Proto:Star Fox 2/April 15, 1994 Build

This is a sub-page of Proto:Star Fox 2.

The April 15, 1994 prototype of Star Fox 2 was dumped around August 6th, 1999, and has many differences from later builds; It still feels more like a tech demo than an actual game at this point in development.

NOTE: This prototype requires the console's WRAM to be initialized to zero at boot, otherwise it will lock up at a black screen. It may not work in some emulators as a result. (In other words, open it in snes9x and reset it once.)

Download Star Fox 2 (Early Prototype) File: Star_Fox_2_(J)_(Early_Prototype).smc (923 KB) (info)

General Differences from Final

The menus at this point are placeholders, with a stylistically different font (to the rest of the builds) on a black background.

April 15, 1994	Final
Not in this version.

Miyu and Fay are not present, their spaces taken up by "Saru" and "Lady". The lack of character portraits makes it difficult to tell who these two are, but based on the battle mode menu it can be inferred that Saru is the Andross-looking elderly primate and Lady is the imaginatively-named female fox.

The conspicuously empty mission map

Starting the game with the "Mission" option loads a blank map with no planets present. After this, you may choose from 6 "planet" levels and 3 "space" levels. No mission briefings are given.

The stages are essentially nonexistent here. Each one does have a small area squared off, and they all do have one or two unique aspects to them, but there are no missions to complete, no targets to destroy and no interior base sections.

Whee!

Another Arwing transformation is present in the space stages - where you cannot transform into a walker, you instead become a floating turret that can move in all 3 dimensions freely. This is extremely fiddly on a SNES controller, and is probably why the idea was quickly scrapped.

Speaking of fiddly, the walker is technically fully functional here, but is nearly unusable due to its ludicrously slow walking speed. It can be sped up by holding Y, but this is still not even as fast as the walking speed in the final. The transformation animation is also needlessly long and superfluous, spinning the camera around wildly as the Arwing morphs. The model too differs from the final.

The boost function is limited; when boosting or braking a small meter in the bottom right fills up. When it does, the Arwing catches fire and is unable to boost again until the bar has fully depleted.

Bombs have not yet been implemented, instead - something that looks like a rocket, which gradually appears at the bottom of the model, and then flies, when hit, the enemy takes more damage than with normal shooting. This feature is retained until the prototype dated August 31, 1994, where a homing bomb is used instead of an arrow, which automatically hits the target and begins to attack the enemy.

The particle effects that help the illusion of a 3D environment don't seem to be synced properly to the movement of the background, and so fall away before the horizon has the chance to move more than a few pixels.

Bosses Space Blade and Mirage Dragon are in this assembly. For a complete victory over the first one, it is easier for you to destroy the lower parts first, and then the upper parts, however, this is not so easy due to the shooting mechanics, which will be changed in the next build. To defeat the second boss, you need to shoot straight into the mouth. To make this task easier, transform into a floating turret by pressing Select.

The game seems to also put a great amount of emphasis on multiplayer, with a controllable second Arwing spawning in a select group of stages. However, when the second player is destroyed, almost nothing will happen, and there is also no timer, so you will have to restart the game to exit this mode.

Missions

Name	Image	Description
STG1-GROUND		An empty field populated with ostrich-like enemies. When the countdown of enemies begins in the second circle, platforms appear near the ostrich-shaped enemies, which are out of place here. Uses the "ground" music.
STG2-DESERT		A very empty stage containing a strange textured hexagon and a tall, segmented flashing tower. Uses the "ground" music.
STG3-MAGMA		Does not contain magma. Another field with moving ramps, objects that change collisions, and one enemy that provokes the boss. Uses the "ground" music.
STG4-PARK		More of a town than a park. Contains some buildings and four-legged harmless enemies. Near the "skyscrapers" are "statues" (whatever they are). Destroy the one that is moving - a boss will appear. Uses the "ground" music.
STG5-SUN		A genuinely beautiful looking stage, this one takes place above the Lylat sun. There is no collision with the ground, and the player can transform into the turret form. For the appearance of the boss, it is enough to destroy the rocket that rotates. To win, turning into a the turret with the "Select" button is simply necessary, otherwise the game will freeze or be very buggy. Has unique music.
STG6-SEA		Similar to Fortuna in the final, this stage is split into above water and below water. It is incredibly foggy above, where many rings are laid out in a similar fashion to the training stage in the first Star Fox. A few non-animating helicopter enemies are also present. Below the water, a submarine can be found. The transition from above to below water is clearly unfinished, lingering far too long on the slooowly descending walker. Has unique music.
EXT1-SENKAN		A fleet of spaceships hangs in place. A few static enemies are also scattered around. Being a space stage, the player can transform into the turret form. When trying to destroy enemies, the game may crash, freeze, or start to glitch badly. Uses the "space" music.
EXT2-ASTEROID		A set of suspiciously cubic asteroids stay in formation. Being a space stage, the player can transform into the turret form. Susceptible to freeze/crash. Uses the "space" music.
EXT3-HIDORA		Empty aside from some slightly vicious enemies, and also some... animal heads made of lava? This stage also tends to crash a lot. Being a space stage, the player can transform into the turret form. Susceptible to freeze/crash. Uses the "space" music.

Battle Mode

A mode which got cut some time after the WCES 1995 build.

Ambiguous Selection Screen

April 15, 1994	December 28, 1994
	Not in this version.

Menu

April 15, 1994	December 28, 1994

Character Select

April 15, 1994	December 28, 1994

April 15, 1994	December 28, 1994

Test Mode

To do: Does the programmer select option do anything?

This mode will load up one of the four implemented level types with the second "player" spawned and no enemies present. It also contains the interesting option to choose which Nintendo employee you are before the level loads.

Training Mode

Here you have the option to choose between one of two broken training modes. Both explain the controls in Japanese and don't have much more function than that.

"Type"	"Train"

"Type" mode says you can leave by pressing X. "Train" mode says you can leave by pressing Start. Neither of these things are true.

Interesting to note are the freakish Q-tarou and caveman (?) icons in the bottom left of "type" mode.

Config Mode

To do: Describe in more detail what each option does.

April 15, 1994	June 22, 1995

Accessible in the 1994 and 1995 builds is a CONFIG MODE, labeled CONFIG on the title screen, which functions as a sound test. This build only plays sound effects, while the 1995 build adds background music playback, cpu to audio unit register writer (4 bytes, named ports), a more stylized font, and a cursor.

The options themselves in this build are simple to understand and self-explanatory.

	April 15, 1994
SOUND	Toggles whether the in-game audio is in stereo or mono.
BGM	Can be incremented and decremented, but selecting it does nothing. The idea is presumably to play the game's music, but this option does not function until later builds.
SE	Can be incremented and decremented, and pressing A plays the corresponding sound effect.
EXIT	Think. What would this mean?

The controls here differ between builds:

	April 15, 1994	June 22, 1995
Select option	Up/Down	Up/Down
Toggle option	Left/Right	Left/Right
Fast cursor		B + D-Pad
Confirm	A	B
Stop sound	B	X

Unused Graphics

To do: This Starfox-online.net topic talks about unused graphics found within this build. Investigate exactly what unused graphics exist and add them here.

Fox Early Mission Mode Character Select Portrait

April 15, 1994 Prototype (Unused)
June 8, 1995 Prototype and later

An early, unused version of Fox's portrait from the 1-Player Mission mode character select screen, along with three duplicates, can be found buried in the ROM in a format which can be decompressed by the Super FX chip. The three duplicates are likely placeholders for Falco's, Peppy's, and Slippy's portraits, which do not exist in this build. Compared to the version used in the later prototype and final build, Fox lacks most of his shading, his head is slightly larger, his eyes are brown instead of blue, and his facial expression when selected is...frightening.

2-Player Battle

These sprites, which are loaded with the other graphics in the Battle mode menu, appear to be intended for when both players have selected their characters. However, the screen just fades out with a mosaic effect when this happens in this build.

(Source: Patch93)

Score, Coins and Items Table

The table shown here at the bottom, gets printed on the screen shown when you boot and press Start once, but you can't see it because it's hidden by the BG layer showing space graphics (layer removed in the screenshot).