History Trivia / StarFox2

* ExecutiveMeddling: Developer Argonaut Software has stated that the cancellation of ''Star Fox 2'' and the severance of relations thereafter was a deliberate betrayal by Nintendo; even the main programmer, Dylan Cuthbert, said that 33% of ''VideoGame/StarFox64'''s programming was taken from ''Star Fox 2'' and that the camera mechanic was recycled and used in ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'', all done without paying anything to Argonaut Software. Argonaut's founder, Jez San, also felt like Nintendo and Miyamoto had stabbed them in the back and not shown any sincere regret for it.

** Another reason Nintendo canned the game despite it being fully finished was the company worrying about how the game would look like absolute garbage compared to Sony's then released ''VideoGame/RidgeRacer''. Nintendo would focus on the Nintendo 64 for their 3D games to compete against Sony's Playstation.

* TheShelfOfMovieLanguishment: Nintendo heavily advertised the game before its release, only to cancel it at the last minute when the development for the game was extremely close to being finished.[[note]]According to the development reports, the only thing the programmers had to do was remove the debugging tools.[[/note]] The game wasn't officially released until it was bundled on [[https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/879369032947847168 the SNES Classic]], ''more than 20 years'' since it was first announced. Interestingly, according to WordOfGod, Star Fox 2 was used as the test game for the Super FX emulation solution for the SNES Classic, getting its much delayed final certification by successfully emulating on the console.

** Had the game been released back in 1995, ''Star Fox 2'' would've represented a radical departure from ''Star Fox 1'' because the core gameplay was non-linear, the team consisted of six instead of four, and transformable Arwings in the second game in the franchise, to name a few, leading some to wonder where the series could've gone if it kept going in that direction.

** Before Fay and Miyu were decided on, there were ''many'' other pilots considered and scrapped, including a gazelle, an ox, a hippo, a robot, a bear, a lemur, a sheep, another rabbit, and oddly enough, [[TokenHuman a human]]. Most interestingly, Fara Phoenix from the ''ComicStrip/StarFox'' comic strip was also considered, which, if included, would've been the first time a Nintendo game acknowledged a non-game spinoff.

* FanTranslation: Before it's official release, the only way one could play the game in English was via translated fan patches of the beta's ROM.

* ExecutiveMeddling: Developer Argonaut Software has stated that the cancellation of ''Star Fox 2'' and the severance of relations thereafter was a deliberate betrayal by Nintendo (that was specifically perpetuated by Shigeru Miyamoto). Even the main programmer, Dylan Cuthbert, said that 33% of ''VideoGame/StarFox64'''s programming (including the All-Range Mode, Multiplayer, and Star Wolf scenario) was taken from ''Star Fox 2'' and that the camera mechanic was recycled and used in ''VideoGame/SuperMario64''. And all of this had been done without paying anything to Argonaut Software. Argonaut's founder, Jez San, also felt like Nintendo and Miyamoto had stabbed them in the back and not shown any sincere regret for it.

* TheShelfOfMovieLanguishment: Nintendo heavily advertised the game before its release, only to cancel it at the last minute when the development for the game was extremely close to being finished.[[note]]According to the development reports, the only thing the programmers had to do was remove the debugging tools.[[/note]] The game wasn't officially released until it was bundled on [[https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/879369032947847168 the SNES Classic]], ''more than 20 years'' since it was first announced.
** Interestingly, according to WordOfGod, Star Fox 2 was used as the test game for the Super FX emulation solution for the SNES Classic, getting its much delayed final certification by successfully emulating on the console.

** Before Fay and Miyu were decided on, there were ''many'' other pilots considered and scrapped, including a gazelle, a bull, a hippo, a robot, a bear, a lemur, a sheep, another rabbit, and oddly enough, [[TokenHuman a human]]. Most interestingly, Fara Phoenix from the ''ComicStrip/StarFox'' comic strip was also considered, which, if included, would've been the first time a Nintendo game acknowledged a non-game spinoff.

%% NOTE: As the contents of the 2020 gigaleak were obtained illegally, please do not post links to them. Talking about them is fine, however.

* KillerApp: It's the basic reason why it was put on the [=SNES=] Classic, to sell it to hardcore gamers with the official release of this previously-unreleased game.

** Had the game been released back in 1995, ''Star Fox 2'' would've represented a radical departure from ''Star Fox 1'' because the core gameplay was non-linear, leading some to wonder where the series could've gone if it kept going in that direction.
** ''Star Fox 2'' could be called ''[[TropeCodifier What Could Have Been: The Game]]''. A six-man Star Fox team as standard, a strategic element as part of the core gameplay, playable transforming Arwings as early as the very second game in the franchise... it's enough to make the mind reel. For that matter, [[ComicStrip/StarFox Fara Phoenix]] could have made the jump from the comics to a game. [[EnsembleDarkhorse People were really clamoring for her back in the mid-90s]], and many fans were disappointed when ''Star Fox 64'' [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome jettisoned her entirely]]: she vanished from even the most minor references. The release version of ''2'' still doesn't include her, but she was ''this close'' to being game canon.
** Alongside Fara was a monkey that resembled a GoodCounterpart to Andross. A later prototype leak also revealed a sheep and a [[TokenHuman human woman]] as two more cut pilots.
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** Alongside Fara was a monkey that resembled a GoodCounterpart to Andross. A later prototype leak also revealed a sheep and an [[TokenHuman African American woman]] as two more cut pilots.

* ExecutiveMeddling: Developer Argonaut Software has stated that the cancellation of ''Star Fox 2'' and the severance of relations thereafter was a deliberate betrayal by Nintendo (that was specifically perpetuated by Shigeru Miyamoto). Even the main programmer, Dylan Cuthbert, said that 33% of ''Star Fox 64'''s programming (including the All-Range Mode, Multiplayer, and Star Wolf scenario) was taken from ''Star Fox 2'' and that the camera mechanic was recycled and used in ''Super Mario 64''. And all of this had been done without paying anything to Argonaut Software. Argonaut's founder, Jez San, also felt like Nintendo and Miyamoto had stabbed them in the back and not shown any sincere regret for it.
-->'''Jez San''': "They canned Star Fox 2 even though it was finished and used much of our code in Star Fox 64 without paying us a penny."
* FanTranslation: This was the only way this game saw a version with English text before the release of the SNES Classic.