Current Events > Makes no sense why Nintendo cancelled Star Fox 2 in 1995

(+) Yeah! (+)

>Game planned to come out in August 1995
>Nintendo: Nah it'll flop because it's on SNES and PlayStation just came out
>Donkey Kong Country 2 still comes out in December 1995 and is the second best selling game in the whole year

Lmao there was no reason not to release Star Fox 2 on SNES as planned

Nintendo made lots of weird decisions. They chose not to release Final Fantasy 2 or 3 on NES because they looked like the same graphics as Final Fantasy 1 and didn't think Americans would buy them

They cancelled it because they were worried it might steal some of Star Fox 64's thunder.

I don't agree with them. I think it would have been fine. But I see why they did it.

I was really hyped for SF2 and was let down by SF64 after all the stuff I had read about SF2. I think I'm the only one in this planet like that everyone, seems to love SF64

FortuneCookie posted...

They cancelled it because they were worried it might steal some of Star Fox 64's thunder.

That makes no sense lol, Star Fox 64 didn't come out until 1997

And Donkey Kong Country 3 still came out in 1996, after the N64 came out, and it still did pretty well

But for some reason Star Fox 2 got canned the previous year

They forgot to make the cartridges for the game and they were just too embarrassed to admit their mistake

VampireCoyote posted...

They forgot to make the cartridges for the game and they were just too embarrassed to admit their mistake

...

It's been 25 years. Who cares?

Adam posted...

That makes no sense lol, Star Fox 64 didn't come out until 1997

They knew they were going to make a Star Fox 64 though. They wanted a pronounced improvement over the original and enough temporal distance to justify it being a reboot instead of a sequel.

But if you go back a generation earlier, there were tons of NES sequels that had SNES sequels or reboots within a year or two of their release. Mega Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, CastleVania, etc. It'd be like cancelling Super Mario Bros. 3 so that people could see what a vast improvement Super Mario World was over the first game.

They really left money on the table with that decision.

jsb0714 posted...

It's been 25 years. Who cares?

A delayed game is a good game eventually, but a cancelled game is heartache forever.

FortuneCookie posted...

They knew they were going to make a Star Fox 64 though.

And surely they knew they would make a Donkey Kong 64 yet they released Donkey Kong 2 in 1995 and 3 in 1996

FortuneCookie posted...

A delayed game is a good game eventually, but a cancelled game is heartache forever.

it didn't even get cancelled, they just held onto the files for decades. At least now it's publically available, even if the snes mini's distribution was bad and NSO sucks

mehmeh1 posted...

it didn't even get cancelled

Its release was cancelled.

I liked Star Fox and Starfox 64 back in the day but its not like Star Fox 2 would have been a game changer.

Even within the genre games that were vastly better than either of those games were coming out on the PC in the same era in reflection. If you were a console kid at the time Star Fox was special but games like Wing Commander, X-wing/Tie Fighter and Freespace were the legends of the 90's at this point in that genre not Star Fox.

Star Fox was dramatically worse than other games in the same genre when it came out. Star Fox 64 was dramatically worse than other games in the same genre when it came out. Star Fox 2 would have been dramatically worse than other games in the same genre as well.

Saying "well if it had come out back then I would still not have been playing the stuff on PC that was way better but maybe mommy would have bought me Star Fox 2 for Christmas and I would have played that and it would have been fun" is a dumb argument in 2022.

This should give a clue:
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fox_64#Development
"By 1995, Miyamoto and team had largely finished development of Star Fox 2 before realizing that its release would require the upgraded Super FX 2 chip, which would increase the cost of the game.[16] Furthermore, newly launched competitor consoles, namely the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation, possessed processing power and graphics capabilities that dwarfed those of the SNES, making Star Fox 2 appear obsolete.[17] Recognizing this and that the Nintendo 64 would launch the following year with significantly increased processing power and graphical capabilities, Miyamoto made the decision to cancel Star Fox 2 in favor of developing a new Star Fox game for the Nintendo 64."

The Donkey Kong Country series didn't require an add-on chip as elaborate and expensive as the Super FX 2 chip. Additionally, DKC being pre-rendered 3D had it still looking decent compared to next-gen offerings. The Super FX 2 chip couldn't get anywhere close to the next-gen system in real-time 3D capabilities. Star Fox 2 barely even had textured polygons.

Star Fox 2 sucks so did we really lose out on anything?

It was always especially a bummer when something had coverage in magazines and stuff and then just didnt come out. Sometimes not come out at all, sometimes maybe just the North American release was pulled. I was a huge Godzilla fan when I was a kid and Nintendo Power had a little preview of the one on one fighter Godzilla game that was coming out hyped! Toys R Us had the little plastic flap with tickets of the game! Super hyped! take it to the register or to the little game booth or whatever and nope, they didnt actually have the game. Didnt find out until years later that the NA release was cancelled. I get it being in Nintendo Power months earlier, but no idea why TRU had the little box panel thing out and tickets to buy the game. :(

1337toothbrush posted...

"By 1995, Miyamoto and team had largely finished development of Star Fox 2 before realizing that its release would require the upgraded Super FX 2 chip, which would increase the cost of the game.[16] Furthermore, newly launched competitor consoles, namely the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation, possessed processing power and graphics capabilities that dwarfed those of the SNES, making Star Fox 2 appear obsolete.[17] Recognizing this and that the Nintendo 64 would launch the following year with significantly increased processing power and graphical capabilities, Miyamoto made the decision to cancel Star Fox 2 in favor of developing a new Star Fox game for the Nintendo 64."

Oh, that makes sense. He made the right call. Gotta suck ass for everyone else who worked on it, though lmao

Adam posted...

Oh, that makes sense. He made the right call. Gotta suck ass for everyone else who worked on it, though lmao

You can't really sell a $80 SNES game when better PS1 games are $40.

it was star fox 2 that used the extra chip

Questionmarktarius posted...

You can't really sell a $80 SNES game when better PS1 games are $40.

I agree that it probably wasn't feasible to release it with the FX chip (if it was proven to be a flop due to the extra cost)... But How do you know they'd sell it for $80? What better games? Can't say software on PS1 is better due to being on stronger hardware.