Star Fox 2’s Lead Programmer Is As Surprised As Anybody It’s Finally Coming Out
06/27/2017 10:10 pm EDT
During the early-90s Dylan Cuthbert was living every Nintendo fan's dream. He was one of the very few non-Japanese devs working at Nintendo, and got to interact daily with legends like Shigeru Miyamoto. Cuthbert was a British whiz kid, who helped create the SNES Super FX chip and served as lead programmer for both Star Fox and Star Fox 2. In later years, he programmed Blasto for the PlayStation, and founded Q-Games, makers of the PixelJunk series. You can see him sticking out like sore thumb in this Star Fox 2 development team photo:
Despite his integral, longstanding association with the Star Fox series, Cuthbert had no idea Nintendo was finally going to release Star Fox 2 as part of the SNES Classic Edition. Here's what he had to say when reached for comment by Kotaku…
"It made my day. I'm totally weirded out and totally psyched. I mean, I had completely given up on the chance that Star Fox 2 might come out. I spent two years of hard work making it and loved every minute. Finally, people get to see all the little cool tweaks and things, all the touches and special ideas we threw in there. This game had so much experimentation at the start and that really shows in some of the encounters you'll come across."
For those confused, we're not talking about Star Fox 64 here. Star Fox 2 was a totally separate game designed, and completed, for the SNES, but never released. Ultimately, Nintendo canned it as it would have been late 1995 by the time the game hit store shelves, and Miyamoto felt it would look dated beside Nintendo's upcoming slate of 3D games for the N64.
Thankfully, Nintendo finally reconsidered its position, and Cuthbert and the rest of the core Star Fox 2 development team got together for a little "launch party" (thanks to Huebomb on Reddit for the picture).
Aw, now I feel bad for now putting Star Fox 2 in a higher tier.
The SNES Classic Edition launches on September 29 at an MSRP of $80. You can check out the full list of games packed into the system, right here.
[via Kotaku]
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