Star Fox 2 is a rail shooter video game developed by Nintendo and Argonaut Software and published by Nintendo. Originally developed for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it was completed in 1995 but did not see an official release until 2017 on the Super NES Classic Edition. Like the original Star Fox (1993), Star Fox 2 pushed the graphical capabilities of the SNES with Argonaut's Super FX chip. Dylan Cuthbert was lead programmer, with Shigeru Miyamoto returning as producer and Katsuya Eguchi as director. Star Fox 2 introduces semi-real-time gameplay, new ship types, new playable characters, and a more advanced 3D game engine. The story continues the battle against Emperor Andross, who seeks to destroy the Lylat system. By 1995, 3D technology was advancing quickly and the 3D game market was expanding, with competition from the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn consoles. Concerned that the 16-bit graphics of Star Fox 2 would compare poorly against newer games, Nintendo instead prioritized its upcoming Nintendo 64 console. The Nintendo 64 game Star Fox 64 (1997) incorporated some concepts introduced in Star Fox 2. In the years after the cancellation, various prototype ROM images were leaked online. In 2017, Star Fox 2 was officially released for the first time as one of 21 games included in the Super NES Classic Edition. In 2019, it became available for the Nintendo Switch to subscribers of the Nintendo Switch Online service. Gameplay Instead of following mostly linear paths inside predefined missions as in Star Fox, the player moves a team of two ships freely around a map screen that represents the Lylat system. When the player's ships make contact with enemy forces, the game switches to an action perspective, piloting the Arwing ship directly with controls and gameplay similar to the first Star Fox. When the player clears the specified objectives, they are taken back to the map screen to select a new destination. The objective is to beat all enemy forces present in the map while defending planet Corneria, preventing its damage level from reaching 100%. The player must intercept fighters and incoming IPBMs (interplanetary ballistic missiles), while also dealing with battleships, which deploy more fighter squadrons, and planetary bases, which fire IPBMs. If Corneria's damage level reaches 100% or the player runs out of extra ships, the game ends. General Pepper employs a satellite that can shoot down enemies on a limited basis; the