Starfox 2: Beta VS Final Differences

[Robert Monroe]

The SNES classic mini has been out for a while now (and the SF2 it included has had its ROM leaked on the net...), so I think its a good time as ever to stir up some talk about the differences between versions, as the SFO Discord has been pretty chatty about it lately.

Now to note there are two versions of the beta released:

One that looks like this, which uses an in-dev title screen and was still in Japanese beyond the menus

And this one, which was fanpatched to clean up some graphical bugs and errors as well as making the title screen look more professional.

 

Anyway, from my playing of the final and the Beta (I've played both the patched and unpatched one), there's a LOT of differences going on. Namely...

1: Expert is now locked! To unlock expert, you need to score at least 180 000 points on Hard, earning you a high B rating (B+). Speaking of scores, however...

2: That's been changed, too! For the worse imo, the older screen had more flair and flash. New one gives a bit more information (such as your points earned from each objective and the total time you're allowed) and doesn't list your total missile and dogfight skirmishes, and replaces the 1-2-3 star and Mario medal scoring with an E/D/C/B/A score rank (and awarding a Star for a perfect score).

3: Going into actual gameplay changes now, the charge shot does not lock on and seek by default. This is one of the many changes that makes the final Starfox 2 much more difficult than its beta (which likely only had lockons enabled for playtesting purposes). To unlock the homing capability of the charge shot in the final, you have to find all the Pepper coins for that difficulty. 13 on Normal, 19 on Hard, 20 on Expert!

4: Related to point 3, Pepper coins have a functionality now. As stated before, they unlock the homing ability of your charge shots (and finding all 52 of them changes the title screen ala Star Fox 64).

5: Infamously in the beta as well, Faye and Miyu were a cut above the other characters due to their fast charging shots (which could lock on) but also came with twin blasters! This was also likely a carryover of the beta having things enabled for playtesting, as now Faye and Miyu are stuck with the single laser like everyone else. Instead...

6: Double lasers can be unlocked for EVERYONE - with some work. Getting an Star (S) rank unlocks permanent twin blasters for the characters you completed the game as - so a minimum of 3 replays with S ranks is needed to unlock twin blasters on all six characters. S ranks can only be obtained on Expert difficulty.

7: Corneria's damage values have been tweaked all around. The most infamous of changes is the Planet Cannon fired by the battleships - in the beta, they did a piddly, PIDDLY, 3% damage. Now they do a whopping 50% - capable of taking out Corneria in two hits! Missiles have also been tweaked, with Towers and Turtles still doing around 20% damage, but the single and spread missiles being nerfed to do much less.

8: Boss health bars have been standardized across difficulties. On the beta, bosses like Space Blade would have tiny HP bars even on Expert, now HP bars are universal for each difficulty: small on normal, medium on hard, and long on Expert. Star Wolf fights are excluded as their HP bars did this already on the beta.

9: The voiced line when you beat the game, "Adios Andorf" is now "Adios Andross". Localization! :V

 

I'm certain there are more differences than these, if anyone finds more please share them!

[Ala1n-J]

I think I got one. In the beta, all ending credits have a green/blue space background in the enemies showcase. In the final game, it only appears in the Expert ending. Normal has a blue/red background and Hard has a desaturated (greyish) background.

Here are vids for each version.

Beta (Normal) https://youtu.be/_Xnf_QGeDVg?t=24m6s
Final (Normal) https://youtu.be/kUC0bNr1WpQ?t=31m17s

Beta (Hard) https://youtu.be/J08tIhCvhes?t=32m27s
Final (Hard) https://youtu.be/lDU6L5PY3Kk?t=57m20s

 

[Patch93]

To be honest, I actually prefer the finalized results screen over the beta one. The latter might have had more visual flair to it, but the former is much more descriptive on how well you did, and makes it clear that most of your score comes from how little damage Corneria takes and especially how fast you beat the game, as well as making it clear that you get an extra 10,000 point bonus if you don't lose a pilot.