It’s way past time I finally got around to playing this on my SNES mini. It’s an interesting kind of sequel that’s very different to the first but still fits right in, and has a lot of ambitious ideas to it.

Quick history lesson: Star Fox was a SNES rail shooter that used the Super FX enhancement chip built into its cartridge to create 3D polyognal graphics that were advanced for the time but feel dated now, especially with its low framerate from pushing the console so hard. Afterwards Argonaut worked on a sequel using the improved Super FX 2 chip and essentially finished it, but Nintendo cancelled it due to the impending (at the time) N64 launch. They then took many of its ideas—and reportedly, code—to create Lylat Wars on that system, without crediting or financially compensating Argonaut in any way. This still makes me mad.

But anyway, this mythical lost game was in fact perfectly playable in a mostly-completed state for many years due to ROM leaks, but it got a slightly more polished official release on the standalone SNES mini-console, and later through the Switch online service. Having read an LP of the ROM dump years ago, I finally tried it out for myself and enjoyed it more than I expected.

There are very few sequences in this game that are akin to the Star Fox rail shooter experience. Instead, you start with a 2D tactical map of the star system, moving your chosen pair of Arwings (including new (female!) team members Miyu the lynx and Fay the poodle) from planet to planet. Enemy forces and missiles also move in real time (even while you’re in the shooter segments) and must be intercepted to defend Corneria. If it takes too much damage it’s game over. There’s an orbital defence platform that has a limited ability to destroy enemy units, but there’s also a type of enemy that can capture it and use it against you. This screen can be overwhelming, especially on higher difficulties, and gets easier as you progress and take down targets, although periodic events refresh Andross’s attack on the system. The amount of player agency is interesting but adds pressure especially with the relentless time mechanic.

Any unit interception transitions you to a “space battle” segment, an all-range first-person dogfight in a 3D arena (although you don’t really change your height) fighting against one of the many random types of ship or missile. Each have their own tactics, which keeps things fresh, and the Star Wolf squadron makes their debut here too as individual miniboss battles. The relatively low draw distance and speediness of many enemy types makes these sequences disorienting though, and you spend a lot of time turning around. The larger enemy carriers also briefly start as “space battle” approaches before transitioning to the interior-style gameplay that is probably the headline gameplay style.

Inside a carrier or on a planet surface, you have a third-person view of your Arwing and can freely swap between flight mode and walker mode. Most of the environments and simplistic “boss fights” are set up for walker mode in these zones, and this is also where the game takes some faltering steps into the territory of the 3D platformer, very much an unperfected art at the time. Planets also involve first finding how to unlock a base entrance and infiltrating it to clear out Andross’s presence, which pits some exploration, 3D strafing combat, and light puzzle-solving against the ever-present time crunch of the overall tactical map which you must always be aware of (General Pepper sometimes will message you in the typical Star Fox communicator style to warn you of external events).

Juggling these three styles may make the game seem overloaded, but it does a good job delineating these segments and balancing them against each other, all while challenging the player’s mindfulness of the overall tactical situation. Expert mode (the hardest of three difficulties) is where the game comes into its own and shows the player the most content, but also has the highest potential for frustration as you can easily get overrun and lose progress. It’s a game designed for repeat runs, to be beaten in one sitting, but on repetition much of the battling can feel like busywork as you continually take down fighter squadrons and missiles. And the randomisation elements don’t stop the cramped carrier and base interiors from quickly becoming incredibly samey.

On reflection, the highlights of the game for me were the planet surfaces before the base infiltrations. There’s lovely varied backgrounds and nice music (overall not nearly as memorable as the first game’s score unfortunately), as well as different kinds of tasks to perform and heavier use of the transformation mechanic. There’s more novelty there than the repeated dogfights and interiors.

A fun part of playing this was seeing all the stuff that made its way into other Star Fox games. As mentioned, Nintendo took stuff like All-Range Mode, Star Wolf, and elements of the final boss encounter to use in Lylat Wars. Argonaut’s successor Q-Games under Dylan Cuthbert of course reworked the general structure into Command much later, which I judge has similar problems of tedium through repetition but expands on character variety, context of battles, and planet-level tactics. Perhaps through coincidence parts of Namco’s Assault often feel similar to the planetside segments, exploring a ground space while swapping between on foot and airbound play. And of course Zero revisited the transformation mechanic. As such finally playing 2 for myself feels like filling in a missing piece in the series’ genealogy. It’s not perfect but for the time it’s very impressive and still enjoyable today. It probably should have been released in 1995 eh!