The Nintendo masses have been waiting for the next true Star Fox game since the days of the N64. While we have gotten the odd spin-off on various Nintendo consoles/handhelds, a true followup to Star Fox 64 lay dormant for years. Nintendo has finally brought their foxy flight game back to help see the Wii U off into the sunset, but after three console generations Star Fox may have been better left grounded. I initially got to play a demo of Star Fox Zero during E3 last summer and had fun with the small chunk of the game Nintendo showed off. The controls were the most troublesome thing to get a grasp of and even after the extra time in development to tweak them they have still not been fully smoothed out.
Star Fox Zero’s first misstep is in its story. I know Nintendo has this habit of playing it safe by rehashing the same ideas over and over again. Mario saves the princess, Link saves the princess, princess, princess, princess. Sure, those games see iterations on a regular basis, but for how similar they are, the games themselves change things up with new worlds, dungeons, landscapes and powers/abilities. Star Fox Zero on the other hand, instead of continuing the story of team Star Fox, of which we’ve already seen a remake in Star Fox 64, decides to give us the exact same story we’ve seen since the original on the Super Nintendo.
Andross is once again causing trouble for the Lylat System, but instead of returning to take vengeance of Fox McCloud and company Nintendo just recycles the exact same story and worlds from Star Fox 64. Sure, there are new paths and ship upgrades (the Gyrowing drone being a tedious addition) in the game, but the structure is nearly identical. I’m 31 years old, and for as much a part Nintendo has been in my life, the last thing I wanted from Star Fox Zero was it simply being an upgraded Star Fox 64. Nintendo seemed to want to put a Star Fox game together, but didn’t want to do the work to provide us an original story. When the game was first announced I was excited about the prospect of perhaps playing as Fox’s dad with his old team and learning the story of how he fell to Andross. The “Zero” moniker sort of hinted at that idea, but instead of telling and interesting story we instead get a third reboot to the same game.
Where Nintendo did put all their effort was in the new control mechanics to all your ships. Because the Wii U has the gamepad you just knew that they would try and do something neat with it. I’ve seen a lot pf previews and videos on YouTube of big “gaming celebrities” playing the game and fanboying out (all while Nintendo takes all that sweet ad revenue from them) but none of them seemed to mention just how uncomfortable Star Fox Zero is to play. The television screen shows you your traditional Star Fox display letting you can flying around popping enemies left and right like always. This is as fun as it ever was and would have been perfect if the gamepad didn’t get forced on you.
Your wingmen will often let you know to switch into cockpit view (the gamepad screen) to allow you more precise aim to take out baddies during missions. This is in fact the case as you move the gamepad around like you are sitting in the gunner station on the Millennium Falcon. The problem is that there are times when you are forced to look at the gamepad while the television shows you circumnavigating some boss. When the gamepad works, it works, but as you move your arms around the targeting system is going to be have to be reset to center. This means that every time you finish a small segment looking at the cockpit mode you’ll mash the ‘Y’ button to reset it. Readjust how you are sitting in front of the TV? Hit ‘Y’. Tilt the gamepad too far in a direction? Hit ‘Y’. Look at the gamepad wrong? Hit ‘Y’. The games calibrate ‘Y’ button will be the second most used button in the entire game. This mode is a forced gimmick that should have been optional at best, instead of required throughout.
Because of the issues with the camera and gamepad control, certain bosses become a chore. While Star Fox Zero isn’t a difficult game (it’ll run the average player 4 or 5 hours to complete) the difficulty comes only from the controls fighting against you at inopportune times. The final boss fight with Andross (That would be a spoiler alert if this were 1992) was a nightmare to get past. So much so that I had to turn the game off in frustration because of the poor controls. As we are human beings we can really on see one screen at a time, so unless your gamepad is held directly in front of you face at all times you are going to be looking up and down so fast that you’ll risk getting whiplash. For a game so reliant on copying old things, the near perfect controls of Star Fox 64 were compromised just to support the gamepad. This also means that Star Fox Zero doesn’t support gamepad only play as both the TV and gamepad are always in use.
You will have access to all the ships from Star Fox 64, with each getting some small upgrades, mostly to do with the gamepad. The Arwing can turn into a bipedal mech that, while cool, really slows down the game when used in all range mode as often you’ll only be searching for a button to press. The Landmaster tank can now fly about like a Hoth snowspeeder when being used in the few all range mode segments it has. The ship that is new to Star Fox Zero is the Gyrowing, a drone like thing. It’s used during some levels and slows the game to a near crawl. You can winch objects, release a small robot that’s attached to you via a rope to active switches, and fly freely in three-dimensional space. These levels are a chore and nearly derail the game. Star Fox has always been about flying and shooting on fun and busy on-rails segments, but with the Gyrowing we get these bog standard puzzle like segments.
Visually Star Fox Zero looks solid and is quite colorful. The framerate does take a dip when things get intense, but as this isn’t an online FPS so it wasn’t really an issue. The real issue is the constant switching to the gamepad. Because of the lower quality of the gamepad screen things look like you are playing through a TV smeared with butter. The screen has a lot of uses, sure, but putting so much of the game on it really ruins a lot of the visuals. You’ll be wishing you were watching the television instead of the gamepad, and anyone watching you play the game only on the TV will have the better experience. Each of the planets and sectors you’ll visit all have a distinct look and feel and since this is Star Fox, you are going to have to play through game multiple times to find all the alternate paths leading to new levels. Just as in the N64 version these alternate paths really gives the game some longevity as you\ll need multiple playthoughs to see everything.
The audio is quite good and the classic tunes that play throughout are always a joy to hear. There are also a number of remixes that manage to make what was once old new again. The other tracks also do a good job supporting the action and the voice acting is surprisingly good. Each member of team Star Fox sounds great and the writing is much better than in any previous iteration. Slippy is less annoying and Falco is far less the asshole here that he was in Star Fox 64. Even in 2016 it’s odd hearing Nintendo characters getting voiced, but Star Fox Zero shows that it can be done without losing anything in the process.
Star Fox Zero isn’t a bad game in any respect, but it isn’t great, and certainly not the Star Fox games fans were clamoring for. First-party Nintendo games need to be amazing to keep their consoles going and this one is merely good. No online play of any kind, a tacked on control scheme that’ll take you half your initial playthough to get comfortable with, and difficulty that will spike only because of the controls and you are left with an underwhelming Star Fox experience. I don’t think Star Fox Zero is going to be a system seller as the series isn’t as well-known as other first-party properties, but Star Fox Zero shows that even Nintendo can’t always make something work. At least Nintendo tossed in a second game in “Star Fox Guard” to all physical copies of the game so there is a lot of content here to keep you busy until the NX drops.
About Author
