Star Fox (universe): Difference between revisions

The '''Star Fox universe''' refers to the ''Smash Bros.'' series' collection of characters, stages, and properties that hail from Nintendo's ''Star Fox'' series of on-rails space shooter video games. They are developed by various companies such as Rare, Namco and Q-Games and are published by Nintendo. The series takes place in a ''Star Wars''-like galaxy whose characters are a diverse cast of anthropomorphic animals. The games in the series generally revolve around an interstellar mercenary team named Star Fox, consisting of the Arwing pilots [[Fox McCloud]], [[Falco Lombardi]], [[Peppy Hare]], [[Slippy Toad]], [[Krystal]], and [[ROB 64]] from the outset, and the team is assigned to combat forces that spontaneously threaten the galaxy.

The original ''[[lylatwiki:Star Fox (game)|Star Fox]]'' (renamed ''Starwing'' in [[PAL]] countries for trademark reasons) was released in 1993 for the SNES, and it was heavily hyped and garnered much critical acclaim for its then-revolutionary feature: 3-dimensional polygon-based graphics, which was uncommon and new for a console video game at the time, allowing for obstacle-course gameplay presented in the third person in 3D environments. It was made possible by the game cart's Super FX chip, a co-processor used to accelerate graphics display. While the game was very successful, in 1997 the franchise got its official canonical start with the immensely acclaimed and successful ''[[Star Fox 64]]'' (''Lylat Wars'' in PAL countries) for [[Nintendo 64]], which was, to some extent, essentially a redesigned and upgraded version of the previous game. Featuring a revised and better-designed on-rails 3D space-shooting system, along with better visuals and a cinematic storyline driven by voice acting which reviewers considered impressive, ''Star Fox 64'' was noted as an instant classic for its time and was the second-best-selling game of 1997, behind ''[[supermariowiki:Mario Kart 64|Mario Kart 64]]''. The game also included a [[Rumble|Rumble Pak]] for the Nintendo 64 controller and was the first game to support it. The characters, world, and storyline were rewritten and made the start of ''Star Fox'' series continuity, and it remains one of the most popular games in the series. This game was remade in 2011 for the [[3DS]] under the name ''Star Fox 64 3D'' with a multiplayer "Battle Mode" and the ability to freely play any level one has already traversed in Story Mode, with a high score system and medals awarded for high scores.

The franchise underwent a 5-year hiatus, during which main series character [[Fox McCloud]] was featured in 1999's ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' for the Nintendo 64 as a playable character, and in 2001, he and series co-star [[Falco Lombardi]] were featured as playable characters in the sequel ''[[Super Smash Bros. Melee]]''. The franchise returned to the video game mainstream through unusual circumstances: British developer Rare, creator of the ''Donkey Kong Country'' series and subsequent franchise, was developing a 3D ''[[Zelda universe|Zelda]]''-style adventure game for the Nintendo 64 titled ''Dinosaur Planet'' featuring anthropomorphic animal characters, which Rare canceled far into development. Nintendo president Shigeru Miyamoto looked at the game's content and noted similarities of character design to the ''Star Fox'' series, so it was decided that it be redesigned into what would become ''[[lylatwiki:Star Fox Adventures|Star Fox Adventures]]'' for the [[Nintendo GameCube]] in 2002. Set eight years after ''Star Fox 64'', the game was a dramatic departure for the franchise and featured immensely praised graphics and new characters such as female fox [[Krystal]] and the dinosaur Prince Tricky. Its reviews ranged from glowing to mediocre, however.