Franchise: Star Fox

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.

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:

The development for Kid Icarus: Uprising began with a vague concept of a game conceived by Masahiro Sakurai that would switch between aerial and land combat. At the recommendation of then-Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, it was decided to incorporate a pre-existing Nintendo IP onto the concept, and Sakurai would ultimately land on Kid Icarus, as he was aware of its endearing popularity in the west and a desire from fans for a new installment, especially with its protagonist, Pit, being included as a playable fighter in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Another IP that was briefly considered was the Star Fox franchise. However, Sakurai ultimately felt that the character of Pit and his universe were more flexible and fitting for the type of game he was creating with Uprising.

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.

The barrel roll as seen in Star Fox is not a barrel roll at all, but rather an aileron roll. It's only in Star Fox: Assault that you can actually perform a barrel roll.

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".

There were four canceled Star Fox games.

The first, planned for the SNES, was a sequel to the original game and titled "Star Fox 2". It was completed, but its release was shelved in order to continue the series in 3D on the Nintendo 64 with the release of Star Fox 64. Star Fox 2 would eventually see an official release on the Super NES Classic in 2017.

The second was a Virtual Boy release titled "Star Fox" which was canceled due to the poor sales of the console.

The third was a Star Fox game for the Wii, which after years of being talked about ended up being cancelled for unknown reasons.

And the last was an arcade version (also titled "Star Fox"), though very little is actually known about it or why it was canceled. The only known image of this game is shown in the attachment.

All of the Star Fox pilots have robotic legs. It is theorized that they had their legs amputated to prevent blood from rushing down to them in the high G-forces they would experience, causing them to pass out. Modern day pilots wear tight fitting clothing around their legs for the same reason.

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.

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'.

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.

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.

Nintendo once teamed up with Kellogg's and Nelsonic to develop and release a promotional LCD-based Star Fox Game Watch, which was only available through the mail order form that came with a box of cereal. Nelsonic later released the watch in stores with a different appearance.

According to Takaya Imamura in the Nintendo Dream magazine, before Star Fox became the name of the series, they thought of other names for the series, like 'Star Glider' and 'starcraft'. The idea for the 'Star Fox' title came from Star Wars' title 'Star', and the main protagonist Fox McCloud's 'Fox' race.

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.

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.

On the Japanese website for Star Fox 64, Slippy mentions certain background characters who would appear in future installments:

• Peppy's wife, Vivian Hare. According to Slippy, Peppy took her to planet Zoness for their honeymoon, which explains why Peppy is so distraught at its polluted status in SF64. Vivian would appear in-game for the first time in Star Fox Command, where it's revealed that she and Peppy had a daughter named Lucy, and that Vivian had died of a disease several years prior.

• Slippy's father, Beltino Toad. According to Slippy, Beltino works as an engineer for Space Dynamics, the manufacturer of the Arwing and many of the other vehicles the Star Fox team utilize. Beltino would later appear in-game for the first time in Star Fox Assault, and would later appear in Star Fox Command.

It's worth pointing that unlike Vivian, Beltino was mentioned in western ancillary SF64 material, that being both the official western Star Fox 64 website and the Star Fox 64 Official Player's Guide, where it states that he helped his son Slippy create the Blue Marine.

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.