NGO Reviews: Star Fox

There are a more than a couple IP's that Nintendo loves to sit on for years on end without releasing new entries; F-Zero, Kid Icarus, and Mother to name a few. Until now, Star Fox also deserved its tombstone in the gaming graveyard. But rejoice, for Fox McCloud and his merry band of mercs are back to save Corneria, and free the Lylat System once again!

Disclaimer:

I did not test the multiplayer, nor did I test the mouse controls. I'm just not much of a multiplayer guy these days, and using the Joy Con 2 as a mouse is a pretty uncomfortable experience just in general, so I gave it a miss. Those are technically value-adds even if they're not for me, I won't dock points based on these elements, and I'll keep my review of the single player content as honest as possible based on what I see there.

You're Becoming More Like Your Father

Let's get this out of the way. Yes, this is yet another retread of Star Fox 64. And yes, I'd have preferred a new story instead of rehashing the Lylat Wars again, but I'm choosing not to let the fact that this is a remake colour my opinion of it, as much as possible, because I think there's a valid reason for them doing it this way. Star Fox 64 has remained, until now, the most deftly handled version of this story and gameplay. It was never outdone by any reinterpretation of this material, including its remakes, although you could make a compelling argument for Star Fox 64 3D.

But even the 3DS remaster is quite old now. There's a whole new generation of kids who are just now discovering Star Fox by way of the Super Mario Galaxy movie, and they might not have the patience for the quaint presentation (by today's standards) of the N64 classic, or indeed have the means to access that game or any of its remasters or reimaginings; 64 3D is stuck on 3DS, and Star Fox Zero is stuck on Wii U. There are some additive changes I'd have liked to see, but overall, I think Nintendo is playing its cards exactly right by modernizing this beloved classic for a new audience, and creating the definitive version of Star Fox's most iconic campaign.

I Guess I Should Be Thankful

People should not dismiss this game as a lazy cash-in; I heard this take all over the place leading up to the game's release. I understand why people are frustrated by having to re-experience the Lylat Wars, but there's a lot to love in this remake - and it is a remake in my estimation, as opposed to a remaster. The graphics and art direction have been completely overhauled, the dialogue has been rewritten and expanded, and the soundtrack has been given the full cinematic orchestra treatment at Abbey Road Studios. Fox and his crew have never looked or sounded better. The lore available to the player has been expanded as well, with a Holoviewer encyclopedia collecting more of the information that was previously pretty hard to come by in the West; did you know that Fox was born on the planet Papetoon, or that he inherited an eighty year debt on the Great Fox from his father James? I didn't, but apparently this and more was readily accessible in the Japanese version of the original Star Fox 64 and its marketing materials. It's great to see that represented here. It really feels like they're trying to lay the groundwork for a proper franchise.

The expanded storytelling is present outside the Holoviewer too. On first launch, you're shown a lengthy cinematic depicting James and Peppy being betrayed to Andross at the hands of Pigma Dengar. This cutscene is rendered in real time in Velan Studios' Viper Engine, as are all the game's cutscenes, which is all the more impressive considering the near-cinema-grade fidelity on display. From here, you're thrust five years into the present, and into training mode, which has also been completely remade to actually integrate into the prologue of the story; Peppy is having the crew engage in VR Arwing training as a team building exercise. It's here that newcomers to Star Fox will immediately get a feel for who these characters are. Fox is the cocky but untested maverick with a chip on his shoulder about being compared to his father. Slippy Toad is the bumbling but unflappable mechanic. Peppy is the world-weary veteran mentor, the closest thing Fox has to a father figure. And Falco is a loose cannon and ex-gang member with a shady past, the respect of whom Fox has yet to earn. It's this charming, if predictable, prologue that launches us into the story we know and love.

Incoming Message From General Pepper, Priority One

Between each mission you're treated to a short cinematic of the Star Fox crew in the lounge/mess hall of the Great Fox, receiving their marching orders from General Pepper and discussing their options amongst themselves. These cutscenes are a large part of why a Star Fox 64 veteran or fan will want to give this remake a fair shake; these cutscenes are well paced, and the characters embody their archetypes well as they plan their assault on Andross's army. It makes the whole campaign feel more like a Saturday morning cartoon than the original ever managed. These cutscenes kept me coming back to try to find every path through the Lylat System to see all the permutations of these scenes. There's still a few I think I haven't seen yet, like the failure conditions in Fortuna, Fichina, and Sector Z. I guess I'm just too good.

Even more impressive, is that the cutscenes have branching outcomes depending on your performance in the previous missions. Did you follow Falco to the real target in Corneria? The team will discuss what options that opened up to them. Did Slippy crash land on Titania? Fox will tell General Pepper to get bent when the general advises him to leave Slippy behind for the greater mission. These breathers between each mission could easily have ground the pace of the game to a halt, but perhaps counter-intuitively, these moments of rest and reflection actually serve to drive the action forward, as well as help make the audience care about these characters as more than just quippy pilots. Even though they're fairly one-note characters, they manage to present as living breathing people with likes, dislikes, pasts, and motivations. Even with all the work that's been done to flesh them out, the characters remain pretty tropey in the end. I wish that just a bit more had been done in terms of character growth, especially if this game is laying the groundwork for a new Star Fox canon.

Let's Rock and Roll

Back in 1997, Hajime Wakai created Nintendo's most cinematic sweeping score to date, under the masterful supervision of the GOAT himself, Koji Kondo. This is a game demanding multiple playthroughs, so the sound design can't be a friction point for the player. Wakai completely understood the assignment; every theme and motif in Star Fox 64 elevated the scenes to places even the Arwings could only hope to fly to, all while using the N64's frankly underpowered sound processing capabilities. It's one of my favourite Nintendo scores to this day, so when I tell you that this remake blows the original out of the Cornerian sky in every respect, I want you to understand exactly what I mean.

The soundtrack has been arranged absolutely stunningly by Matt Pirog and Stephen Barton, and in a lovely full circle moment, Hajime Wakai returns here in a supervisory capacity, like Kondo before him. The score was performed in the hallowed halls of Abbey Road Studios by a studio orchestra, and I can't say enough about the quality of this recording. The mix of this orchestra recording is absolutely perfect, and the arrangements themselves make fantastic use of said orchestra. Standouts include - but are certainly not limited to - the Area 6, Meteo, and Zoness themes. When combined with the new dialogue, these themes are much more impactful. In Meteo, the melody has been elaborated upon, giving a bit of a Final Fantasy 7 Remake vibe to the music. Zoness benefits from the sweeping orchestration to really sell the tone of an idyllic paradise destroyed by unregulated industry. And Area 6 strikes the balance between desperate and hopeful as the Star Fox team confidently makes their final approach to Venom through the most dangerous territory in the whole system. These arrangements build on an already strong foundation by leaning slightly into the Star Wars of it all in their instrumentation and newly added instrumental flourishes, and it is very effective. There are a couple new interstitial pieces to go with the cutscenes, and one whole new musical sequence that replaces the music that the original used at a critical story moment. I won't spoil it here but it really heightened the gravity of the moment.

The original's iconic and memorable voice acting is a tough act to follow, but I think the new cast is mostly up to the challenge. Fox and his team are all very earnest in their performances (there's a late game interaction between Fox and Pigma that gave me chills - Fox justifiably hates Star Wolf in this version of the story). Fans of the original might come away slightly disappointed in the performances turned in by a few of the supporting characters, however. The Sector Y boss, the Shogun Warlord, delivers his lines in a much more calm and measured fashion, and we're tragically denied a modernization of both his "cocky little freaks!" line and his blood-curdling death scream. Bill no longer has his surfer dude accent. The Forever Train Engineer also doesn't have as much energy in his deliveries, especially when he's panicking in the last moments of the mission. There are some standouts though. The Zoness boss, the Sarumarine Captain, gives a full-send goofy pirate performance that wouldn't feel out of place in the live-action One Piece show. Andross himself sounds menacing as ever, as well, which is a relief - you can't mess up the big bad!

Pretty Smooth Flying, Fox

But what about the gameplay itself?

Coming into this, I was so worried that Velan Studios (Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, Knockout City) was going to find a way to ruin the perfectly tight controls of the Arwing. But credit where it's due; this recreation of Star Fox 64 has pitch perfect controls when compared to the original. I'm sure it's not pixel perfect, and that there are small differences, but overall, the experience of playing through the campaign feels just the same as it ever did, and that's a good thing. I would say it even feels a little better since the Viper Engine runs these gorgeous environments at a very stable 60 FPS clip.

The game otherwise plays out exactly as Star Fox 64 is meant to. There's not much else to say; enemy placements and scripted events are all more or less exactly how you remember them. They even found a creative diegetic way to account for how the N64's draw distance informed gameplay: On Switch 2, enemies de-cloak when you approach, simulating the draw distance limitation of the original so that you don't get an advantage versus the original by seeing too far down your path.

Secrets and alternate routes are unlocked just the same as they ever were, and boss patterns are unchanged. It's Star Fox 64 through and through. The most major difference during gameplay is, again, the presentation. These environments are positively dazzling to fly through, especially in the game's 1440p docked resolution, and HDR on my LG OLED television. Corneria City looks like a proper warzone, socked in with smoke and flames. The three Sector nebulae are wondrous to behold as you fly through clouds of colourful space dust. Even Meteo, which was just a black screen and brown rocks in Star Fox 64, is awash in diffuse green volumetric light. (You can make the argument for Meteo that it's too drastic a departure in terms of atmosphere, but I think that it suits this dramatic new presentation.) Seeing these gorgeous environments contributed to my desire to play through this game multiple times to see how every planet looks.

Is That The Best You Can Do?

There are a couple oddities versus the original that stand out; for one, there's less consistency for damage feedback. Not all bosses flash when you inflict damage anymore, and the sound that is made is less impactful. This isn't a deal breaker by any means, but it's an inconsistency in the game's player conveyance, and does remove some of the weight from combat when it happens. I also felt that bosses like the Gorgon are actually made more difficult by the new 16:9 viewing area, since the tentacles extend off the top and bottom of the screen. I'm told you can actually zoom out your FOV, but I didn't find that out until too late, so I'm not sure how much of a difference that would make in this case. Your mileage may vary.

I also have a small grievance with the control bindings. Lasers are on A as expected, but bombs are on Y, on the other side of the controller face. That means X is boost and B is brake, which is mostly sensible, until you consider that you can't hold a charge shot and use it to fire a bomb because the buttons are too far away from each other. There are, unfortunately, no alternate control schemes on offer (besides the option to use a classic button-and-stick combo to perform somersaults and U-turns instead of the D-pad), and no in game way to set custom bindings. You'd have to go to your Switch 2's system settings and rebind the controller manually, which is a bit of a pain.

All in all, this is the best of Star Fox 64, made as good as it could be. It's a timeless adventure, and deserves this shot to enter the collective consciousness again. My hope is that a whole new generation of kids falls in love with Fox and his motley crew. But for the grown ups in the room, there is the ever present desire for more. The single player offering here is exactly what you expect, and very little else. There's a new optional challenge mode with normal and expert tasks to complete in the single player levels, and these can be a good way to practice your skills and return to the campaign to set a massive high score. Completing these challenges also unlocks cosmetics to be used in multiplayer. But even with that, the expanded lore, the cutscenes, and all the other updates to the original, I can't help wanting for more, to really make this the definitive Star Fox 64 experience. There are no new stages, no new secrets to discover, nothing like that at all. Purists will say if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and I understand that, but for me, it is both a pro and a con of this package that I'm left wanting more; it means its a great product that I think deserved expanding upon. As it stands, the lack of new playable content and strange conveyance and control issues lead to Star Fox presenting to me as a package that is great, but not outstanding.

You've Become So Strong, Fox

Where Star Fox goes from here is anybody's guess, but I'm on board for it as long as Velan Studios remains in the cockpit. They've demonstrated that they're more than RC car gimmicks and silly dodgeball multiplayer games. Star Fox absolutely brings it where it counts, and even though it could have benefitted from a little bit more playable content in the single player offering, the studio should be very proud. So what's next? Will they continue to capitalize on this series' newfound positive attention? There are rumours that there's another new Star Fox already in pre-production, so if that's true, what can we expect? Is it an Adventures remake? Is it going to abandon the GameCube era canon completely and do its own thing? Will they bring Krystal back? Will they force the voice actors to fumble their way through more of Dinosaur Planet's cipher language? Nacc no xulo ke jivvoh kxheiwx kxo Krazoa Palace?

Only time will tell. Until then, this is the ultimate way to experience Star Fox's finest hour, and I can't wait to see what comes next from this studio.

Mission accomplished.

Have questions for Brayden or opinions of your own? Find him on the NoGameOvers Discord Server!