Franchise: Star Fox

While Star Fox 64 would mark the debut of Star Wolf, the rival team of Star Fox, they were originally meant to debut in Star Fox 2, which was cancelled for twenty years before seeing an official release for the SNES Classic in 2017, and eventually on the Nintendo Classics - Super Nintendo app exclusive for Nintendo Switch Online subscriptions.

Curiously, while most of the mainstays of the Star Wolf team, such as Wolf O'Donnell, Pigma Dengar, and Leon Powalski, are present in the final build, Andross' nephew, Andrew Oikonny, is absent. In his place is what appears to be a lemur character named "Algy", who is described by SF2's online manual as being rumoured to be "the most devious creature in the cosmos".

However, concept art by series' character designer Takaya Imamura confirms that Andrew actually was initially conceived for SF2, appearing alongside the rest of the usual Star Wolf team. Furthermore, SF2’s source code still refers to Algy internally as “Andrew,” suggesting the character was revamped late in development.

It's worth pointing out, however, that despite being the main character designer for the first Star Fox, as well as future games like Star Fox 64, Imamura had little involvement with Star Fox 2's development, outside of the aforementioned initial Star Wolf concept art and also late-stage advising and play testing, being only credited under "Special Thanks" within SF2's credits . Character/sprite design duties were instead handled by another staff member at Nintendo, Masanao Arimoto, who reinterpreted Imamura's initial designs and took creative liberties, most notably turning Andrew into Algy.

When Takaya Imamura returned for Star Fox 64 as its art director, he essentially restored the character to his original form as Andrew Oikonny.

Barring the mistake with calling Fichina "Fortuna" in Star Fox 64, there is only one other main planet in all of the Star Fox series to have a slightly different English name from their original Japanese counterpart, that being Katina, which in Japan is called カタリナ, or Katarina.

In comparison, Katina directly translated into Japanese would be カティナ.

In a 2011 Nintendo Dream interview with the development staff of Star Fox 64 3D, Yusuke Amano joked that a future Star Fox game could be a dating simulator:

Star Fox was originally a 3D tech demo converted into a rail shooter. Fox's concept and the idea of flying through rings came from Shigeru Miyamoto visiting a shrine of Inari (a Japanese deity associated with foxes and also believed to fly) that is located right outside of Kyoto, Japan.

As it currently stands, barring Star Fox 64 3D, Macbeth is the only planet from Star Fox SNES and Star Fox 64 to not have reappeared in future games.

• Corneria, Fichina, Katina, and Fortuna would reappear in Star Fox Assault. Titania and Zoness would appear in Star Fox Assault's multiplayer mode as well.

• Corneria, Fichina, Katina, Solar, Aquas, Titania and Venom would reappear once again in Star Fox Command.

• Corneria, Fortuna, Fichina, Zoness, Titania and Venom would also reappear in Star Fox Zero.

F-Zero has several tie-ins with the Star Fox series. The character James McCloud shares the name of Fox's father from Star Fox, and the characters have many other similarities:
• They wear the same outfit.
• Both drive drive ships powered by G-Diffusers that were designed by a company named "Space Dynamics".
• F-Zero's James McCloud also is the squadron leader of a space combat team known as "Galaxy Dogs", a clear parody of Star Fox, and his partner, a man named O'Donnell, is a likely reference to Star Fox's Wolf O'Donnell.
• In F-Zero X, James McCloud even states the he "drives like a sly fox", furthering the connection.

In a June 1997 Nintendo Dream interview with Shigeru Miyamoto regarding Star Fox 64, when asked if he would produce a sequel, Miyamoto responded with:


Funny enough, both of these ideas would come to fruition with future titles such as Star Fox: Assault, which hugely emphasized its multiplayer battle mode, and Star Fox Command, which revisited many of the real-time strategy elements that were previously experimented with in the then-unreleased Star Fox 2.

Pigma Dengar's surname is a reference to people in Japan with a Kansai dialect. In the Japanese version of Star Fox 64, Pigma speaks with a Kansai dialect. People with the dialect tend to end their sentences with the word 'dengar'.

The Japanese text for Papetoon, the home planet of Fox McCloud, is "パペトゥーン". Amusingly, this is also the Japanese text for Puppetoons, a Hungarian-American puppet and cartoon series created by George Pal. As the Star Fox series was inspired by Shigeru Miyamoto's love of old puppet dramas such as the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson "supermarionation" television series "Thunderbirds", it could be said that this is a joke that Fox originated from this show. Benimaru Itoh, the illustrator of the Star Fox comics published in Nintendo Power that Papetoon made its first appearance in, confirmed that this was an intended homage to George Pal in an interview in 2026.

ROB 64 in Japan is called NUS (ナウス) 64 and is named after the Nintendo Ultra Sixty Four, the original name given to the Nintendo 64 console. NUS also appears in serial numbers of various Nintendo products.

The Japanese name of the Star Fox series' main antagonist, Andross, is アンドルフ (Andorf).

According to Takaya Imamura in a 2002 Nintendo Dream magazine interview, the name was deprived from “Andromeda”, and his name was changed to Andross in the Western localizations because of fears that his original name had "Nazi overtones", presumably suggesting the name's spelling had similarities to dictator Adolf Hitler, as アンドルフ can also be anglicized as "Andolf".

Prior to Star Fox Zero, there were two attempts in previous installments to revitalize the concept of the Walker from Star Fox 2, or at least the idea of the Arwing transforming into a robot form, those specifically being Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Command, games that both aimed at preserving ideas from the then-long-lost Star Fox 2.

• For Star Fox 64, according to Shigeru Miyamoto in an interview at the end of the Star Fox 64 Official Player's Guide, he wanted to have the Arwing transform into "a human-type craft". This was rejected by other staff members of the SF64 development team. In response, Miyamoto told his team to come up with better ideas, and from there they created the Landmaster and Blue Marine for additional vehicles.

• For Star Fox Command, according to Takaya Imamura in an interview in 2007, the dev team experimented with having the Arwing and other spacecraft transform into robots, but this was ultimately dropped.

According to the official Japanese Star Fox 64 guidebook, the main driving point for Wolf O'Donnell's rivalry with Fox McCloud is the fact that Wolf was previously rivals with his father, James. This is alluded to in-game with various voice clips from Wolf across Star Fox 64, Star Fox Assault and Star Fox Zero, and it's also reiterated in the timeline of events provided in Star Fox Command's official Japanese guidebook.

The English manual and prologue for Star Fox Adventures implies a bigger backstory for Krystal, in that she's the sole remaining survivor of her doomed home planet, "Cerinia", and that she's been roaming the galaxy in search of answers for the truth of her family's death, until she receives a distress call from Dinosaur Planet. With how the manual states that Krystal "may finally be drawing closer to the truth" behind her parents' and planet's destruction, it seems Rare was loosely implying that Andross, who turns out to be the real villain of Star Fox Adventures and thus the culprit behind Dinosaur Planet's woes, was responsible for Cerinia's destruction. Krystal even says "It's you!" right before Andross imprisons her in the crystal at the top of Krazoa Palace.

However, it would seem the Japanese localization for Star Fox Adventures would completely eschew this backstory, removing all mention of Cerinia and as well as Krystal's dead parents. The Japanese prologue was even heavily simplified to this:


The Japanese website even states that "it is not known what her purpose is", which flies directly in the face of Rare's original story for her, that explicitly states that she was searching for the truth of Cerinia's destruction. To add more insult to injury, there isn't even any Japanese subtitle presented when Krystal gets knocked into the crystal by Andross in Krazoa Palace.

Curiously, the Japanese localization of Star Fox Adventures also heavily emphasizes Krystal having telepathic abilities, much more so than in the English version. This is noteworthy because neither Star Fox Assault or Star Fox Command, the next two story follows up to Star Fox Adventures that were developed and written in Japan, made any sort of mention of Cerinia. Star Fox Assault however would hugely emphasize her telepathic abilities, and its manual even describe Krystal the same way the Japanese version of Star Fox Adventures does, just as "a mysterious telepathic woman". This also applies to her trophies in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U that once again make no reference to Cerinia. It's very clear that the developers and writers behind Assault, Command and Smash Bros. in Japan were using the Japanese version of Star Fox Adventures as a reference, as opposed to the English version.

All in all, it would seem Nintendo of Japan had their own differing vision of what Krystal's character was from Rare, that being mostly just as a telepathic woman with a mysterious background, as opposed to Rare's original backstory of her being the lone survivor of her kind.

After the release of Star Fox 64 3D, Dylan Cuthbert and Q-Games had pitched doing a similar style of remake for the original SNES Star Fox title. However, this was turned down by Nintendo.

All in all, it would seem that the entire Star Fox chronology, at least as it was presented from Star Fox 64 to Star Fox Command, spans roughly 20 years.

Star Fox 64's whole backstory take place across 10 years, beginning with Andross' banishment to Venom and then James' death/betrayal on Venom five years later, and the events of Star Fox 64 taking place another five years later after that. The Japan-only "Farewell Beloved Falco" Manga, the canonical manga follow up to Star Fox 64 and prelude to Star Fox Adventures, would take place four years later, and SFA would take place another four years later after that. Star Fox Assault takes place one year after the events of SFA, and Star Fox Command was said to take place a vague 2-3 years after the events of Assault. This would amount to overall roughly 21-22 years.

Prior to his days as Star Fox's ace pilot, Falco Lombardi was originally a member of a space gang known as "FREE AS A BIRD". Katt Monroe was part of this gang as well. In a 2011 Nintendo Dream interview, Takaya Imamura revealed that when Fox was forming his new Star Fox team in the wake of James' death, he heard stories about how good a pilot Falco was as apart of FREE AS A BIRD, and visited him multiple times to try to convince him to join his new team, as he wanted to have an experienced partner due to still being unsure of himself as a leader.

Though originally mentioned in the background lore for the Japanese version of Star Fox 64, FREE AS A BIRD in its entirety would physically appear in "Farewell Beloved Falco", a canonical manga interquel set between Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures that was never localized outside of Japan.

The name "FREE AS A BIRD" is a reference to the song of the same name composed by English rock band The Beatles. This adds up as both Takaya Imamura and Shigeru Miyamoto were reportedly big fans of the band, with General Pepper's design and name also being a reference to their album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".

The "barrel roll" (as dubbed by Peppy Hare in the English version of Star Fox 64) that appears in many Star Fox games is not a barrel roll at all, but rather an aileron roll. In the original Star Fox, the maneuver is generically referred to as just a roll. In Star Fox 64, Peppy's iconic phrase "Do a barrel roll!" was created by the English localization team; in the Japanese version, he instead says "ローリングで弾くんだ!", which translates to something along the lines of "deflect it with a roll!" It's only in Star Fox: Assault that you can actually perform a barrel roll.

Star Fox, Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures are the only Star Fox titles to provide official ages for the main characters, primarily within their Japanese ancillary material. In the Original Soundtrack box released for the first game, Fox, Falco, Peppy and Slippy are said to be 25, 28, 36 and 19 respectively. Star Fox 64, being a remake of the first game, would retcon these ages and make Fox 18, Falco 19, Peppy 41 and Slippy 18.

The "Farewell Beloved Falco" midquel manga, which is set right in the middle of the eight years between Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures, also gives the original Star Fox crew ages, with Fox now being 22, Slippy 22, Falco 23, and Peppy 45.

Star Fox Adventures takes place eight years after Star Fox 64, which means that Fox is now 26, Falco 27, Peppy 49 and Slippy 26. Japanese Star Fox Adventures ancillary material also reveals Krystal's age to be 19, making her distinctly the only Star Fox character outside of the original four Star Fox members to have a known age. Going by this, she would be 11 and 15 years old during the events of Star Fox 64 and Farewell Beloved Falco, respectively.

After Adventures' release, Nintendo, specifically Takaya Imamura, made a deliberate decision for future Star Fox games to not provide any official age numbers for any of the characters. However, Star Fox Assault officially is said to take place only year after the events of Star Fox Adventures, so this would make Fox 27, Falco 28, Peppy 50, Slippy 27, and Krystal 20. Similarly, according to Takaya Imamura in a 2007 interview, Star Fox Command takes place 2-3 years after Assault, which would make Fox 29-30, Falco 30-31, Peppy 52-53, Slippy 29-30, and Krystal 22-23.

Although Wolf O'Donnell has never had any age officially listed for him, Takaya Imamura implied on Twitter that he is within the same generation of Peppy and James.

According to Takaya Imamura in a 2011 Nintendo Dream magazine interview, frogs in the Lylat System are born as tadpoles and remain as such until they're a month old. He even explains that Slippy and Amanda's baby seen in the "Slippy's Resolve" ending in Star Fox Command was one month old already, hence why it appears as a frog. Imamura would later illustrate this fact in comic form to commemorate the release of Star Fox Zero.