Well folks, it’s official – after months of rampant speculation, Nintendo finally unveiled the SNES Classic Edition this morning. The mini console will include 21 16-bit classics, from Donkey Kong Country to Super Mario RPG, but perhaps the most surprising and exciting part of Nintendo’s announcement was this:
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“For the first time, players who pick up the system can enjoy the intergalactic adventure Star Fox 2, the sequel to the original Star Fox game that was created during the Super NES era, but never released…anywhere!”
That’s right, Nintendo actually made a Star Fox 2 in the mid-’90s, and I’m not talking about Star Fox 64. 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 it hit stores, and Miyamoto felt it would look dated beside Nintendo’s upcoming slate of 3D games for the N64.
Make no mistake, though: Star Fox 2 was ambitious, and many of its ideas were reused in later Star Fox games. Star Fox 2 featured free-flying, all-range stages, which were later incorporated in Star Fox 64 and the ability to transform Fox’s Arwing into a walker robot, an idea that Nintendo revived 20 years later for Star Fox Zero.
Being that Star Fox 2 was completely finished before it was canceled, a fully playable version of the game leaked onto the internet some years back, but now you can play the long-lost game officially without having to fiddle with emulators! Needless to say, there’s going to be a lot of Nintendo fanatics buying the SNES Classic Edition for Star Fox 2, alone!
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.
