Video description:
At E3 1996 Nintendo distributed a VHS tape with B-roll of various upcoming Nintendo 64 titles. The last of these was Star Fox 64. Join John Rairdin for the highest quality look we've ever had at this early glimpse of Star Fox 64.
Full tape: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/6bcb8cf1-c1fe-4239-a3ff-0e79a9ca5b2d (Original Date: May 14, 1996)
::: spoiler Full video transcript
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[music]
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Howdy everybody, John Raen here for the Video Game History Foundation. And you may have seen recently that we posted a massive collection centered around the
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history of E3. If you haven't seen Phil's video detailing sort of an overview of everything that's in that collection, I highly recommend you check
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it out. But for me personally, obviously with my interest, the first thing I wanted to find was some Star Fox stuff.
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And find it I did. So today we're going to take a look at this. This is a press kit that Nintendo distributed with
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direct feed capture of various games in development for the Nintendo 64. And one of them is Star Fox. Now to be clear, this footage has appeared online before,
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but we're going a bit further with the way we digitize our tapes than your average person is going to go. So, I can say very confidently, having watched,
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I'm pretty sure, every capture of this tape that is currently online, this is the highest quality version you will have ever seen. I should also note that
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there isn't any sound in this demo footage, which is honestly kind of weird cuz like the other demos on this tape do have sound, but this one does not. So, anyway, I've thrown in some background
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music just so that you and I don't have to sit in absolute silence while we watch it. But I'm going to roll it now.
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Take a look and I'll be back at the end to dig in to some details you might have missed.
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[music]
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[music]
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Heat. Heat. Heat.
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[music] Heat.
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[music]
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Heat.
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[music]
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[music] Heat.
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Hey, welcome back. So, the first thing that I noticed when I watched this footage, and this is something that I had seen in lower quality versions as well, is that there's sort of these
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ghosting artifacts behind the Rwing and as the buildings move by. And initially, I had always assumed that this was [music] just a sort of poor quality
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capture, either from the person digitizing the tape or maybe at the capture source. But now that I'm able to see this in a much higher quality
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version, I realized I'm actually able to make out individual samples on that blur and realize that it's an intentional
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[music]
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effect put there by the developers.
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You'll see similar effects to this in different games from this sort of mid to late '90s period. It was an early attempt at motion blur that sort of just
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sampled multiple frames together, just sort of gradually fading the old ones out. It doesn't look great, but it was the mid 90s and they were doing their
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best to be cinematic. So, it seems like at this point there was an experiment to try doing this for maybe the entirety of
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Star Fox 64 to add this motion blur to the entire game, which I'm glad they didn't. Uh, [laughter] but it is an
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interesting experiment and they did wind up using this effect in the final game, just not for the entire thing. If you ever did the warp tunnels between Medio
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and Kina or sector X and sector Z, uh you would have seen this effect. Though there are sort of intentionally using it like artistically, they're sort of
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warping the end result to get this sort of tiny wimy warpy thingy. Uh but still it does appear in the final game, just not quite in this context. If we look at
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the level itself, this is Corneria, the first level of the game, but bears very little resemblance to what is in the final game. At this point in
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development, the story was that Andros had created some sort of artificial blizzard on Corneria, and that's why it's all covered in snow. This is
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actually a concept that's sort of pulled from the original Star Fox on Titania, where Andros had messed with the weather control device on that planet and made
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it snow and then you had to go down and shoot the weather control device and that fixed it like it always does. It's a concept that was also later used in
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Star Fox Assault for Facina where you had to go down and mess with a weather control. That's not really what we're talking about. I should focus on the topic at hand. Anyway, that's why it's
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snowy. But as we get to the boss here, we see something that I think is very interesting. Now, this boss is in the final game. It's the mission complete
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boss for Corneria, seemingly just like it is here. In the final game, it's an all-range mode battle. It's your first encounter with all range mode where you
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can fly freely in any direction. At this point, it seems like maybe all range mode hadn't fully been implemented yet.
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So instead, they're doing these sort of strafing runs. The Rwing flies past the boss and then does this pre-animated turn to come back at him. This is also a
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concept taken from the original Star Fox. It's something they did in exactly one boss fight in that game against the Great Commander on the hard mode route
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to Venom. The Great Commander is sort of like this big carrier that you would make strafing runs over and then as you go away, your Rwing turns and comes
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back. It was sort of like proto all range mode cuz obviously that game didn't have it. And it seems like at this point they were doing the exact same thing here. Interestingly, this did
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cause some press at the time to think that you could literally turn and fly backwards through the entire level because of the way this is presented.
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They thought that this was a player controlled thing where you would turn and just go backwards the whole way.
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Obviously, now it's pretty obvious that wasn't how it's working. They're using a thing from Super Nintendo Star Fox to sort of be a placeholder for what would eventually become all range mode. But that's all I've got for this short clip.
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You can check out this entire tape on our archive at archive.gamehistory.org.
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It's got some other cool stuff on there, including an early N64 version of Kirby Air Riders, which I think is pretty awesome. There is a ton of other stuff
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for that collection as well, including a bunch of VHS tapes of just wandering the show floor, photographs, ephemera from the event itself. It is a truly massive
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collection. Words do it no justice. Once again, check out Phil's video that we recently released that just sort of covers the entire thing if you're curious to [music] learn more. Anyway,
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I'm going to dive back into that collection. See what other cool stuff I can find. And this probably won't be the last time you'll hear from us about it.
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We're also curious to know what you find. So, if you do see something cool in that collection, you can leave a comment here or tag us on your social
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media platform of choice using the handles on screen. But once again, my name's John Ren. Thank you very much for watching and I will see you next time.
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