By scanning a Fox or Falco amiibo in Star Fox Zero, the Arwings and Walkers will be swapped out with 16-bit era models as seen in Star Fox and Star Fox 2. The old Arwing model's Charge shot does not lock on to targets, which reflects how they did not have a lock-on feature in Star Fox, but only in Star Fox 2 did they have a Charge shot. At the time of Star Fox Zero's release in 2016, Star Fox 2 remained unreleased, with only leaked beta builds being available, including one that allowed you to lock on to enemies with the Charge shot. The game would eventually be completed by Nintendo and released in 2017, but with this lock-on feature removed. Since Nintendo only showed Star Fox 2 to developers actively working on the series, it's believed that PlatinumGames noticed this feature's removal and referenced it in Star Fox Zero over a year before the game's release by making the old Arwings behave accurately to a version of Star Fox 2 that players did not know about.

When assets from Star Fox 2 were leaked in the 2020 Nintendo Gigaleak, one character that caught people's attention was what appeared to be a human woman. Some fans and news outlets assumed the character to be black based on her frilly hair and large lips, but palettes were eventually discovered that revealed her to be fair-skinned. The human woman's sprites have the same filename as Miyu and Fay's in the final game, and her two sprites' facial structures resemble Miyu and Fay's prototype sprites (the latter being a sheep instead of a poodle), suggesting she was simply a placeholder meant to give a human reference for Miyu and Fay's anthropomorphic expressions.

Masanao Arimoto, who took over Takaya Imamura's role as the character and sprite artist for Star Fox 2 from the first game, seemed to have cycled through a wide variety of new character pilots designs to represent the two Light class Arwing models, before finally settling on Fay (a spaniel) and Miyu (a Lynx). These beta designs were discovered in the Nintendo Gigaleak of 2020.

Some of these include a sheep, a bear, a deer, a hippo, and even Fara Phoenix (dubbed internally as "lady") from the 1993 Star Fox Nintendo Power comics. The sheep design would actually appear in an issue of Super Game Power magazine that had a feature on Star Fox 2 (before it was cancelled) along with Miyu, making it clear that it was an early design for what would become Fay.

What's also notable and curious is that there seem to be unused female human pilots found within the Gigaleak. It is speculated that Arimoto drew these up as generic templates to base the new female characters' designs off of, rather than introduce human characters into the Star Fox series specifically like what has been theorized since the Gigaleak. The fact that there are multiple different variants of the same non-descript woman with none of them being a different gender compared to the vastly more distinctive anthro designs that Arimoto brainstormed adds credence to this theory.

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.

Star Fox 2 features gigantic battle cruisers deployed by Andross' army known as Cannon Betrayers that feature the "Planet Cannon", a massively powerful laser cannon that, hence its name, can easily destroy planets like Corneria. This ship or at least a ship of a similar design would also appear in Star Fox Zero, known as the Salvadora.

Interestingly, the official Japanese Star Fox 64 guidebook claims that both Gorgon, known in Japan as デス・ボール (Desu bōru), or Death Ball, and Bolse are also equipped with Planet Cannons, with the former using it in battle against the Star Fox team at the end of Area 6 in Star Fox 64.

The Aparoids are unique in Star Fox's rogue gallery in that they're the only main enemy forces, at least within the official game canon (which includes "Farewell Beloved Falco", the manga interlude between Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures) to have absolutely no connections or ties to Andross whatsoever:

• In Farewell Beloved Falco, Captain Shears, despite being affiliated with the Cornerian army, was revealed to be a turncoat seeking to revive Andross through cloning.

• In Star Fox Adventures, General Scales and the SharpClaw were revealed to be the unwilling pawns of Andross' ghost, who manipulated them as well as Fox to revive himself using the power of the Krazoa.

• In Star Fox Command, the Emperor Anglar and his Anglar Army are revealed to be bioweapons created by Andross in secret within Venom's acidic oceans.

In particular, the Aparoid Queen is the only final boss in all of the Star Fox series to either not just be Andross again (Star Fox, Star Fox 2, Star Fox 64/Star Fox 64 3D, Star Fox Adventures, Star Fox Zero), nor a creation of his (Star Fox Command).

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.

Star Fox 2 has an unnamed General Pepper-like Cornerian Officer whose design would later be used for Captain Shears, the Main Villain of the Manga Comic "Farewell, Beloved Falco".

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.

According to programmer Dylan Cuthbert (who reportedly help named the original pilots from the first Star Fox), one of the new pilots in Star Fox 2, Fay, was named after his childhood crush, a girl who lived next door to his grandparents' house. Although Fay, as well as Miyu, were never officially given proper surnames, Cuthbert has stated that in his head, he's always considered their full names to be Fay Sinclair and Miyu Swift respectively.

Contary to popular belief and Nintendo's own statements, Star Fox 2 does not require the use of the Super FX Chip 2 to run, as the Super FX Chip 2 only increases game size capacity support and not graphical support, and Star Fox 2 is small enough to fit on a regular Super FX Chip. Star Fox 2, however, cannot run on a MARIO chip, the first revision of the first Super FX Chip which was succeeded by the more graphically powerful GSU-1 and GSU-2 versions of the Super FX Chip.

In the original Star Fox on SNES, Venom was once a lush, green world like Corneria until Andross, exiled for dangerous experiments, invaded and polluted it, enslaving its inhabitants and turning it into a militarized wasteland. Star Fox 2's Expert mode briefly showed Venom returning to its green state, suggesting terraforming.

Star Fox 64 retconned this, portraying Venom as a desolate world from the start; Andross was banished there by Corneria specifically because of its harsh conditions. However, Star Fox Command later revealed Andross had actually built a terraforming device to turn Venom into a green, livable planet for his descendants, reversing his SNES role from destroyer to would-be savior.