The robot boss of Sector X, dubbed "Spyborg" in the English version of Star Fox 64, is known as HVC-09 in the Japanese version.

HVC (Home Video Computer) was the model number that was used for Famicom (the Japanese equivalent to the Nintendo Entertainment System) hardware and peripherals. For example, the model number for R.O.B. (who in Japan was called Family Computer Robot) was HVC-012. Likewise, the model number for the NES Zapper (known as the Famicom Light Gun in Japan) was HVC-005. The model number for the Famicom itself was HVC-001.

Funny enough, in real life, there never was any NES related hardware whose model number was HVC-09.

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).

According to Takaya Imamura in a Q&A in 2024, James McCloud, Fox's father, seemingly returning from the dead to help Fox escape from the depths of Venom at the end of Star Fox 64's hard route was inspired by Obi-Wan Kenobi returning as a ghostly mentor for Luke Skywalker by the end of the 1977 film "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope".

According to Imamura, whether James is actually still alive, or some kind of ghost or vision that Fox saw, is ultimately up to the players to decide. Curiously, while Star Fox Zero (whose story is mostly just a straightforward retelling of Star Fox 64) also contains a sequence at the end where an apparition of James guides Fox through Venom, it appears that Andross can also see him, even shouting:


Which further adds to the ambiguity on whether James is still alive or not.

Beta Star Fox 64 footage circa 1996 shows that Corneria was originally covered in snow. Early footage of the boss fight with the Granga robot even showed it capable of blowing snow as an attack, possibly indicating that it was responsible for Corneria's current state in this build.

Planet Zoness was originally a beautiful water planet similar to its twin planet, Aquas. It was famous for its resorts and was where Peppy Hare had taken his wife, Vivian, for their honeymoon. However, Andross' forces would invade and pollute its waters with their bioweapons, mutating the local wildlife to become larger and violent.

Early footage of Star Fox 64 circa 1996 actually show Zoness in its pure, unpolluted state, which seems to indicate that making it polluted was decided on later in development. There's actually appears to be dialogue remnants of this cleaner version in the developer's dub:


When finishing the stage:


But in the final polluted version, this exchange in the JP version goes:

Fichina, the ice planet that was introduced in Star Fox 64, is infamously erroneously called Fortuna in the English version of the game. Fortuna was previously the name of the jungle planet from Star Fox on SNES filled with monstrous and primordial creatures. It was also infamously dubbed "the Dinosaur Planet", years before the Star Fox series would incorporate another Dinosaur Planet with Star Fox Adventures.

However, looking through leaked SF64 files from the Gigaleak, there does seem to be evidence that Nintendo dubbed Fichina as Fortuna for most of SF64's development, only to change the name to Fichina at the tail end of it. Almost all of the source code refers to it as Fortuna, and the internal file system has “FO” appended to all of the stage’s assets. The image file Nintendo provided for the stage name to be translated is also labeled FO_E_FO. With the decision to rename it to Fichina seemingly being a last minute one, it's possible Nintendo of America were not brought up to speed by Nintendo's Japanese branch of this lore change when they were originally localizing SF64.

Nonetheless, Nintendo has since firmly established Fichina and Fortuna (as it was in the SNES game) as being their own distinct planets, with both appearing together in Star Fox: Assault and Star Fox Zero. Strangely, in the former game, Fortuna's Japanese name フォーチュナ (Fōchuna) was slightly modified to フォーチュナー (Fōchunā), which would translate into "Fortuner" in English.

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 combat robots known as the Shogun Troopers in Star Fox 64's Sector Y stage are called サルジャー (Sarujā) in the Japanese version of the game. This can be translated as "Sarger".

It appears this name is meant to be a pun and mashup of サル (Saru) and ソルジャー (Sorujā), the Japanese words for Monkey and Soldier respectively.

The Official Star Fox Missile File Printout guidebook released alongside the original Star Fox on SNES in Japan mentions two pilots, Desla Koba and Bear Noguccini, who don't appear anywhere in the game proper. They were said to be two of the most capable members in the Cornerian Defense Force, who had previously embarked in cutting-edge Arwing scouting vessels.

Both were said to have mysteriously disappeared. It is said later on in the guidebook that Desla Koba had disappeared in the Asteroid Belt when he came across a mysterious giant space bird, and upon trying to inspect it, he ended up being warped into another dimension, known in-game as "Out of this Dimension". Similarly, Bear was last seen in Sector Y, where he encountered the mysterious space whale before losing all contact, never to be seen again.

Desla Koba would actually be mentioned again in Star Fox 64's official Japanese guidebook, with a similar backstory that he had in the Missile File Printout guidebook. Here, it is said that he led a unit conducting an investigation in Meteo (SF64's equivalent to the Asteroid Belt from SF1), only for communications to suddenly be cut off as he'd apparently entered the stage's warp zone, which simultaneously led to him crashing his aircraft on the nearby planet of Katina. This was said to have occurred more than 10 years prior to the events of Star Fox 64.

Both Desla Koba and Bear Noguccini's surnames seem to come from two of the editors of the Mission File Printout guidebook: Hitoshi Kobayashi and Yukata Noguchi.

Across two interviews with two different Nintendo Dream issues in 2011, Takaya Imamura expressed quite a bit of interest in creating a prequel to Star Fox 64 starring James McCloud and the original Star Fox team, mentioning the idea three times, unprovoked. He also even suggested a future game could be a soft reboot set several years later with a new lead instead of Fox.

From the Star Fox 64 3D Developer interview in the September 2011 issue of Nintendo Dream:


Shortly aftwards, after being asked about the future of the Star Fox series:


In a later interview, Imamura says:


Unfortunately, nothing has ever come of this. All the Star Fox series has seen since then is the release of Star Fox Zero (a reimagining of Star Fox 64), Star Fox Guard (a tower defense game set around the same time), and an official release of the 20-year old game Star Fox 2. Takaya Imamura would retire from Nintendo in early 2021.

Star Fox Zero has a side mission in that can be accessed in Titania after obtaining the Landmaster's Flight upgrade. In this mission, you play as Peppy Hare, facing off against the Salvadora alone. Notably, every time Peppy performs a barrel roll, he literally shouts "barrel roll!". This is obviously a reference to his iconic line from Star Fox 64, "Do a barrel roll!" that has become an infamous internet meme over the years.

It's worth pointing out that this only occurs in the Western version of Zero, as Peppy remains silent even when barrel rolling in the Japanese version. This is because "Do a barrel roll!" never really became a meme in Japan, as Peppy has a different, less iconic line in the Japanese version of Star Fox 64 when instructing Fox how to roll: ローリングで弾くんだ!, which seems to translate to something along the lines of "use a rolling technique!".

The Landmaster's appearance as Fox, Falco and Wolf's Final Smashes in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U is a composite of its appearances from Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Assault, maintaining the sharp and futuristic appearance it had in the latter, but still retaining traditional tank treads as seen in the former.

This particular design would eventually be implemented into the Star Fox series proper, beginning with the Landmaster's appearance in Star Fox 64 3D, and would be used again in Star Fox Zero.

For Star Fox 64 3D, Bill Grey's fighter craft in the Katina mission was redesigned to be closer in design to its appearance in Star Fox Command. It was probably also done to distinguish it from the other Cornerian Fighters present in the mission, which Bill's fighter looked identical to back in the original Star Fox 64.

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.

The Blue Marine, the submarine used in only the Aquas mission, is the only vehicle utilized by the Star Fox team in Star Fox 64 to not have been designed by Space Dynamics. It was instead a personal project designed by Slippy Toad, who scrapped it together using discarded parts. He also used maintenance Arwing parts, such as the laser cannons and rolling mechanism.

This information also appeared in the Star Fox 64 Official Player's Guide. However, it would also bolt on the fact that Beltino Toad, Slippy's father who was first mentioned on the Japanese website for Star Fox 64, helped him create it.

After obtaining a gold medal on all levels, Expert mode will be unlocked. In Expert mode, Fox wears his father James McCloud's glasses.

Titania, being called the "Forbidden Planet", is the only stage in all of Star Fox 64 to not feature any of Andross' forces. Instead, all of the enemies and defense systems, including the boss Goras, are said to be remnants of an ancient alien civilization, with Goras being said to be a bio-weapon the ancient people modified before they went extinct. The official Japanese Star Fox 64 guide (as well as the Star Fox 64 Official Player's Guide) hints that the underwater ruins seen in the oceans of Aquas are connected to the ancient ruins on Titania.

As it did for Bacoon and the underwater ruins of Aquas, the Star Fox 64 Official Player's Guide would expand upon Goras' and Titania's backstory, claiming that it was formerly a green lush planet, and that the ancient people who lived there were an advanced agrarian civilization that would leave behind their harvests at temples that existed in each town to appease Goras. It claims that the civilization was destroyed by an asteroid colliding with Titania, leaving Goras as the only surviving creature on the planet that was now a barren wasteland, and it also claims that it was modified by Andross.

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.

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.

One of the enemies that appear on the Zoness stage, according to the official Japanese Star Fox 64 guidebook, is known as オブネマ (Obunema), or Obnema, a giant anthropod that can only be defeated with charge shots.

The Star Fox 64 Official Player's Guide renames it as "Kani" and claims that prior to Zoness' devastation, it was a favored delicacy in Zoness restaurants.