Star Fox | Code Like It's 198x

“This is the most astonishing console game I have ever seen!” Nintendo Magazine System told its readers in March 1993. Star Fox flew a spaceship through cities, asteroid fields and enemy battleships drawn in solid polygons, on a console built for flat sprites and scrolling backgrounds. The Super NES could not do that alone. The cartridge carried a second processor, the Super FX, designed by the London company Argonaut, and the game was made by Argonaut’s programmers working inside Nintendo’s offices in Kyoto with Shigeru Miyamoto’s team. In Europe it came out as Starwing.

Fast facts

Developer: Nintendo, under Shigeru Miyamoto, directed by Katsuya Eguchi, with Argonaut Software.
Publisher: Nintendo.
Released: Japan, February 1993; North America, March 1993; Europe, as Starwing, June 1993.
Hardware: Super NES, with the Super FX chip in the cartridge.
Price: ¥9,800 in Japan; £49.95 in Britain.
Sales: about four million copies.

From NESGlider to Star Fox

Argonaut reached Nintendo through 3D. Its founder, Jez San, had made his name with Starglider in 1986, and his team got 3D graphics running on the Game Boy. “They immediately flew me to Japan to meet with them,” San told Retro Gamer in 2006. Argonaut showed Nintendo a Nintendo Entertainment System version of Starglider, codenamed NESGlider, and moved it to the Super Famicom within a week of receiving one. “Our original idea was to do something not unlike the Super FX chip, but actually for the NES,” San told Super Play in 1993. “This was back in 1990.”

The chip became the Super FX, and the game changed on the way. Nintendo judged NESGlider “a bit too ‘cult’”, San said in 1994: “To get a 3D game to appeal to people you have to spend time introducing them to the 3D concept and easing them in gently, which is of course the whole idea behind StarFox. We limited your movement to more or less straight ahead.” He told Super Play that Argonaut’s first plan had been a world for the player to explore, but that Nintendo wanted its first Super FX game to appeal to players of all kinds.

Who made what

The work was split between two countries. Four of Argonaut’s London staff, Dylan Cuthbert, Krister Wombell, Giles Goddard and later Colin Reed, moved into a small office inside Nintendo in Kyoto, “working directly for Miyamoto”, San said, while the chip and the 3D software were built in England. “We did most of the programming and all of the technology, and Nintendo did most of the design. They also did all of the characters.” Nintendo’s staff designed the stages, helped by a scripting system Argonaut’s programmers wrote for them. San found Miyamoto’s method unusual: “He doesn’t like to design games in advance. He subscribes to the ‘try something, then keep tuning, then try something else’” way of working.

The game

The player flies Fox McCloud’s Arwing fighter for the Star Fox team: Fox, Falco, Peppy and Slippy, animal pilots whose faces and messages appear on the radio as they fly alongside. The story sends them from their home planet, Corneria, to Venom, the base of the villain Andross. Three routes lead there, of rising difficulty, through planet surfaces, space battles, asteroid belts and the insides of enemy battleships, each ending with a large boss. The Arwing’s laser could be upgraded to twin wing-mounted guns, it carried a few bombs, and its shields took hits until they ran out.

The Super FX made this possible, but the Super NES still set limits. The first chips ran at 10.74 MHz, which Nintendo’s development manual described as “six times as fast as the Super NES CPU”. The chip drew each frame into the cartridge’s RAM, and the console then copied it to video memory. San admitted to Super Play that the frame rate “changes quite a lot throughout the game”, while claiming the result was “faster than a 286 PC, and about on a par with a 386 PC”. Before the chip, he told Edge in 1998, the game had run at one frame a second.

Reception

Nintendo Magazine System reviewed an import copy in March 1993 and later gave the score as 96%. Its reviewers thought the game resembled Namco’s arcade Star Blade and Starglider, and one of them, Angus Swan, called it “the most ambitious and accomplished project yet attempted on the Super NES - and a milestone in console 3D games”. Super Play gave it 93%. Its preview had called the arrival of the Super FX chip “revolutionary”.

The British version took some time. Nintendo Magazine System reported in April 1993 that the game would come out in May as Starwing at £39.95, then in May that the price would be £49.95 “due to rising costs”. The name had to change because Ariolasoft had already published a game called Starfox on the Commodore 64 in 1987; Computer & Video Games and Retro Gamer both gave that reason. Nintendo later sold a Super NES pack with Starwing in Britain.

The game sold about four million copies, San told Edge in 1998. Its sequel, Star Fox 2, was almost complete but was not released at the time; Nintendo put it out in 2017 on the Super NES Classic Edition.

Later games

The series moved to 3D consoles without Argonaut. Star Fox 64 (1997), called Lylat Wars in Europe, was followed by Star Fox Adventures on the GameCube, first developed by Rare as an unrelated game called Dinosaur Planet, and Star Fox Assault, made by Namco. On 25 June 2026 Nintendo released Star Fox for the Switch 2, a remake of Star Fox 64 developed by Velan Studios.

Sources

Nintendo Magazine System issue 6, March 1993, pp. 18–25: Star Fox review (the team, the routes, the Arwing’s weapons and shields, Star Blade and Starglider; “the most astonishing console game”, “a milestone in console 3D games”).
Nintendo Magazine System issue 7, April 1993: the name change to Starwing, 96%, May release at £39.95. Issue 8, May 1993: the UK price of £49.95.
Nintendo Power issue 44, January 1993: Star Fox as the first Super FX game.
Super Play issue 4, February 1993: the Japanese price of ¥9,800. Issue 6, April 1993: preview (“revolutionary”; three routes). Issue 7, May 1993: review and interview with Jez San by Jason Brookes and Matt Bielby (the NES idea in 1990; the Super Famicom in June 1990; the original plan and Nintendo’s wishes; the frame rate; the 286 and 386). Issue 10, August 1993: 93%.
Super Play Gold, 1993: the Super NES Starwing pack.
Edge issue 7, April 1994: interview with Jez San (NESGlider, “a bit too ‘cult’”, “more or less straight ahead”).
Edge issue 62, September 1998, pp. 23–27: “Audience with Jez San” (one frame a second without the chip; four million copies).
“The Making of Starfox”, Retro Gamer issue 28, 2006, pp. 27–30: San’s trip to Japan, NESGlider, the Kyoto team, Katsuya Eguchi, the division of work, Miyamoto’s methods, the Starwing name, the UK pack, the later games.
Computer & Video Games issue 174, May 1996, p. 119: Starwing renamed because of Ariolasoft’s Starfox.
Commodore Disk User vol. 1 no. 2, January 1988, p. 14: review of Starfox on the Commodore 64 (Reaktor/Ariolasoft, £12.99).
Nintendo, Super NES Development Manual, Book II: the Super FX at 10.74 MHz; bitmap emulation into cartridge RAM.
“Argonaut Games”, Wikipedia (web, secondary): Star Fox 2’s release in 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argonaut_Games
“Star Fox (1993 video game)”, Wikipedia (web, secondary): release days by region. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fox_(1993_video_game)
“Star Fox” (Switch 2), Nintendo Life game page (web, secondary): the 2026 remake of Star Fox 64 by Velan Studios. https://www.nintendolife.com/games/nintendo-switch-2/star-fox
Nintendo, “Star Fox | Nintendo Switch 2” product page (web, secondary): release date of 25 June 2026. https://www.nintendo.com/my/games/switch2/abgwa/index.html