Star Fox
Star Fox is a 1993 rail-shooter developed by Nintendo EAD with Argonaut Software (using the Super FX chip for polygonal 3D graphics) for the SNES. Players fly Fox McCloud's Arwing fighter for the Star Fox mercenary team, fighting through the Lylat system to reach the planet Venom, where the primate scientist Andross has holed himself up. Each level auto-scrolls Fox's Arwing forward along a fixed flight path toward an "Enemy Force Commander" (boss) at the end of the stage; the player has free movement within the scrolling corridor to dodge obstacles and enemy fire.
Availability: Nintendo Switch Online — Super Nintendo Entertainment System app (Nintendo Classics)
This guide documents the game's main progression and structure; some specific details are still being verified and are noted where relevant.
Controls
Per the official SNES instruction manual's default Control Type A: the A button fires and then detonates the Nova Bomb (press once to fire, again to detonate); the B button activates the Retro-rocket for temporary deceleration/braking; the X button triggers a temporary Speed Boost; the Y button fires the Laser Blaster; the L and R shoulder buttons roll the ship left and right respectively. Control Types B, C, and D remap some of these (Types B/D swap the Laser Blaster and Retro-rocket between B/Y; Type C inverts vertical pitch controls). Pressing L or R twice in rapid succession performs a full barrel roll, which can deflect incoming enemy lasers and shake off enemies clinging to the Arwing.
Modes / Route Structure
From the start of a playthrough, the player chooses one of three routes, all beginning at Corneria and ending at Venom, but differing in the stages between: Route 1 (easiest), Route 2 (medium), and Route 3 (hardest, and the only route with seven levels instead of six). On the easy route, the team travels to the Asteroid Belt to destroy the Rock Crusher, attacks the Andross Space Armada and its Atomic Base, and destroys the Dancing Insector at the Battle Base Meteor. On the medium route, they go to Sector X to destroy the Rock Crusher, recapture a weather-control base and defeat the corrupted Professor Hangar at Titania, and save Sector Y's undersea life by defeating the Plasma Hydra. On the hard route, they destroy the Blade Barrier in the Asteroid Field, defeat Andross's mutated Monarch Dodora at Fortuna, destroy an Atomic Base II at Sector Z, and finally destroy the Spinning Core at Macbeth to stop a Venomian army buildup. The player is accompanied throughout by three computer-controlled wingmen — Peppy Hare, Slippy Toad, and Falco Lombardi — who periodically call for help; ignoring their calls can result in them taking damage or being shot down.
Progression / Required Objectives
The Arwing sustains damage via a depleting shield and, separately, locational wing damage — if the wings repeatedly clip obstacles or terrain, they can break off, degrading handling and disabling weapon upgrades for the rest of that life. Because route choice is typically made (in the original SNES release) based on in-flight performance during the early levels rather than a menu choice up front, reliably reaching the harder, more content-rich Route 3 requires strong accuracy and ring/medal performance in the initial stage(s) rather than a simple selection.
Completion Path
- Start at Corneria regardless of chosen route.
- Clear the route-specific stages (six on Routes 1–2, seven on Route 3).
- Reach Venom and defeat Andross to complete the game.
Still confirming
- The exact in-game mechanism/thresholds for how route selection is determined (score, medal count, or a direct fork choice) was not independently confirmed to full precision in this pass.
- Specific final-boss mechanics for the Andross encounter (his attack patterns/phases) were not verified from a citable source and are omitted rather than guessed.