@Background Pony #6B54
Does it matter? I assume it was to make it more obvious which animal has which name.
Some characters like Bill Grey don’t have any animal motifs in their naming though.
@Wiimeiser
Actually, the fox James McCloud predates the human one by a year, so F-Zero was actually referencing SF64.
Star Fox & F-Zero share alot of the same developers including art/character designer Takaya Imamura, hence this reference.
Not to mention, Octoman from F-Zero was used in the DS game “Star Fox Command” as a boss character piloting a mech. However, the F-Zero Octoman was not a villain, so maybe these are more like alternative universes?