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.

In Star Fox 64 3D's ending, the conference hall where the Star Fox team meets General Pepper after Andross' defeat was changed from its original appearance into a hangar, with fewer, more spread out Dog soldiers.

More notable, however, is how the generic planet Corneria image and lettering at the back of the room has been replaced by the Cornerian Army logo that first appeared in Star Fox: Assault.

Many Star Fox 64 players have referred to the Venom army general piloting the mecha boss encountered in the Easy Route Corneria path as "Granga", presumably because of the Star Fox 64 Nintendo Power Official Strategy Guide referring to him as such.

In reality, or at least going by the official Japanese Star Fox 64 guidebook and also Star Fox 64 3D, the name "Granga" actually refers to the aforementioned mecha itself. Like most of Andross' lieutenants (with the exception of Caiman), the pilot himself seemingly never had a proper name.

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!".

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.

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).

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.

Contrary to the Western version of the game, which more or less started over with a completely new and different cast, Star Fox: Assault's Japanese voice cast would actually bring back quite a few of the voice actors from Star Fox 64's Japanese dub:

• Hisao Egawa (Falco)
• Kyoko Tongu (Slippy)
• Tomohisa Aso (Peppy)
• Daisuke Gori (Pigma)
• Shinobu Satouchi (Leon)

Of the returning cast from Star Fox 64, the only characters to be recast were:

• Fox (voiced by Shinobu Satouchi in SF64, now voiced by Kenji Nojima)
• General Pepper (voiced by Daisuke Gori in SF64, now voiced by Michihiro Ikemizu)
• Wolf (voiced by Hisao Egawa in SF64, now voiced by Mahito Ōba)
• ROB 64 and Andrew (both were voiced by Daisuke Sakaguchi in SF64, now they're both voiced by Yusuke Numata)

According to Takaya Imamura in a Nintendo Dream interview regarding Star Fox Assault, Fox's new voice was meant to represent a middle ground between Steve Malpass' nasal sounding voice from Star Fox Adventures and Shinobu Satouchi's voice from Star Fox 64. Apparently, Satouchi was saddened when he discovered that he'd be returning to only reprise his role as Leon in Star Fox: Assault.

Despite the English version of Melee using Star Fox Adventures' voice cast in the game's Corneria and Venom stages, the Japanese version uses all of the original Star Fox 64 voice actors. Shinobu Satouchi, Hisao Egawa, Kyoko Tongu and Tomohisa Aso all reprise their roles as Fox, Falco, Slippy and Peppy respectively. The former two's voice clips are also used for Fox and Falco as fighters even abroad.

In Star Fox: Assault's campaign, it is revealed by Beltino Toad, Slippy's father, that the Aparoids had already attacked the Lylat System 17 years prior, where an entire Cornerian fleet was destroyed by a single Aparoid, the same type that destroyed Oikonny's flagship and attacked the Star Fox team on Fortuna.

In a 2011 Nintendo Dream magazine interview with Takaya Imamura, he explained that rather than having the Aparoids suddenly appear, he felt that it would be better have something that was already there in the past so there would be a connection and give the story more depth. This is also why it was decided to have Beltino, who was previously stated to have worked for Space Dynamics in ancillary material for Star Fox 64, to be in charge of the Cornerian army by the time of the events of Star Fox: Assault.

Imamura explains that, with Beltino being a genius scientist, he was doing various military commissions and Space Dynamics work in the form of a commissioned employee over the years, explaining how he fought against the Aparoids as apart of the Cornerian Army 17 years priors, later joined up with Space Dynamics by the time of Star Fox 64, and then eventually returned to the Cornerian Army by the time of Star Fox: Assault.

The official Japanese Star Fox 64 guidebook reveals that the Great Fox's creation by Space Dynamics was commissioned by Fox's father, James McCloud, who was involved in its design from the planning stage. Its enormous cost incurred in its construction resulted in James taking out an 80-year mortgage to purchase it, a debt that Fox is still trying to repay to this day.

This information also appeared in western material, such as the official western Star Fox 64 website and also the Star Fox 64 Official Player's Guide, and was also mentioned again in a 2011 Nintendo Dream magazine interview with the development staff of Star Fox 64 3D, where Takaya Imamura reveals that the Great Fox was taken out to the original Star Fox team's investigation on Venom that resulted in James' death.

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 go-to term for the initial conflict of the Star Fox series, as told in three different installments (Star Fox on SNES, Star Fox 64, and Star Fox Zero), is the "Lylat Wars". This name originates from the original PAL release of Star Fox 64, where it was renamed to Lylat Wars due to trademark issues (similarly to why the first Star Fox was renamed to "Starwing" there as well). In comparison, its 3DS remake, Star Fox 64 3D, would retain the Star Fox 64 moniker in all regions. Nintendo would later actually canonize the "Lylat Wars" moniker as the official name of the conflict against Andross' forces in the opening prologue to Star Fox Zero.

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:

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.

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.