Some lines in the opening prologue stage for Star Fox: Assault contain allusions towards dialogue from Area 6, one of Star Fox 64's final stages. In the latter, Caiman says near the end that "The last line has been breached!", and the Area 6 commander will respond with "These guys are crazy!". In the Japanese version of Star Fox 64, the latter instead says "こいつら、化け物か！" (These guys are monsters!)

In Star Fox: Assault's prologue, one of the ape soldiers apart of Oikonny's rebellion will similarly shout that "Our final line of defense has been penetrated!". Oikonny in response says "Is this guy some kind of demon?". In the Japanese version of Assault, he instead says "コイツら化け物か？" (Are these monsters?), which makes it much more clear that it's meant to be a callback to Area 6's dialogue. This intention was confirmed by producer Takaya Imamura in a 2005 Nintendo Dream interview with Star Fox: Assault's development team.

In a June 1997 Nintendo Dream interview with Shigeru Miyamoto regarding Star Fox 64, when asked if he would produce a sequel, Miyamoto responded with:


Funny enough, both of these ideas would come to fruition with future titles such as Star Fox: Assault, which hugely emphasized its multiplayer battle mode, and Star Fox Command, which revisited many of the real-time strategy elements that were previously experimented with in the then-unreleased Star Fox 2.

The E3 2003 reveal trailer for what would become Star Fox: Assault showcased what appears to be a first-person perspective mode, which ended up being discarded in the final game. However, this scrapped first-person mode can still be accessed in all versions of the game through hacking. It is not fully complete, but has almost full functionality.

Star Fox: Assault is notable for including three unlockable Famicom/NES games originally created by Namco:

• Xevious
• Battle City
• Star Luster

As explained by the development team in an issue of Nintendo Dream, this was done to highlight Star Fox: Assault being a collaboration between Nintendo and Namco, with the latter being its primary developer. With the Star Fox franchise being a sci-fi shooter series, Tsuyoshi Kobayashi and Takaya Imamura had carefully decided on which classic Namco games would fit the best with that vibe. There were considerations to also include Nintendo created Famicom/NES games (one person, for example, had suggested including Balloon Fight), but ultimately Imamura and Kobayashi couldn't come up with any games that would have fit the Star Fox world and atmosphere.

Unfortunately, as the Famicom versions of Battle City and Star Luster had never been released in Western territories, they in turn were excluded from all Western versions of Star Fox: Assault, leaving Xevious as the only unlockable Namco game outside of Japan.

When Star Fox: Assault was first informally announced to be in development back in early 2002, Nintendo released a promotional poster for it featuring the Star Fox team in their Arwings (which utilized their more rounded look from Star Fox Adventures), with Fox in a communication box saying 全機、報告せよ! (which in English translates to "All aircraft, report!").

According to a 2005 Nintendo Dream interview regarding Star Fox: Assault, this particular poster was created by Takaya Imamura, the creator and character designer of Fox McCloud and the Star Fox universe.

The subtitle of Star Fox: Assault was suggested by Nintendo of America. Initially, there were legal concerns as Namco had already trademarked the name "Assault" for their 1988 arcade game of the same name. Fortunately for Nintendo, the trademark was only valid within Japan, and Namco, who were already the developers for Star Fox: Assault, had granted them permission to use the title.

According to Takaya Imamura in a 2005 Nintendo Dream interview regarding Star Fox: Assault, the decision to make Krystal a main Star Fox team member came from Nintendo themselves, following from how it was their decision to keep and also redesign Krystal in the transition from Dinosaur Planet to Star Fox Adventures. Imamura states that there was a bit of arguing over Krystal's personality amongst the development team, with one camp wanting her to occupy a motherly role, and another wanting her to be more like a big sister.

Imamura also said that the decision to keep Krystal around was at least partially because he wanted players to see the characters grow and evolve over the course of the games, and thus there was a desire to acknowledge Star Fox Adventures, Krystal's debut game.

In Star Fox: Assault's campaign, it is revealed by Beltino Toad, Slippy's father, that the Aparoids had already attacked the Lylat System 17 years prior, where an entire Cornerian fleet was destroyed by a single Aparoid, the same type that destroyed Oikonny's flagship and attacked the Star Fox team on Fortuna.

In a 2011 Nintendo Dream magazine interview with Takaya Imamura, he explained that rather than having the Aparoids suddenly appear, he felt that it would be better have something that was already there in the past so there would be a connection and give the story more depth. This is also why it was decided to have Beltino, who was previously stated to have worked for Space Dynamics in ancillary material for Star Fox 64, to be in charge of the Cornerian army by the time of the events of Star Fox: Assault.

Imamura explains that, with Beltino being a genius scientist, he was doing various military commissions and Space Dynamics work in the form of a commissioned employee over the years, explaining how he fought against the Aparoids as apart of the Cornerian Army 17 years priors, later joined up with Space Dynamics by the time of Star Fox 64, and then eventually returned to the Cornerian Army by the time of Star Fox: Assault.

Concept art of General Pepper for Star Fox: Assault depicts him wearing shades, an obvious callback to his design in the original Star Fox on SNES. This was not implemented in the final game, however.

Star Fox: Assault introduces a new team member for Star Wolf, Panther Caroso, who fills in the space left behind by the departures of Andrew Oikonny and Pigma Dengar. He reappears in its sequel, Star Fox Command, but with a slightly different name: Panther Caruso.

Both of these are actually mistranslations of his intended surname in Japan, which is カルロッソ (Karurosso), or Caluroso. "Caluroso" is the Spanish word for warm, hot, energetic, enthusiastic, etc., which is in line with his womanizer, Latin, and Giacomo Casanova-esque personality and archetype.

Contrary to the Western version of the game, which more or less started over with a completely new and different cast, Star Fox: Assault's Japanese voice cast would actually bring back quite a few of the voice actors from Star Fox 64's Japanese dub:

• Hisao Egawa (Falco)
• Kyoko Tongu (Slippy)
• Tomohisa Aso (Peppy)
• Daisuke Gori (Pigma)
• Shinobu Satouchi (Leon)

Of the returning cast from Star Fox 64, the only characters to be recast were:

• Fox (voiced by Shinobu Satouchi in SF64, now voiced by Kenji Nojima)
• General Pepper (voiced by Daisuke Gori in SF64, now voiced by Michihiro Ikemizu)
• Wolf (voiced by Hisao Egawa in SF64, now voiced by Mahito Ōba)
• ROB 64 and Andrew (both were voiced by Daisuke Sakaguchi in SF64, now they're both voiced by Yusuke Numata)

According to Takaya Imamura in a Nintendo Dream interview regarding Star Fox Assault, Fox's new voice was meant to represent a middle ground between Steve Malpass' nasal sounding voice from Star Fox Adventures and Shinobu Satouchi's voice from Star Fox 64. Apparently, Satouchi was saddened when he discovered that he'd be returning to only reprise his role as Leon in Star Fox: Assault.

In Star Fox 64 3D's ending, the conference hall where the Star Fox team meets General Pepper after Andross' defeat was changed from its original appearance into a hangar, with fewer, more spread out Dog soldiers.

More notable, however, is how the generic planet Corneria image and lettering at the back of the room has been replaced by the Cornerian Army logo that first appeared in Star Fox: Assault.

During Star Fox: Assault's Fortuna mission, Andrew Oikonny, who is now leading a rebellion against Corneria using the remnants of Andross' army, pilots a flagship that transforms into a mode based on his deceased uncle (Falco even dismisses it as a "Andross wanna-be") complete with a floating head with disembodied hands. The official Japanese Star Fox: Assault guidebook reveals its name to be デスバブーン (Desubabūn), or Death Baboon.

Despite being seemingly destroyed by an Aparoid, Oikonny would reappear in Star Fox Command, working for the Anglar Army (who are revealed to be creations of his uncle), this time in another vessel shaped and named after an animal that's name also starts with "Death", the Death Crab.

The first Aparoid boss of Star Fox: Assault is a giant butterfly looking creature that appears at the end of the Fortuna mission. This particular Aparoid would reappear as a trophy in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and also a spirit in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, in both cases being dubbed simply as just "Aparoid".

The official Japanese Star Fox: Assault guidebook reveals this type of Aparoid to have a proper name: ゼグダリア (Zegudaria), or Zegdahlia as it's called by the provided English text.

The Aparoids, the main enemy forces of Star Fox: Assault, are in some ways a homage to the Galaxians from the Galaxian/Galaga franchise, a fixed shooter series about fighting off invading alien insects that was originally created by Namco (now Bandai Namco), who also developed Star Fox: Assault. One of Assault's producers from Namco, Tsuyoshi Kobayashi, admitted to this in an interview with Nintendo Official Magazine.


One could say that Star Fox: Assault's story of the Aparoids (which more or less act as expys of the Galaxians) invading the Lylat System could be a meta reference to the fact that this game was a Nintendo x Namco crossover and collaboration, which is also emphasized with the collectable Special Flags (which have appeared in several Namco developed games) found throughout Assault's campaign, as well as there being unlockable old Namco arcade games like Xevious, Battle City, and Star Luster, at least in the Japanese version (only Xevious was available in the western versions of the game).

Star Fox: Assault establishes the Sargasso region as the Star Wolf team's base of operations. Its name is virtually untouched from the Japanese version, サルガッソー (Sarugassō), but there exists an added pun in the latter, in that it begins with サル (Saru), the Japanese word for Monkey. This adds up, as Wolf's criminal empire here is shown to be made up of monkeys, presumably remnants from Andross' army.

Fichina, the ice planet that was introduced in Star Fox 64, is infamously erroneously called Fortuna in the English version of the game. Fortuna was previously the name of the jungle planet from Star Fox on SNES filled with monstrous and primordial creatures. It was also infamously dubbed "the Dinosaur Planet", years before the Star Fox series would incorporate another Dinosaur Planet with Star Fox Adventures.

However, looking through leaked SF64 files from the Gigaleak, there does seem to be evidence that Nintendo dubbed Fichina as Fortuna for most of SF64's development, only to change the name to Fichina at the tail end of it. Almost all of the source code refers to it as Fortuna, and the internal file system has “FO” appended to all of the stage’s assets. The image file Nintendo provided for the stage name to be translated is also labeled FO_E_FO. With the decision to rename it to Fichina seemingly being a last minute one, it's possible Nintendo of America were not brought up to speed by Nintendo's Japanese branch of this lore change when they were originally localizing SF64.

Nonetheless, Nintendo has since firmly established Fichina and Fortuna (as it was in the SNES game) as being their own distinct planets, with both appearing together in Star Fox: Assault and Star Fox Zero. Strangely, in the former game, Fortuna's Japanese name フォーチュナ (Fōchuna) was slightly modified to フォーチュナー (Fōchunā), which would translate into "Fortuner" in English.

Some of the Aparoid infected Cornerian ships that appear in Star Fox: Assault's campaign look very similar in design to its iteration of the Arwing. This is because, canonically, they actually are said to be mass produced Arwing models, according to both the official Japanese guidebook (where are they are given the fitting name of "P.A.W.N") and also the "Arwing (Assault)" trophy description in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.

Star Fox Assault's official Japanese guidebook reveals the name of General Pepper's Aparoid infected flagship, which is the boss of the Corneria mission, to be エアフォース・バウ (Eafōsu bau), which translates to "Air Force Bow" in English.

The name is actually a reference to Air Force One, the official air traffic control designated call sign for a United States Air Force aircraft carrying the President of the United States, similar to how General Pepper is the leader of Corneria. "Bow" is a reference to the onomatopoeia for a dog's bark, "bow wow".

Whenever a character speaks during a mission in Star Fox: Assault, their name appears above the message box. Curiously, when viewing the graphic with the full list of names found within the game files, Tricky is included despite him only being present during the end cutscene of the Sauria mission where there are subtitles instead.

This suggests that he originally either spoke to you during the Sauria mission in-game, or that the cutscenes were intended to have transmission boxes instead of subtitles.