StarFox is a classic rail shooter game that was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in 1993. It is known for its innovative use of the SNES's Super FX graphics chip, which allowed for 3D graphics and effects in a console game. Players control Fox McCloud and his team of anthropomorphic animals as they pilot their spaceships through various levels, battling enemy ships and bosses.

@FullCup

Star Fox

It's Star Fox everyone. (Two separate words! Reeeeee!)

Back before animal characters were indicative of a certain set of fetishes, Star Fox hit the scene with a bang in the late stages of the Super Nintendo. While arcade machines and PC Master Race had experienced 3D before, this game is generally considered to be the first case of rendered polygonal graphics on a home console. This was not possible without the Super FX chip embedded in the Star Fox cartridge, which contained more processing horsepower than the SNES itself. (Kind of makes the console it plugs into a bit of a joke as some sort of DRM machine.)

However, even with the turbo charged chip, Star Fox found itself floundering around 20 frames to even as low as 12 frames per second as opposed to the targeted 30. The heavy calculations involved in rendering full polygons led to heavy slowdown when more enemies appeared on screen.

And that's why we're not playing vanilla Star Fox.

With a little time, Nintendo would produce the Super FX2 chip - harder, better, faster, stronger. This is the chip that brought Doom to the SNES. Last year, a modder was able to substitute the workings of the Super FX chip in the Star Fox ROM with the FX2 chip, which means more consistent emulation at 30FPS and only a few slowdowns on the more intensely polygonal sequences. We will be playing with this modded version.

As you can expect, this messes with the intended balancing of the original, and some of the background logic even gets sped up. This will be a smoother, faster, and more difficult Star Fox than you've played before. The rules are pretty simple. There are three default routes in Star Fox: Level 1 (Easy), Level 2 (Moderate), and Level 3 (Hard).

Win Conditions: Beat the final boss on all three routes, or record your farthest progress on each. You can play them in any order.
Tiebreakers: Equal progress on harder difficulties beats equal progress on lower difficulties. Teammates (You start with 3.) surviving at the end of each route will be a secondary tiebreaker. Fewer total player deaths will tiebreak after that. Time will be the final determiner if things get really dicey.
Restrictions: Do not use the secret black hole shortcut to jump from Level 1 to Level 2. It's unlikely anyone will perform this by mistake. But if you know how, then don't.

Trippy slot machine ending is funny, but there is no reward for completing it.

1st) FullCup - Progress: Easy - 6 / 3 | Medium - 6 / 3 | Hard - 7 / 3 - Deaths: 60 - Time: 04:19:49
2nd) Lovenfloofen - Progress: Easy - 6 / 3 | Medium - 6 / 3 | Hard - 2 / 3 - Deaths: 21 - Time: 03:54:41
3rd) Marcman_59 - Progress: Easy - 6 / 3 | Medium - 6 / 3 | Hard - 2 / 3 - Deaths: 36 - Time: 02:26:09
4th) ReturnOfOctobot - Progress: Easy - 6 / 3 | Medium - 6 / 3 | Hard - 1 / 3 - Deaths: 14 - Time: 03:23:54
5th) Quantum_P1 - Progress: Easy - 6 / 3 | Medium - 6 / 3 | Hard - 0 / 0 - Deaths: 96 - Time: 05:00:00
6th) Stephen's Rocket - Progress: Easy - 6 / 1 | Medium - 6 / 3 | Hard - 0 / 0 - Deaths: 89 - Time: 04:57:38
7th) Deccyf - Progress: Easy - 6 / 3 | Medium - 3 / 2 | Hard - 1 / 3 - Deaths: 62 - Time: 04:11:05
8th) Garlips - Progress: Easy - 6 / 3 | Medium - 2 / 3 | Hard - 1 / 3 - Deaths: 61 - Time: 03:58:29
9th) Tater84 - Progress: Easy - 5 / 3 | Medium - 0 / 0 | Hard - 0 / 0 - Deaths: 19 - Time: 03:30:05
10th) MrMattInternet - Progress: Easy - 5 / 3 | Medium - 0 / 0 | Hard - 0 / 0 - Deaths: 24 - Time: 02:02:00
11th) 16bit_hyper_turbo - Progress: Easy - 4 / 2 | Medium - 0 / 0 | Hard - 0 / 0 - Deaths: 57 - Time: 05:00:00
12th) Stormfeather - Progress: Easy - 3 / 3 | Medium - 0 / 0 | Hard - 0 / 0 - Deaths: 19 - Time: 01:24:10

@Return Of Octobot

The Council of Struggle's Officially Licensed Fusha Cover Band (The Octo-Fusions) Proudly Presents: Star Fox! A Recap

Space - It seems to go on and on forever, but then you get to the end and a gorilla's face starts spitting bath tiles at you. And that's how you play the game!

@Full Cup's excellent nomination finally saw our Strugglebugs attempting a flight simulator (in SPACE!) and set up an enthralling opportunity for @Marcman59* to finally drop some goddamn points. Naturally it was he whose cup hath runneth over that set the impossibly high bar (can I even say that anymore?) crushing Andross' dreams of domination thrice over with nary a scratch on Slippy Toad's windscreen.

The stage was set for a two way danse macabre to determine who took the bronze medal - in the dirty brown corner stood @Lovenfloofen, hero to those who enjoy delightful news broadcasts mixed in with Command and Conquer. In the other, equally dirty brown corner is reigning (defending) champion @Marcman59*, a man who once confessed to me that the only thing he hates more than Real Time Strategy games is washing his armpits.* Thankfully it was the squeaky-clean Floof machine that won the day, equalling Marc's score but doing so with fewer deaths.

Then I came fifth.

There was no shame in the houses of @quantum_P1 and @Stephen's Rocket, who conquered the first two of three routes to total victory, nor with @Deccyf and @Garlips, who finished one. Nevertheless, we applaud @Tater84, Shadowman, @Stormfeather and the debuting @16bit_hyper_turbo for their considerable efforts.