tribal who just happens to also be a bombshell of a woman.
• Official Couple: Slippy and Amanda. Peppy and the late Vivian. Fox and Fara in the first continuity. The status of Fox and Krystal's relationship in the reboot continuity was left on very unstable ground as of Star Fox Command and has not been addressed since.
• Oh, Crap!: The Star Fox team's reaction to Star Wolf's advanced craft in Venom.
  Falco: I see you have new ships.
• Old-School Dogfight
  • Not as common as one would suspect, largely thanks to the use of homing lasers, and shot deflection but still used frequently, especially for any encounter with Star Wolf. Especially in Star Fox 64, where the Wolfen is resistant to charged shots and can break lock on by "barrel rolling". Both more so with teh Wolfen II, which is resistant to bombs, and less so since it can also deflect shots with a "barrel roll" like an Arwing.
  • While this trope is averted in levels where the player is flying within the atmosphere of a planet, this becomes glaringly apparent when you see an Arwing or Wolfen execute a banking turn in a supposedly zero-gravity vacuum environment.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: The wings of the Arwing in Expert mode. Bruise something and you lose a wing and any laser upgrade.
• One-Man Army:
  • Fox McCloud saves the day single-handedly, often with no noticeable contribution from his teammates or the Cornerians.
  • Really, this is ONLY because Fox is the player character. In Star Fox Command and Star Fox 2, this trope easily applies to the entire Star Fox team, because all of them are independently playable. In Star Fox Zero, Peppy demonstrates that he can singlehandedly destroy a Superdreadnought and its fighter squadrons with just his Arwing. It's safe to say the Star Fox pilots are all the best damn pilots in the galaxy. Or at least the Lylat system. Even Slippy.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Fox is so determined to get revenge on Andross, that when they reach his lair, he tells the rest of the team to back off.
  • This is the excuse Wolf gives Fox for saving him from a large group of aparoids in Assault.
    Fox: Wolf?! What are you doing here?
    Wolf: You're the one who dropped in unannounced... And if anyone's gonna tan your hide, it's gonna be me.
• Parental Bonus: A comic explained General Pepper's past some... and he was a busy Sergeant.
• Plot Hole: Andross's return from exile is always explained... the explanations get worse and worse with each successive reboot.
  • In Timeline 1, he found an inhabited planet full of primitive, gullible people, massive resources, and technologically advanced ruins to build a military with◊.
  • In Timeline 2, he turned a barren and deserted planet into a fully industrialised war factory in only five years. Where he got the resources and manpower to do so is left entirely unexplained.
  • In Timeline 3, he constructed an artificial planet that serves as a hub for an interplanetary teleportation system... still no details on where the armada and soldiers came from.
  • It's also not explained how exactly Andross even functions! Was he a normal sized ape prior to becoming a colossal floating head (his grandson and nephew would support this claim, as they're normal sized animals)? If so then how did he turn into the oversized ape-head he became? Even the extent of his powers and how they work are left in the dark, as his ability to exist as only a brain doesn't get explained nor does his ability to revive himself using the Krazoa spirits.
• Polluted Wasteland: Zoness' entire ocean and atmosphere was polluted horribly by Andross in its first sight in 64, but by Star Fox Assault, most of the pollution was cleaned up.
• Power Trio: Star Wolf in Star Fox: Assault and Command
  • Wolf - Superego
  • Leon - Ego
  • Panther - Id
• Private Military Contractors: The Star Fox team and their rival, Star Wolf are both privately owned militaries-for-hire. At the end of Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Zero, Star Fox gets a check for how many enemies they shot down.
• Putting the Band Back Together: Poor Fox ends up all alone by the time Command starts, leading him to do this. Exactly how the band gets back together depends on the player.
• Race Lift: Katt Monroe changed from a pink cat in Star Fox 64 and Farewell, Beloved Falco, to a Siamese-looking cat with different colorings and markings in Star Fox Command.
• Record Needle Scratch: Happens when Fox first sees Krystal. After a little while gawking at her beauty and thinking what an idiot he'd been, he is snapped out of it by Peppy, reminding him he still has a job to do. When it happens, the cheesy saxophone music playing in the background cuts out with a scratch.
• Remember the New Guy?: Command introduces Lucy, Peppy's daughter. You would think that she would have been mentioned in previous games... considering in the previous games your team is busy fighting for their lives, small talk about family doesn't really seem like the thing they would be doing.
• Rescue Romance: Fox always meets his girlfriend like this. In the original continuity, Fox fell in love with Fara after rescuing her from Andross' soldiers during an attempted hijacking. In the reboot continuity, Fox becomes enamored with Krystal when he sees her trapped in a crystal. After he rescues her at the end of the game, she continually flirts with him. Dummied Out dialogue suggests that this would've been much more overt.
  Krystal: I'll join you...if you'll kiss me.
• The Rival: The Star Wolf team.
  • Wolf vs. Fox, who are implied to have some history between their rivalry.
  • Leon vs. Falco, also implied to have met before.
  • Pigma vs. Peppy, both members of the original Star Fox team, and both stopped being regular pilots by the time of Assault (Peppy retired gracefully, whereas Pigma was forced off of his own team).
  • Andrew vs. Slippy, more a case of Pairing the Spares.
  • Panther vs. Krystal, both attractive 'ethnic' newer members of the team by the time of Assault. Also in the only dogfight in the game four Star Fox pilots are present, but Slippy is told to stay behind making it a three-on-three.
    • Panther and Falco occasionally fight each other but not through dogfight. Instead, they fight by out-snarking each other.
  • In Assault and Command, they are less evil and more antiheroic.
• Reused Character Design: Octoman from F-Zero appears as a boss in Command, while one of the drivers in F-Zero looks like a human version of Fox's father and even shares the same name.
• Rivals Team Up: Wolf and Fox tend to do this after the events of the Lylat Wars, though usually after a short dogfight.
• Rock Beats Laser: Averted in Assault. The high-technology hive-minded aparoids attack the calm, spiritual, Dinosaur Planet Sauria, where the last game took place. The aparoids just steamroll the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs mount a resistance, but it's said that they suffer horrific loses. To quote Slippy:
  "This planet is totally defenseless!"
• Rocket Punch: Spyborg in Star Fox 64.
• Sarcasm Mode:
  • This trope is Falco Lombardi's default mode, and it really ramps up when he's being shot at.
  • Fox himself is in this mode at the beginning of Star Fox Adventures. He relaxes as the story develops, but even by the end he isn't completely 'cured'.
    • In their cameo appearances in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Panther attempts flirting with Krystal. One of his lines involved the declaration that he would fling himself in front of an asteroid to protect her should one come near her ship. Her response of 'Oh, I feel so much better hearing that. You're such a gentleman, Panther', sounded very sarcastic to say the least. In the Japanese version, it's apparently a different matter: Krystal appears to be sincere.
  • Panther utters this towards Wolf in Assault after the canine catches Fox from the aparoids, knowing that Wolf was just hiding his intentions for saving the main character.
    Wolf: And if anyone's gonna tan your hide, it's gonna be me.
    Panther: Riiiiight...
  • Wolf is sarcastic one time during Assault. If you fail to shoot the missiles that come your way during Mission 7.
    Wolf: Uh, in case you haven't noticed, the enemy's attacking!!
• Savage Wolf: Wolf O'Donnell, leader of the anti-villainous Star Wolf team.
• Say My Name: If you die in the Star Fox 64 and Star Fox: Assault, this is the result. (Averted in the former's English translations.)
• Scanlation: The only way Farewell, Beloved Falco, made it to English.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale
  • The Lyat System apparently orbitiong around a type be blue super giant raises the question of just how it formed in the first place
  • This video briefly analyzes the Landmaster. Apparently it's an enormous target with relatively thin armor. No wonder Falco prefers the sky. The video does fail to mention the Landmaster has an Energy Shield in the place of armor and the fact that the armor could easily be an advanced alloys far stronger than anything the modern military uses. Never understimate Applied Phlebotinum.
• Secret Character: Wolf in Star Fox Assault. James in Star Fox Command.
• Sexophone: Almost every time Fox meets Krystal in Star Fox Adventures, a saxophone solo plays.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: In Assault, when Tricky makes the suggestion that Fox and Krystal can return to Sauria for their honeymoon, this amusing exchange occurs:
  Fox: (stuttering) What are you nuts?! We aren't... we're not yet...
  Tricky: Not yet?
  Fox: (noticing Krystal curiously awaiting his response) I mean... I mean... This isn't a conversation for children!! (Krystal begins laughing)
  Tricky: You said you weren't gonna treat me like a kid anymore!
  Fox: Then stop acting like one!
  Tricky: You're just mad 'cause you don't wanna talk about it.
  Krystal: All right. Thats enough, boys.
• Ship Sinking: Falco Lombardi and Katt Monroe, per Farewell, Beloved Falco.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Star Fox series seems to have a number of reciprocal Shout Outs in relation to F-Zero. For starters, Fox McCloud and Falco Lombardi may have originally been Shout Outs, being an anthropomorphic Golden Fox and Blue Falcon respectively. Then, James McCloud (outfit and all, but in non-anthropomorphic human form) became a character in the F-Zero series starting with F-Zero X. Then Star Fox Command references F-Zero yet again, where one of its nine possible Multiple Endings has Fox and Falco becoming racers in a high-speed racing league called G-ZERO Grand Prix.
  • In the first game, the team's hyperspace jump between the Asteroid Field and the Space Armada is clearly inspired by the Star Wars films.
  • On the SNES, the main villain Andross' design looks remarkably similar to the recurring boss that you fight in the 1983 Arcade Games I, Robot.
  • Even the anime series F-Zero: Falcon Densetsu / GP Legend has "O'Donnell" being referenced as James's deceased friend.
  • General Pepper not only owes his name, but also his very outfit, to the landmark album by The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
    • Lampshaded in the Nintendo Power comic◊.
    • Captain Shears, a character from Farewell, Beloved Falco, is similar in both physical appearance and attire to Pepper and appears to have a name derived from "Billy Shears", the fictitious leader of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
  • Falco is wearing Captain Falcon's boots in one of the Command endings.
  • In Farewell, Beloved Falco, one of the FREE AS A BIRD members (Falco and Katt's old gang of space hot-rodders) is Mousor — as seen on the back of his jacket. Similarly, there is a Bowsor.
  • In Star Fox Assault, there are classic Namco arcade references and cameos littered throughout the game, one being the yellow "S" flag from Rally-X; after all, Namco did develop this game.
  • In Star Fox 64, shortly after you enter Meteo's Warp Zone, you'll be treated to several waves of bee/butterfly-like enemies that fly in formations very reminiscent of Galaga. You get bonuses if you can nail them all.
  • Star Fox 64 has Katina, which is pretty much the climax scene from Independence Day, complete with Bill Grey, a nod to Gen. William Grey, Robert Loggia's character in the movie.
  • The Atomic Base bosses and Fox's escape from Andross' lair are reminiscent of the Death Star II assault in Return of the Jedi.
  • The boss of Sector X says, "Where is the creator?", and in its death throes also says, "I must be complete." This references V'ger from Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
  • Nintendo Power's Star Fox comic featured Andross's android pig Andross named Herbert. His design was an obvious parody of the RX-78-2 of Mobile Suit Gundam.
• Sigil Spam: Giant posters of General Pepper are everywhere in Star Fox 64.
• Signature Team Transport: The Great Fox.
• Single-Biome Planet: Basically everywhere.
  • Corneria is Green Hill Zone.
  • Titania is Shifting Sand Land.
  • Fichina is Slippy-Slidey Ice World.
  • Fortuna is Jungle Japes.
  • Aquas is... just guess.
  • Solar is Lethal Lava Land. The team fly so close to the surface that the Arwings are constantly taking damage in this mission (thankfully the amount of restoration rings are plentiful).
  • Zoness (a Landfill Beyond the Stars) is justified in that Andross has apparently been using it as his personal waste dump. This leaves the crewmen simply aghast when they arrive there:
    Peppy: THIS is Zoness?!
    Falco: I can't believe they did this.
    Slippy: What a dump!
    Falco: I hear ya, Slip.
• Something about a Rose: Panther Caroso uses the flower as his calling card.
• Space Fighter: The Arwings. The Wolfen. Many more besides.
• Space Mines: The first few seconds of Sector X has a cloud of mines that must be navigated through. Area 6 also has a minefield that you have to fly through.
• Space Whale: In Star Fox, if you shoot all the small orange stingrays in Sector Y, a space whale shows up and drops a slew of powerups just before you encounter the boss. In the tie-in Nintendo Power comic, this is said to actually be the visual manifestation of a trans-dimensional spaceship that saved Fox's father, leaving him permanently shifted to that dimension.
• Speaking Simlish: In Star Fox, Star Fox 2, and Star Fox Command, the characters all speak incomprehensible gibberish. For nostalgia's sake, this was made voice option in Lylat Wars, the PAL version of Star Fox 64, likely due to the European languages.
• Spin to Deflect Stuff: The iconic 360 degree barrel roll. In Command, deflecting enemy projectiles earns you bonus seconds, and rolling also attracts nearby items. It's even the only way to destroy an enemy mothership.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: While Krystal's role in Star Fox Adventures was modest, she becomes the main focus of the plot in Star Fox Command. The whole plot of the game revolves around Fox's relationship with Krystal and most of the game's endings revolve around her in some way. She is also the only character that has two Arwings (one when joining Star Wolf and another if rejoining Star Fox).
• Sssssnake Talk: All of the lizards and reptiles in the Nintendo Power comic speak like this.
• Stuff Blowing Up:
  • The KABOOM of a defeated enemy is really satisfying. Often preceded by Post-Defeat Explosion Chain, and Star Fox 64 bosses have spherical explosions.
    • More like "PEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW" actually, making the noise instantly recognisable. Gotta love those sound engineers.
  • The cluster explosion after the train crash in MacBeth is freaking excellent.
• Supermodel Strut: Krystal does one of these in Star Fox Adventures at the end of the game when she arrives to "say thank you" to Fox - it causes him to start stuttering.
• Tank Goodness: The Landmaster.
• Theme Music Power-Up: Done for Star Wolf and their kick-ass music. A short theme also plays when a minor character shows up in Star Fox 64.
  • In Command, virtually everyone gets their own theme (the core team gets two each), save two certain characters. Wolf, however, hogs the Star Wolf theme, whereas his two other teammates get their own theme.
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Star Fox 64. And in the Nintendo Power comic, after he learns that Andross killed his mother.
• Throw a Barrel at It: The robots in the Sargasso Space Zone roll metal barrels down the ramps you have to walk up. Fortunately, Fox has a blaster and can jump decently high.
• Timed Mission: Often defending something against missiles. Command has a timer for combat in general (fuel) and a turn limit for each mission.
• Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Pigma Dengar got his position in Andross' army on the basis of his betrayal of his partners James McCloud and Peppy Hare, resulting in the death of the former and the narrow escape of the latter. Even the other members of the Star Wolf team are disgusted by him.
• True Companions: Fox and his team, and Wolf and his team. Fox's team, however, slowly shows signs of separation. How the separation turns out is one of the key elements in Star Fox Command's multiple endings. Ironically, Wolf removed the two most disloyal characters from his original team, replacing them with the loyal, funny-personified Panther, and the team's been solid since.
• Try Not to Die:
  • "Don't go dying on me!"
  • Beltino: "Do your best... But try to come back alive."
• Turns Red: Several bosses in this series will start using more damaging techniques as they get closer to death.
• Underwater Ruins: Aquas again, as well as Venom in Command.
• The Unfought:
  • Oh boy, were the players upset when the long-awaited fight with General Scales in Star Fox Adventures ended before either side landed a single hit. Might be the most infamous example of this trope.
  • A more minor example occurs with the Attack Carrier in the original game. You fight it at the end of Corneria if you take the Level 1 or Level 2 routes, but if you take the Level 3 route Andross' attack fleet get the opportunity to deploy their Destructor attack tank along with the Attack Carrier. Falco ends up fighting the Attack Carrier himself off-screen, leaving you to deal with the Destructor.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Falco, if you defeat the "bogey on his six," just tells you to mind your own business.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Fox and Krystal have this throughout the majority of their scenes together. Hell, the end of the first game even has sexy saxophone music playing in the background.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • In Star Fox 64, you can shoot down your own allies and force them to retire. This is averted in the original and in Star Fox Assault, where your allies don't take damage if you shoot them.
  • 64's two NPCs, Bill and Katt, are invulnerable, but you can take them down if you shoot either of them long enough. There's also the Cornerian soldiers in the Katina level, but shooting them down won't impact you negatively.
    • Adventures allows you to hurt the dinosaurs with your staff; they cry out in pain, but they won't die. If you whack Tricky enough, though, he'll try to hurt you back with his Flame command.
    • Command averts this entirely, if you don't count any of the game's questionable path choices as some form of cruelty towards the characters.
• The Virus: The aparoids have the ability to take over both biology and technology this way.
• Visual Pun: In Star Fox Adventures, Krystal is sealed inside of a giant crystal.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Fox and Falco fight as much as they bond in all parts of the series, both verbally and otherwise.
• What the Hell, Hero?: If you happen to be trigger-happy enough; you can actually shoot at your team-mates. This is the reaction you're given if you do.
  • "Fox! That was one of ours!"
    • "Hey, Einstein, I'm on your side!"
    • "Enemy down. Wait! That was one of ours!"
  • Your allies get mad if you steal their kills... which is pretty easy to do.
  • Fox gets a lot of this from other characters for his callous treatment of Krystal prior to Star Fox Command; several reviewers commented on just how much flak he catches from just about everyone for dumping her.
    Lucy: So, Fox, let's talk about Krystal. You really screwed that one up!
• War Is Glorious: There's nothing like casually flying by as a giant battleship explodes behind you.
• War Is Hell: Though the tone of the franchise has substantially lightened up compared to what it once was, most installments in this series surprisingly don't play around with the war themes. Characters die in horrible ways, entire worlds like are left devastated by conflict. Some examples:
  • Corneria, a once beautiful, now utterly war-torn world that in some games can be destroyed in horrific fashion.
  • Zoness, another formerly beautiful planet that was used by Andross as a dump for industrial waste.
  • Venom, a planet that had it's entire environment reduced to a toxic wasteland by Andross' military buildup.
  • The Aparoid Homeworld. Krystal remarks that it's beautiful... then we see the side the Aparoids are infesting. Then it gets destroyed.
• Work Off the Debt: The underlying conflict that causes most of the games in the franchise is trying to pay a ridiculously high debt that James took as an 80-year loan to build the Great Fox. Perhaps because of Fox's rash decisions in trying to uphold his mercenary life, the team constantly veers into bankruptcy at least twice, causing conflicts within the team (Falco ditching the team prior Adventures was one of them).
• World of Ham: Starting with Star Fox 64, the series has taken to some extremely hammy voice acting.
• Worth It: In Star Fox 64, General Pepper gets a bill for Star Fox's services.
  • "This is one steep bill!...But it's worth it."
  • Of course, even the good general has his limits. Rack up 1000 Hits or more, and his reaction is an astonished "What?"
• You Will Be Assimilated: What the aparoids say. This goes with them being near-copies of the Borg.

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