Star Fox 2

Star Fox 2 is a game with an unusual history – Nintendo finished it back in the mid-1990s as a direct sequel to the first Star Fox on the SNES, but canceled its release shortly before launch due to the approaching Nintendo 64 and its more powerful 3D capabilities. The game thus remained officially unavailable for over twenty years, circulating among fans only as leaked work-in-progress builds and recordings from developer copies that spread among collectors and the emulation community.

Star Fox 2 officially got its release only in 2017, when Nintendo bundled it with the SNES Classic Edition mini console as a bonus title available directly in the game menu. Compared to the first game, it offers a more open structure – the player chooses on a solar system map which planet to defend against the enemy Andross, missions unfold in real time even outside the cockpit of the Arwing fighter, a new bipedal unit called Walker is available for ground combat, and overall the game gives the player more freedom than the first game's strictly linear corridors. Enemies also attack the base even outside the player's attention, so it's necessary to plan which front to defend first.

Technically, it's the result of an improved Super FX 2 chip, which allowed denser 3D scenes and more enemy models on screen at once than the SNES was used to from the first game, which was built on the older Super FX chip. Thanks to its release on the SNES Classic Edition, players also get the game exactly as it stood ready for release in 1995, without any additional adjustments for later platforms. It's controlled with a classic SNES controller without any additional peripherals, so the whole experience stays faithful to how the game would have looked had it actually reached store shelves back then.

Why play: It's interesting mainly as a historical curiosity and a direct sequel to the original – it shows where the series on the SNES could have gone had the arrival of a new console generation not stopped it.