Prerelease:Star Fox 64
This page details prerelease information and/or media for Star Fox 64.
 | 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
- Nintendo Power Interview with Shigeru Miyamoto, January 1997
- Interview with the Developers in the Japanese guide book. (Machine translated.)
- Star Fox Adventures – 2002 Developer Interview in Nintendo Dream
- Iwata Asks: Star Fox 64 3D
Videos
Shoshinkai '95
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjgaRzI853o&t=317s - Earliest footage. Presumably depicts snowy Corneria and early Meteo. One of the titles announced alongside the Nintendo 64 reveal.
E3 '96
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MocVwX8jX_U&t=282s - Glimpse of early Lylat System; most of snowy Corneria.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEbKnlCDDo4&t=60s - More snowy Corneria; Meteo with nebula background; first Titania footage.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkGuhMCCslM?t=60 - (^mirror)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9feS0GrbMg&t=64s - Corneria's snow rings; Titania's snake enemy; Meteo's boss.
Shoshinkai '96
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZDJaHjpft0 - First footage of intro, versus, and many new levels.
Spring '97
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7_4aH3aAvc - Rumble Pak promotional video featuring Japanese actress and singer, Ryōko Hirosue. Shows more of intro and Corneria.
- https://twitter.com/goegoezzz/status/1362887669886246913 - Someone playing a Corneria demo. POORLY!
- https://archive.org/details/twitter-1362887669886246913 (^mirror)
Backup
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7JAYZYMGzC3UQSSsuhoGSe-trs_iZoBO - A playlist containing most development footage compiled by stage.
Screenshots
Images taken from trailers and magazines.
Shoshinkai '95
Promotional material released for the November 1995 Nintendo Space World Expo.
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.
Lylat
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
Old radio static texture, which exists in the final ROM.
Apparently two exclamation points was deemed overkill.
Unused four-pronged enemy ship.
Slippy flying through the arches like he did in SF1.
Evergreens dusted with snow.
Early laser power-up. Fox's lasers change from green to red.
Perhaps a checkpoint.
Snow rings can be seen in the distance.
Could you impress Falco by flying through these?
Early Granga with a red "A."
Granga blowing snow, suggesting he's the culprit behind the blizzard.
All-range mode did not exist, so the player fought Granga by U-turning to make back-and-forth passes.
Meteo
Hole the Meteo Crusher dug
First version of Sector X. The colors resemble other early nebulas.
Meteo Crusher launching his reflector shield.
His weakpoint was a triangle at first.
Solid white fins.
Titania
The sky and ground appear to be early versus textures. Unused rock.
Alternate skull.
Unused snake enemy.
I call him Slimy.
Titania did not have signs of an ancient civilization at first.
Shoshinkai '96
Promotional material released for the November 1996 Nintendo Space World Expo.
Corneria
The snow theme was dropped by this point.
Unused enemy formation.
Granga is still fought in corridor mode with U-turns.
Piece of the Attack Carrier.
The missiles actually targeted the player, and they counted for hits.
Enemies dropped pink balls which appear to be health. The sprite is in the final ROM.
Meteo
Early barrel-roll.
Early asteroid textures.
Worm enemies used to have silver rather than gold segments.
The player barrel-rolls and dodges the pink balls, making them seem like an attack.
The battle seems to take place over a jungle-y Fortuna or green-tinged Titania.
Titania
"This reminds me of 10 years ago!" (when Andross unleashed his first bioweapon and was banished).
The walkers had different textures.
Early Goras.
Sector X
The left path is the same, but the right path is different.
This section with lots of ships and debris was right before Spyborg, but was removed.
Early textures.
Sector X's background was final, even though the map screen still used the bluer version.
Zoness
"Star Fox sighted! Captain!" Periscope is visible, like it is in the final game.
The laser power-up was a green ball, visible beneath the gate.
Bomb pickup.
"Captain! I'll teach them how to greet the man of the sea!"
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:
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
Early radar map with teammate's faces rather than arrows.
Unused purple lasers.
Versus
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.
Corneria
A health ring, or a checkpoint?
The teammates performed a fancier maneuver in Granga's intro before splitting up.
The medal requirement was much lower.
Early barrel-roll effect.
The missiles actually attacked the player in this version. This one is having a tough time.
Meteo
Old item box texture. Unused enemy formation.
Titania
Unused ruins layout.
Walker still used older textures.
Sector X
Lower medal requirement.
Zoness
Enemies dropped spinning health rings.
Fortuna
Large arrows appeared to mark common enemies.
Solar
Early shield meter. The gores were just reused firebirds from Corneria at this point.
Bolse
Slippy croaked (kero!) Enemy ships are represented on the radar with triangles.
Katina
The early portrait of Bill is visible. Saucerer used to have spiked prongs on top, but no apparent shadow on the map.
Unknown
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
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).
Another angle reveals a floating structure in Macbeth's orbit.
Even in the Japanese instructions booklet packed with the game, Sector Y is backwards, and Aquas, Titania, and Macbeth have white clouds.
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.
