Star Fox

Prototype Info Prerelease Info Data

Unused Graphics#

Hidden inside the game at 0x1099(US) is a 2BPP font that does not get used by the game, but was used for the debug menus, such as the one seen in the debug build prototypes that were leaked in the 2020 Nintendo Gigaleak.

Unused Text#

To do: Verify that "I can't tell which is real" doesn't occur in the game, as opposed to accidentally being left out of Matheson's script.

Dialogue#

All of these are in-game dialogue. The lines were identified as unused by their absence (or dummied out status) in William Matheson's game script.

Debugging Text#

A couple texts for debug menus can be seen inside the US ROM at the following addresses. This notably mentions several features and weapons not in the final game.

0x1849:

HOVER 1
TANK
WALKER 1
REL AXIS 1
REL AXIS 2
DEMO
GAME PAUSED
REL AXIS

0x1FF1:

LOADING
BAY EMPTY
NULL
MISSILE1
MISSILE2
TLASER
HMISSILE
TM GUN
MACH GUN
LASER
TRILASER
SHOT GUN

Debug Code#

At the beginning of the ROM is some unused code likely used early in development. This code loops through what appears to be debugging code and loads some otherwise unused models, graphics, and color tables. However, the code itself is effectively non-functioning. This is likely a leftover from when the game was a tech demo from Argonaut called X.

Regional Differences#

To do: There's a few more differences that can be found from this webpage: http://www.anthrofox.org/starfox/versions/ Apparently, at least the earlier North American version has a scoring bug on one or two stages. US Rev 2 should be documented as well.

Title Screen#

Japan	US	US Rev. 1	Europe

For whatever reason, nearly every version of the game has a different color on the title screen logo — the original Japanese release has grayish blue, the first North American release instead has bright red, and the North American revision changed it to a more dull red. In both instances, the North American versions also have a more subtle gradient. Also note that the Japanese logo has larger letters than the North American versions. Effectively, the US logo is styled as "Star Fox" or "StarFox", while the Japanese logo is styled as "Starfox" or "STARFOX".

The European version features the unique Starwing title with relatively bright coloring. Jez San, one of the game's developers, sheds some light on the name change:

[Nintendo] said there was a German company called StarVox and that in a thick German accent, Star Fox sounded too much like StarVox. So to avoid a court case that might risk delaying the launch of the game, they changed the name.
Personally, I think both companies overreacted and there was no chance that Star Fox and StarVox would have created confusion between the two brands.

Controls Screen#

Japan	US	Europe

The SNES controller seen on the controls screen was changed between regions in order to match each region's respective controllers. The Japanese & European controller has colored buttons, while the US controller had purple buttons. The controller itself was also recolored to be more purple in the US version. The blue font in the Japanese version is also a slightly different, "shinier" kind.

Competition Cart Leftover#

All versions besides the Japanese and the initial US version of the game contain text from the score screen of the Super Star Fox Weekend/ StarWing Competition cartridge.

score
SHIELD BONUS
BOMB BONUS

References#