Battleship: The Lost Star Fox 64 Level

[@fgfhjfhjfbhfghf5771]

It's wild to think this probably hasn't been seen by anyone in 27 years

[@constancecovington4282]

And think of how few people saw it originally now because it's on the internet imagine how many more people will see it than the creators ever thought could have happened

[@grdfhrghrggrtwqqu]

Miyamoto shows you his grandship under the table, if you are wise and willing enough to traverse the wretched parts of his mind and hold a dinner conversation with him.

[@constancecovington4282]

@@grdfhrghrggrtwqqu there's no way you two dudes with seemingly random letters for names know each other I mean that would just be crazy right well said brother

[@MrKevin486]

😮

[@kozmosius]

@@grdfhrghrggrtwqqu it packs quite a payload, im sure.

[@DillyzThe1]

seeing people nerd out about starfox 64 makes me happy

[@CoralCopperHead]

Seeing people nerd out about Starfox period makes me happy. Hell, I hate Command as much as the next person, but I'll still smile when someone decides to gush about it (for some unfathomable reason.)

[@DillyzThe1]

@@CoralCopperHead yeah, we're definitely part of a much more niche yet very unique community in terms of nintendo franchises. my pfp has had starfox elements for 5 years and i've always played luigi and fox in smash (with inkling and steve added to that later on), with the reason being that i only play characters i love. one of the reasons i love melee is bc starfox characters kinda shine the brightest among those players. (no pun intended) i should definitely play the later games by now, as i own most nintendo consoles and have played the snes and n64 games a billion times over.

[@lautarogomez9711]

​@@DillyzThe1i don't get it, is that supposed to be a bad thing?

[@DillyzThe1]

@@lautarogomez9711 which part

[@forrestannis909]

Did you know Star Fox 64 has a true path?

[@ZuzNewsReviews]

Think of all the classic dialogue we missed out on!

[@qaz3000]

If french canada we would laught our asses of in middle school with peppi's silly dialogue especially since her name is french for piss😅

[@roddydykes7053]

@@qaz3000her?

[@ArtisChronicles]

​@@qaz3000 ok that actually makes me happy. Piss is a hilarious name

[@qaz3000]

@@ArtisChronicles Yes! Its hilarious lol. Think about it. Piss is saying he'll take care of everything bellow, he sure is gonna😂😭

[@braktorveilleux2623]

They should be 1 or 2 skippy hit for sure

[@TheRoyalSkies]

As a game dev for 14 years and super fan of Starfox 64, here's my hunch. The textures resembling or being borrowed from the Arwing, and Cornerian fighters and the look make it look very similar to the Great-Fox or Cornerian designs in general. I imagine this was intended to function like the equivalent of a "Bad-Guy GreatFox" mothership. It very easily could have been the ship that Star Wolf's team was meant to launch from, and if you look at the double pointed mirror shape of the ship in general, it even resembles the type of shape of the Wolfen and Wolfen 2 are known for. I think this was meant to be the first encounter with Starwolf's team. Phase 1 would have been taking out the exterior defenses. Once you did that, Phase 2 would have been Wolf's team launching out from the ship and engaging yours in a dog fight. And, I think they probably even might have had Great fox in the background shooting at it exchanging fire from a far while this was happening. But obviously, that's a lot to handle for the N64, they probably got time crunched and in the end just didn't have time to fit it in, or make it make sense. Would have been cool though :)

[@ThatGuyNamedRick]

It would have been interesting to see what could have been done with this model. a concept similar to a "Grand Wolf" where the objective would be a mirror darkly to Sector Z with stakes higher than Sector Y. The Ships Nacelles look like they're modeled in a way that signals to the player to destroy the pylons to cut travel, and the bridge is lit up in a way to tell the player to destroy that as well. There also seem to be runways in between the catamaran hulls that could be used to fire missiles or launch enemy fighters as well. I'm guessing this was supposed to be either a previous model for the Katina Saucer, or a scrapped level similar to Katina where you're given allied support as Star Wolf makes their scene.

[@TheRoyalSkies]

@@ThatGuyNamedRick Oh yeah, for sure that would have been sick! I think the runways in between are the giveaway for a function very similar how you in the Arwing can fly in and out of the Great Fox, but I do like the idea of a BIG scrap between you and wolf with bother motherships present on Katina lol

[@KeithCarterEOG]

I like this theory. Would've been dope

[@ExpertDudeYeah]

good theory i agree this is star wolf ship but i also like the idea this battleship had star fox allies to help with a battle

[@ArtisChronicles]

It could've been Wolf's ship, but similarly it could've just been a major asset that Andross would've wanted protected and Wolf's team would've been deployed for it. Either way this is a stage that would've been fun for the player.

[@CappnRob]

A friend of mine and I were having a conversation regarding Battleship and its position in the beta level map, and came with the possible theory that perhaps the battleship itself wasn't the boss, but was an all in need of protection. The modular damage zones thus can be seen as an indicator of how well you're doing, and given in the final game Star Wolf appears to interfere on Bolse, which the same music is used here on, and also appears on Fichina to disrupt the main objective, and the fact that the missile attack was at the end of the hard route, you can see the Battleship as a sort of training wheels mission for all these things: objectives can be failed, Star Wolf can interfere with levels depending on the route you take, and sometimes you have to protect allies. Given the beta level map also lacks Katina (which in the final game also fulfills this role of having an allied objective you need to protect), and Katina and Fichina are both all-range-mode only levels, I think there's some merit to this theory. There's also the fact that while the battleship does resemble, to a degree, the Cannon Betrayer/Salvadora from SF2/Zero, it doesn't really resemble any of the other Venom battleships we see in the final game like Harlocks or Zerams. It could just be that it's using placeholder textures, but in doing so it looks a lot more like the Cornerian battleships you see in the background of the final game's Sector Y.

[@GUNDAMURX73]

I was thinking this too! It kind of seems to me like maybe this was an allied ship protecting Corneria, that Star Fox could save on the hard route where in the normal route it's considered destroyed by Andross's forces. That just feels right to me, you know? Also, I think color scheme does play a bit of a role in this. The accents on the battleship are green, which is a very calming, friendly color. This helps to give it a more friendly, allied identity rather than something more aggressive.

[@KosmonautKong]

I was thinking something similar while I watched this: We already have Katina, an all-range map where one of the goals is to blow up a giant ship, so maybe you'd defend this one instead...but then I remembered Sector Z also does that. So, maybe the scope for this stage just got a little out of hand, which would be unsurprising given how long they played with it, and all the different ideas ended up scattered across the final all-range stages.

[@kabbusses]

I think you're on to something with Star Wolf being on this route. It's strange how in the final game you can go through the hard route or the easy-to-hard route and not meet Star Wolf until you're suddenly dealing with their "new ships" in Hard Venom.

[@CappnRob]

@@kabbusses Indeed. Especially since their appearance at Bolse seems rather odd, and can only occur if you didn't encounter them at Fichina beforehand (or, rather, any you don't defeat at Fichina will appear at Bolse) - the only way to encounter them twice is to go Meteo, then Fichina, then from Fichina either do Solar, MacBeth, then Area 6 or Sector X, warp to Sector Z, then Area 6, to get to the Hard Route Venom stage. Combine that with the fact Sector Z was originally going to be a hyperspace level (that was repurposed into the Meteo/SX warps) and that MacBeth was originally ONLY on the hard Route and that Area 6 was going to be the missile attack that became SZ in the final game, and the fact you can see those missiles being transported by the train in the final game's MacBeth, you really get the idea that Star Wolf was meant to show up a lot more until things got compressed slightly.

[@zacharyhicks6237]

Yeah, that is definitely a good guy ship. You can tell just by the way it looks.

[@NovaXP]

The idea of flying around a big ship like that reminds me of the Great Fox multiplayer level in Star Fox Assault

[@zallard1]

Absolutely fascinating. I've been so curious about this cut stage since it was revealed, and it's so neat to catch a glimpse of what it could have been.

[@ElarixGames]

Hi Mr. Score Man! Some cool new ways to play Star Fox 64 are on the way :)

[@zallard1]

@@ElarixGames 👀

[@thecarnomeleon538]

I know limitations breed creativity and all that but sometimes I get a little sick thinking about how much more scope these games could have had in an alternate universe with more budget and time. SF64 remains my favorite SF game and seeing cut levels feels almost dreamlike, especially ones this late in development. It's reminiscent of the 24 Colossus planned for Shadow Of The Colossus that got cut down to 16. Extremely cool project that boggles my mind. Subscribing in an instant.

[@DemonicAdj]

The unused Divine Beast designs from Breath of the Wild also come to mind.

[@Tjerty]

For me, it's less about what more could've been done with Star Fox 64, and more about how the series could've had a natural, more expanded evolution of the gameplay that the first 2 games provided, instead of what we got. Like, by now, we could've had multiple of the most epic-in-scale Star Fox games imaginable if Nintendo could've just stayed on the straight and narrow with these games.

[@thecarnomeleon538]

@@Tjerty you have no idea you're preaching to the choir. Exactly what I've said in the past. To me 64 is the zenith of this type of gameplay. And then all entries after it stray radically from everything I loved about the first game. And unfortunately Nintendo thinks a return to form is literally remaking the same story again again while changing the gameplay from anything I'm actually looking for in Star Fox. I've not played the other ones made after other than 0 but I have really no interest in them. Just have nothing I'm looking for.

[@Tjerty]

@@thecarnomeleon538 kindred spirits! I'm sure you may have already heard about it, but I feel obligated to mention the upcoming indie game, Ex Zodiac. It seems like it might hit that Star Fox itch.

[@thecarnomeleon538]

@Tjerty it's on my desktop right now and I've S ranked all the existing levels LOL

[@ferretlord7051]

I have a few theories 1. It was a predecessor to sector z. With you escorting a cornerian battleship. The lose condition being obvious here 2. Like you mentioned it could have been similar to Salvadora. 3. It might have been inspired by the Great Commander from the snes game and it was a reimagined version of that fight. On 2 or 3 the fail objectives could have been a simple timer, or perhaps it would would have been a massive battle between corneria and venom forces. With you need to protect the cornerian fleet from the battleship. If that last idea was the original plan it was probably scrapped due to being too demanding for the hardware. Which would suck as I really wished we saw more of the cornerian military actually doing something. Make it feel more like an actual war.

[@Cade_The_Squirrel]

Call it dev's intuition but it sounds like they wanted you to be able to destroy pieces of the ship and perhaps it proved too intense for the hardware.

[@CoralCopperHead]

Gave me the impression you were supposed to protect it. Doesn't look like any Venom ship I can think of, but hey, beta assets, I don't know for sure.

[@Cade_The_Squirrel]

@@CoralCopperHead i assumed its a boss.

[@Kratos7560]

Sounds reasonable with all the parts shown in the files. A procedurally damagable boss of that size would have been a programming feat for its time.

[@Cade_The_Squirrel]

@@Kratos7560 Absolutely, it would have been mind-blowing.

[@DKNguyen3.1415]

@@CoralCopperHead It bears some resemblance to the Zeram cruisers from Area 6 to me.

[@enigmatico6209]

It's possible that since Corneria is under attack, this was probably the mothership of the forces deployed by Andross near Corneria, and the general wanted Star Fox to destroy it in order to protect Corneria. If you succeeded you would go to Zoness, if not then Fortuna. Very similar to the release storyline but instead of taking place in Sector Y and fighting the entire Andross forces, it takes place in the high orbit of Corneria and you fight their mothership in a long-range mode battle, in a mission similar to Katina. In fact, if you see the Lylat system in the beta version, you can notice that there are levels related to each other that were rearranged or changed. Like Fortuna was were Katina is in the release. It's likely that the level might have been scrapped because it was very similar to these levels and in order to add variety to the game, they decided to change it with Sector Y, and rearranged the levels in such a way their mechanics don't repeat themselves too much. Imagine Battleship was similar to Katina or Fortuna, and then you end on Fortuna and it's the same thing, but there is a bomb instead. In fact, Katina doesn't even appear in the beta map. I suppose "Satellite City" is just Sector 6 and not Katina despite the KT in the name. Sector Z must have also been very similar to X and Y, and in the release it became the missile mission (A6 in the beta map) for variety reasons.

[@M1XART]

Solid proof you got here. Now that i look the map, the middle route/section is actually missing levels, having 5 instead of 7, and forces player to take one from the side instead.

[@yami122]

I did always find it weird that the middle path was missing levels and required at least two levels from either the easy or hard path which made the middle path not feel truly like its own path

[@JuliusCaesar888]

Would have been a cool defense mission - protect the battleship from successive waves, each stronger than the previous, culminating in a sick boss fight.

[@Seltkirk-ABC]

THIS IS THE LEVEL THAT WAS SWAPPED FOR KATINA

[@Seltkirk-ABC]

It makes complete and perfect sense. A more circular design ship was probably easier on the hardware.

[@TheKorenji]

​@@Seltkirk-ABCIf Kaze is a reliable source, the N64 can actually crunch down polygons like an absolute monster, but the optimization to achieve it surely was unheard of at the time... the fact this one is divided into multiple parts might a failed gamble at the optimization lottery... if the ground ship was causing performance issues, it'd make sense that they chose to replace it.

[@wesnohathas1993]

@@TheKorenji I swear by this point Kaze must know more about how the N64 runs than anyone at Nintendo ever has.

[@SergeantLuke]

That would also make sense given the time scale, since we know Battleship was in the game from at least March 1996 and Independence Day, the movie that Katina was obviously inspired by, didn’t release until July. (Although, it was already a hotly-anticipated film and the alien mothership was prominently featured in all of the trailers and posters, so Katina still possibly could have been conceived before ID4’s release.)

[@cheersfan4328]

I love you for doing this. Starfox 64 is my favourite game of all time and it feels neglected in the lost content department. I still hope that one day the prototype levels we saw on the old N64 VHS get leaked so we get a full picture of the games development. (And maybe a prototype level restoration movement, that would be rad.) Keep up the good work!

[@roddydykes7053]

I’ve always thought too what a strange lack of beta content there is for SF64, as if everything they ever thought of was eventually implemented

[@cheersfan4328]

​@@roddydykes7053Yes though we just know that there where whole levels cut and some known levels had completely different layouts and models. It is maybe less stuff around but still would be great to have.

[@Bing317]

Never heard of cut content from this game before. I'm so happy I just did

[@katielowen]

My Uncle had a small part in coding Star Fox 64. Thank you for keeping his legacy alive🙏🛩️

[@Zeithri]

Why doesn't anyone ever remember the battleship from StarFox/StarWing's Hard path in orbit above Venom? ;; This looks like *Grand Commander* only larger and more detailed, maybe slightly altered. _Grand Commander_ was the only boss in OG Starfox that would fly past you which would force the game to spin you around 180 after a period of time to simulate an open battle i.e. all range mode. The objective of the fight was to destroy all of it's gunports at which point it'd escape down Venom's atmosphere just like the Easy/Medium path boss do, and become a mech'ish thing.

[@ehhorve857]

well, starfox 1 isn't that popular, is it. 64, sonic adventures, mario 64, they tend to stay fresh in peoples minds, cuz those are the ones they WANT to keep playing. sadly, I can't blame 'em. compare fox 64 to SNES, there's more color, more sounds, more memes. the difference is day and night.

[@brandondouglas4216]

!!! Yes I remember. That was one of my fav parts of the game

[@Buttington_Headerson]

@@ehhorve857bro what Mario bros 3 and Super Mario World are leagues better than Mario 64

[@Zeithri]

@@ehhorve857 Or you know, They never played it in the first place and only got into the series later on, took one look at the Snes game and went " _Eww no what's that_ " and never played it.

[@Zeithri]

@@brandondouglas4216 \o/

[@ethandoesathing2711]

Just when i thought i knew everything about this game. Starfox 64 is one of my alltime FAVORITE games; i pretty much know it like the back of my hand, so seeing *new* discoveries deep in this almost 30 year old game's code is fucking MIND-BLOWING. Awesome find! I can only imagine how great this level would've been had they finished it.

[@VenCorbin]

this is so cool and thank you for your hard work on this. I hope more people get to see your research here!

[@TheRebornExpert]

Glad to see that SF64 is still being discussed about after more than 27 years since its original release. How cool! 😁👍

[@MaverickKayPrime]

This thumbnail, coupled with the title, really made me think I was clicking on a creepypasta.

[@freelikeojallday7543]

Yeah it definitely has an aura to it. It made me click fast

[@maisaltyleftnut8138]

My favorite game 😭

[@JaRew]

I love this! SF64 was one of the games I played the most. Getting all the medals and unlocks was one of the only things I felt totally motivated to do. I love that there is still more there that I never knew!

[@kidgruesome407]

Just here to remind you all the Space Armada from the SNES version is one of the greatest video game songs of all time.

[@velvetbutterfly]

I could see this being similar to Sector Z. A defend map. With alcoves like at 2:01 being where you could get Wing Repairs, Silver Rings or something. In terms of story I can't quite imagine but having a boss theme despite being a purely All Range mode stage means there would have been some big threat that comes in like the mother ship on the level with Bill or the missiles from Sector Z itself. Maybe this was a beta Sector Z map that got replaced with the final version do to being too intensive for the swarms of enemies and boss they had planned. One wacky idea I have is maybe it could be a path you could get from a warp gate, you'd leave the great fox behind and stumble upon this ship under attack so you defend it and guide it towards the Hard Path to Venom, since people mentioned seeing a battle ship in the background there

[@NickTsang583]

Those first few shots of the Arwing approaching the ship make it look pretty intimidating. I love to this discovery on one of my favorite games though, cool video. ^^

[@CoralCopperHead]

Looks like an early Sector Z. It would definitely explain why that map is such a pain in the ass -- the tutorial level was cut. Gotta admit, I was expecting a battleship raid like in the SNES entries.

[@roddydykes7053]

This is so fascinating as a Star Fox 64 player since age 4

[@Mirokuofnite]

Given its color I feel like this is a defense map. The battleship is under attack and you must defend it. Probably similar to the missile defense stage. First wave is probably enemy ships, then the second wave is missiles.

[@Oh-Ben]

The old level layout really makes the Sector X,Y, Z joke really obvious

[@ElarixGames]

LOL When I found the code for drawing the map, I had to basically play a game of connect-the-dots to figure out where all the missions went in relation to each other, and when the three sectors all lined up I was laughing my ass off

[@videohog100]

What's the joke?

[@FordFourD-aka-Ford4D]

I think it's more likely this is just left over development materials from the creation of Sector Y - and the original plans for the final "boss" area.

[@Blayne06]

Taking another look at the beta map for the game has me curious on another aspect -- namely how a "Medium" route through Venom would look, and how that could impact the ending.

[@ElarixGames]

You can read a bit about it here: new.reddit.com/r/starfox/comments/10gmwe9/fox_was_going_to_fight_andross_with_a_bazooka_a/

[@mow123]

I think an interesting thing to point out is on the map sector Z has only on path. This could mean battleship was designed like what we know as sector Z. Let's see how it matches, Sector Z has two songs, the great fox can have parts blow up (although it ends if that happens), it has two exits, it matches as far as we can see.But like you said nobody will know unless more info is released. I would like to see more on what we do know for the cut beta stuff. (Three exits from solar? triple venom? I doubt there is much info though.)

[@poem2self]

Love to find out more things about my favourite N64 game, thanks for sharing!

[@RiposteBK]

Fascinating video, I never thought I'd see this sort of lost content for SF64. Might have to get involved in the decomp stuff...

[@samushunter242]

My two cents In this stage: you fly around the ship, destroying various targets around it (turrets and the like) until you could destroy the bridge

[@alexandercrew2538]

I feel like we're finally in an era of gaming where "dead" franchises are getting respect. Look at what Capcom is doing with their fighting games, SNK with the new Fatal Fury, Sega with Crazy Taxi... I think a new Starfox game would do ridiculously well. Not a re-skin of SF64, not a smash dlc, a new canon title. Something that furthers the story like Assault did.

[@Eichro]

are you telling me Fortuna and Bolse are at the "same difficulty"? What were the devs thinking?

[@ElarixGames]

🤷

[@dkosmari]

Nintendo is known for bringing back ideas that were discarded before. The SFZero stage is probably one such case, where the idea of slowly destroying a battle ship (instead of just shooting at its weak spot) was brought back from the SF64 development, and polished into a real stage.

[@BarneySlack]

The original design of the ship seems more like a carrier than a battleship which could elude to the original intention of the mission, taking down a carrier, which as we know would be more valuable than taking down a non descript battleship. It’s a shame it didn’t get finished.

[@KorotasGeckoGamingCorner]

I initially saw this and wondered if it was originally intended to be like the ship stages from Starfox 2

[@ferretlord7051]

My first instinct was thinking it could have been like space armada from the first game.

[@someoneelse1534]

Decomp is exciting, might see some interesting modding/porting.

[@MegaMan87]

Thus the Battleship was never Deployed for Battle Against Lylat and was left Abandoned thus it becomes a Ghost Ship for the Star Fox Team to Investigate...!

[@leedunkin3338]

This makes me sad that there still hasn't been a true well made Starfox space opera flight sim game yet. Still hoping for one in my lifetime.

[@disistheway2010]

This is incredible. As a kid who was obsessed with this game in the 90s, I never would have dreamed I’d still be finding out new information about it nearly 30 years later.

[@JeffIndigo]

Wow, this is amazing! Thanks for sharing and discovering!

[@TheRealBDouble]

This is pretty damn cool. I look forward to you uncovering more hidden stuff

[@Shinny1338]

I've literally had dreams about hidden stuff like this

[@mr.voidout4739]

Kinda looks like a Republic battleship from prequel Star Wars. The precursor to the Death Star. But to that, it more looks like if those ships resembled a battleship version of a A-wing fighter. If this level was released, people would say the Republic ships look like that one from SF64.

[@edwardboot3431]

Okay Star Fox 64 is one of my favorite games (and franchises) ever and I'm freaking out over this right now! An unseen, hidden level after 27 years with an actual model?!?! This is amazing. I've seen beta stuff and unused textures, but this find is on a different level (literally). Props for doing detective work, too, and seeing the dates of the files. I'd absolutely love to know what other stuff is hidden in the confines of Star Fox 64. I know there was super early beta footage of snow levels, I'd love for that stuff to be unearthed. And these other potentially hidden levels. As a programmer myself, I would guess that theres more secrets to uncover in Corneria and Venom, especially the latter.

[@Marinealver]

Ooh, I think this is being added to Star Fox Event Horizon

[@xjamesxreedx]

I hope this ushers in an era of fan-made StarFox 64 levels. Zelda, Mario, and Goldeneye have flourishing rom-hacking communities, now it's StarFox's turn!

[@bigbruh307]

I absolutely adore this game, and stumbling upon this video has been such a blessing. Keep up the hard work!

[@YossarianAssyrian]

This is an insane discovery! I knew that SF64 had more levels planned, but I never thought they got that far along! You and the others at the decompilation project are doing a huge service to beta enthusiasts. Is there an ongoing effort to decompile N64 games, like with Perfect Dark and Mario 64, or is it just a case of similar interests leading people to tackle games from that era?

[@ElarixGames]

I guess it's a combination of both: several of the SF decomp guys I met worked on OoT first, and other N64 games. I'm sure some have already moved on to the next ones. There's a lot of crossover between the decomp tools, the games' source codes, and people's interests.

[@ItsLeah43]

@@ElarixGames I also think part of it is some recent nintendo leaks giving them more information to go off of in terms of the compilers used at nintendo and other technical details that REALLY are necessary for properly decompiling a game

[@akumati86]

Glad to see star fox 64 is still being looked into after that gigaleak

[@googleaccount9256]

Just found your channel. I appreciate the depth of dedication put into this. Please keep up the good work.

[@ZachAttackIsBack]

Corneria was destroyed and that battlestar (or battleship) houses the planet's last survivors. You must defend it at all costs.

[@vvlaze]

My best idea for what the scenario could’ve been is that you spend the first half of the mission destroying smaller weakpoints or cannons around the thing as smaller enemy fighters get deployed. The second, or boss half, starts after the former is finished, where a sort of large cannon is deployed upon the ship, charging a blast that would hit Corneria. If you defeat it in time, you continue on the hard route, and if you fail, you continue on the easy route.

[@heartbeatsdrum]

Stoked about the news on the decomp project. I heard Banjo Kazooie was one too. With these, Majora's Mask, and Perfect Dark, I'm all good now.

[@BronzeAgePepper]

the huge ship reminds me of the last level of Shadows of the Empire, you're tasked with taking out the Skyhook in a Death Star-like fashion, but there's also a Star Destroyer nearby that you can fly right up to and presumably where some Imperial fighters are coming from. It's so much bigger and more imposing than the Skyhook, the sheer scale of it does justice to one of the most iconic ships in the entire Star Wars franchise, but it doesn't do anything, not even try to shoot at you if you get close. This is like if you had an actual mission around taking down a Star Destroyer, and in the vastly superior space combat of SF64 no less, a veritable dream come true for my younger self. Bolse is a cool penultimate mission for an Easy/Medium run but I think this would've been even cooler.

[@Redhotsmasher]

2:41 I wonder how different the levels must have been at this stage for these paths to make sense - I think Aquaria must've been easier since IIRC (haven't seen the hard path in many years as I've neer been good enough to reach it but dad used to back in the day (he got hooked on Lylat Wars when I was a kid but never quite managed to get all the medals so I never knew about Expert Mode until reading about it much later)) the submarine level is pretty hard in the final version but is on the easy path here yet Macbeth is on the second half of the hard path here despite not being that bad in the final game from what I remember. EDIT: Just checked a video of Aquos and it isn't quite as bad as I remember (though still looks pretty hard), I think I may have been mainly thinking of one of the following levels on the hard path as being quite a PITA.

[@Eyetrauma]

I know it doesn’t line up with the map design, but given how Sector Y is a Cornerian armada it’s fun to imagine that Y might have been a battle with scout ships with the main battleship “behind” them. You could imagine that you clear Y like normal and then advance to the battleship. Blow it up in time to save the fleet or it flies away if you run out of time and it’s implied that it destroyed the Cornerians.

[@angelagonzalez8250]

I remember as a child hearing a rumor where you can play as great fox

[@Zadamanim]

I suspect that level 13 AND 14 could be this ship. If this ship was big enough to enter and destroy the core like in Star Fox 1 or 2, the "inside" of the ship would probably be a separate level for loading reasons.

[@Inmate288]

SF64 was a masterpiece that doesn't get the attention it deserves. One thing that is really great about it is it being so replayabl, like you literally can't experience the whole game in one play through due to different paths that lead to whole new levels. I feel like more games should adopt that.

[@SMWCEnjoirider]

This is pretty awesome! Also nice to hear decomp has been going well. As for what the mission was going to be, perhaps the carrier is on its way to Fortuna, and the mission is to intercept/destroy it before it gets there?

[@retrorobbyreviews]

This is pretty cool and this video just came up in my recommended. I always find it amazing when lost or hidden things are found in old retro games.

[@Jesse12489]

It doesn't look like it could be a bad guy ship it could have been General Peppers flagship.

[@Pixpaint1]

this is just a shot in the dark, but considering that Battleship is right in the same place where Sector Y used to be, the textures on the battleship also being used on Cornerian fighters, and after seeing you place Sector Y's dialogue over it, I'm kinda guessing that the Battleship in question was Cornerian, and that the objective of the level was to defend the ship from Andross' fleet. The Explosion code might've been used for if you failed to protect the ship, and the boss music was for when some kind of juggernaut appears that you have to destroy. It's also possible that if that was the case, the reason it was scrapped would've been because the developers thought it was too similar to sector Z, and opted instead for the sector Y that we ended up getting... but again that's just me taking a wild ass guess

[@Krystalmyth]

Damn this would have been an incredible stage. This game was so ambitious.

[@loudoge3932]

This was the first Nintendo 64 game I ever owned. I was already in love with TLoZ & Turok but for some reason the call of this game was louder than the rest

[@ArtisChronicles]

All range bosses were actually fun. I can see why Miyamoto wished there was more of them. I do too lol

[@heart3460]

This is amazing, I always wondered what if anything was left to be discovered about Star Fox 64

[@HEHEHE_I_AM_A_MASKED_WARRIA]

My hypothesis is that the paths could've been similar to those of Androsa in Star Fox Zero, with Mission Complete involved destroying the pieces of the battleship and Mission Accomplished having you blow it up from the inside, which would've involved a sequence similar to that of the Cannon Betrayers in Star Fox 2.

[@YuumasLover-Zed]

All the big N64 games are having their cut and lost content found and we finally have something for Starfox. Really hoping this is not all there is.

[@proaxel7003]

You sure won over the algorithm gods with this one!

[@AyaneOfDeath]

Love to see new content for one of my all time favourite game

[@carnage0685]

Star Fox 64 not only being decomped but FULLY decomped is wild

[@SuikodenGR]

This would make an excellent underground project to recreate this level as it was intended to happen...of course under Nintendo's Radar.

[@UltraKiroXei]

I've never seen this space battleship level anywhere, when I played the 64 version back then. The Nintendo developers made this secret model and the details looks good.

[@RationalMorality]

Star fox 64 deserves a true sequel. It was such a brilliant rail shooter with in-depth scoring mechanics. The genre died after this game

[@berserkchip]

Hey so I used to have a recurring nightmare that an unused Star Fox level was found and there was something 'in' the level that would jump out and get you, and for years I took solace in the fact that no such level existed, since I never found anything by searching for "Star Fox 64 unused level" So, uh, thanks for this, I guess (oh god oh god oh god)

[@Kurayamiblack]

My Version of How the Level Works: Since Katina was missing from the Level Select map, I would assume this works similarly to that stage. A 100% all-range-mode mission where a bunch of Cornerian fighters are under attack by a swarm of enemy ships and losing until StarFox shows up. Then after a certain amount of time, the battle ship shows up as the primary boss and starts either shredding Cornerian fighters to pieces or releasing more enemy fighters to overwhelm the Cornerians. Your new objective is to destroy the battleship piece by piece BEFORE too many Cornerian fighters fall to the enemy attack. Whether or not you succeed at that objective decides which path you can access at the end of the mission. But then they deleted it and replaced it with a similarly functioning Independence Day reference 👍

[@Haganeren]

Having a battleship that can be blown little by little by destroying the guns or part of it is a trope for shmup since R-Type. I'm sure that's what they were going for and gave up because it was too complicated to do within their time constraint.

[@bababooey3248]

someone could mod in some crazy cutom levels and add in Ai voices if they wanted and it would be sick

[@picivyvortac2641]

Goes without saying, this is probably back when the game looked like stargox 2

[@HaxHaunter]

I always felt that the yellow path was incomplete, looking at how the routes were structured and how Bolse and Venom (easy) were reused instead of having a unique route like in SNES Star Fox. That map at 2:45 confirms my suspicions.

[@joeygamer5387]

Nintendo should make a Star Fox game where you can take command of an entire fleet of ships! Sure, you can fly as Fox's Arwing. But being able to take control of other ships, maybe ground forces, and possibly having on foot missions with soldiers that can assist might make the experience more fun than just utilizing Star Fox and Star Fox 64 again but with gimmicks. They can even delve more into the story this way, where your choices matter in the success of how you play the game

[@0xPRIMEgs]

starfox command on the DS

[@ClericOfPholtus]

​@@0xPRIMEgsyeah but what if it was good?

[@EclipseHedgehog]

starlink kinda has this and those were neat. imagine how fun it would be if you entered (or could optionally) enter it and destroy it from the inside?

[@Granite165]

Awesome! I really wish Nintendo would put out another Star Fox rail shooter.

[@gregwilliams4926]

Sector XYZ being close makes perfect sense.

[@xJC4Rx]

I always enjoy the fact that some nerd out there is still fooling around with their childhood game, and finding out new secrets about it decades later. Also shout outs for keeping the title simple and not being a clickbait twat. You have dignity and class.

[@Cronosonic]

Gotta say, that ship has a _very_ Star Wars aesthetic. Granted, I don't think this is the only thing inspired by Star Wars in this game...

[@BackToTheGame.98]

Given the battle damage on the wing, I wonder if the developers were experimenting with having you blow up the ship, piece by piece? It wouldn't be the first time you had to destroy parts off a boss, but it would be for this kind of scale. Maybe the existing battle damage was meant as a proof of concept to show what it would possibly look like after you blew a chunk off? This theory would also give a pass/fail objective: blow up the battle ship in time, or fail and it gets away.

[@nickvinsable3798]

🤔 . . . I’m guessing destroying the Battleship would result in moving on into the hard route, but merely damaging it enough for mission accomplished would result in taking the easier route…

[@GreenIntellectual]

That ship looks like the "great commander phase 1" from venom on hard mode, from starfox. I imagine you do a flyby and take out the guns and missle ports until it KO's, changes then attacks again ina diffrent mode.

[@phillippi2]

If I remember correctly, this boss was originally going to be a recreation of the route 3 boss from Venom orbit, in the original Star Fox.

[@animeist72]

Really cements they tried taking Starfox 2 ideas and just transitioning it to the N64.

[@FriendofMineralTown]

It’s a cool ship. I love Starfox64, and I know many love it. So I’m surprised it wasn’t found earlier.