Item
Shield Square
A power-up item in the Star Fox series that restores the shield energy of the player's Arwing starfighter.
Action
About
In Star Fox (1993), Star Fox: Super Weekend (1993), and Star Fox 2, the Shield Square appears as a floating geometric power-up. Collecting it restores a portion of the Arwing's shield meter, helping the player survive damage during missions. These items are typically found floating in space or revealed by destroying specific enemies and obstacles.
Representing some of the earliest 3D polygonal design in Star Fox, this item showcased the capabilities of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System's Super FX coprocessor. The visual design of a spinning, flat polygon was a direct result of the hardware limitations of the era, which favored simple geometric shapes to maintain a stable frame rate.
During the 1993 promotional competition event for Star Fox: Super Weekend, securing these items was vital for players aiming to maximize their high scores within the strict five-minute limit, as avoiding ship destruction was necessary to keep score multipliers active. When Star Fox 2 was officially released in 2017, developers retained this specific visual asset, preserving the aesthetic continuity of the original 16-bit entries. In subsequent releases on newer hardware, such as Star Fox 64, the franchise transitioned away from this flat geometric aesthetic, replacing the item with circular rings. Consequently, this specific power-up remains a distinct hallmark of the franchise's initial Super FX era.
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