Star Fox Zero review

by Piyoz on Jan 5th, 2017

Star Fox is a game franchise known mainly for one entry in its series. For us, it’s the 1997 Star Fox 64, an undeniable classic of an arcade-style vehicle-based shooter. Shigeru Miyamoto’s love for cheesy, spacebound military heroism shined through in the Nintendo 64 version and resonates to this day as an eternal beacon of iconic gaming for myself and countless other Nintendo gamers.

Ever since, each installment of Star Fox has taken on its own approach as a proper follow-up. They’ve tried stark shifts in genre (Star Fox Adventures), genuine sci-fi world-building and character development (Star Fox Assault), re-inventing the wheel for handheld to little success (Star Fox Command) and polishing up a tried-and-true classic to show of the 3DS’s capabilities (Star Fox 64 3D). Results varied. All that time, while perusing through forum threads, Miiverse posts and the casual conversations of millennial peers vaping in the hallways at chiptunes concerts, loyal Star Fox fans have always wanted but one thing:

A “true” Star Fox game.

Now, what exactly is a “true” Star Fox game? I wish I knew. But what I do know is that in April 2016 Nintendo released Star Fox Zero on the Wii U as an eShop download or as a retail purchase packaged with Star Fox Guard, another Miyamoto project that may be lucky enough to get its own Rare Gamer review someday.

Star Fox Zero was designed in part by Shigeru Miyamoto himself as a console follow-up/ sequel / prequel / remake / homage / re-imagining of Star Fox 64. With the help of Nintendo’s newest best buds Platinum Games, a brand new Star Fox has finally been born unto the world! Does it live up to the legacy of the Star Fox name?

The premise of this newest installment is that an evil scientist named Andross has built an army of spaceships that he has sent all over the Lylat System in an campaign of galactic domination. On the front lines is a team of ace pilots called Star Fox, lead by Fox McCloud, son of James McCloud, who previously banished Andross to another dimension or wherever. Backing up Fox is Falco Lombardi, a trash-talking bird with sharp-shooting skills to match, Slippy Toad, a prissy and clumsy mechanic, and Peppy Hare, James McCloud’s old co-pilot and the sensei of the team. Together, they support the Cornerian space fleet as Andross’s forces lay waste to the various planets and astral bodies of the Lylat System. Along the way there are dogfights with nemesis team Star Wolf, giant space battles, wormholes and dramatic final confrontations with bodiless monkeys.

Does that sound a little familiar to you? It should. It’s the plot to Star Fox. Which Star Fox, you ask? All the Star Foxes. All the Star Foxes that don’t involve aparoids or Krazoa spirits.

The campaign consists of a solar system’s worth of individual missions from Corneria to Fichina to Zoness to Venom. Each one is either a linear path of enemy ships, obstacles and diverging paths or an arena battle for a dogfight and a unique boss. While the set-up of these missions is largely the same as in Star Fox 64, campaign itself is not. The 1997 game strung the player along from end of the Lylat System to the other in an hour-long playthrough. After that you can play the campaign again and again to improve your high scores, find alternate paths and reach the two possible endings.

In Zero’s main mode, each mission can lead to another but there is no front-to-end playthrough but a simple menu allowing you to choose missions manually. Gone is the sense of accomplishment of starting off on humble Corneria and blasting through worlds, space stations and asteroid belts to defeat Andross in a climactic showdown before celebrating with the bombastic end credits. Zero’s primary mode is simply individual missions that, while they can be fun and exciting on their own, don’t have quite the same punch when played one-by-one than if they were played in a sequence like in Star Fox 64.

Zero also contains an Arcade Mode that plays out as a front-to-back playthrough like the Nintendo 64 game. I found it hard to get invested in that like I expected because I despised the sluggish and tedious missions like Zoness, Fichina, the asteroid belt and a less-than-stellar final battle on Venom. There are also secret outings that can be unlocked, too. They’re not so much hidden alternate paths triggered by accomplishing certain feats mid-mission but earned by flying into gaping worm holes or by following Star Wolf pilots into one-off side chapters that fail to be worthwhile or unique from the other main missions.

The game play of Star Fox Zero mainly has Fox and friends zooming around in Arwings both in outer space and in planet atmospheres. Those sequences are fast-paced, exciting and often very intense. There are other vehicles available, too. There is the Landmaster, a tank with homing missiles and which can transform into a hover tank for a limited amount of time. Landmaster sequences, while few, kick butt. New additions to Team Star Fox’s hangars are the Walker, a transformation of the Arwing that allows the machine to run around on land to navigate smaller tunnels when needed. It’s a nice change of pace which allows ground-based play without awkward on-foot bits from other games.

Less welcome in my book is the Gyrowing, a small helicopter-type machine that lacks speed but excels in maneuverability. This one can also deploy a remote-controlled robot called the Direct-i. This cute little droid can roll around to collect items and explore tight spaces. All of that looks fine on paper, sure. But the portions involving the Gyrowing make for some miserable and dull game play that I loathed thinking of having to replay.

If there’s one aspect of Star Fox Zero that is sure to raise some eyebrows, it’s the main control scheme. Did you really think that a modern Nintendo game would see the light of day without new controls designed for the Wii U Gamepad? I was that naive, too, once.

Basically, imagine controlling the vehicles on screen independently of the weapon aiming. The left stick moves you around while the tilt of the Gamepad’s gyro controls the aiming reticule for your lasers and bombs. Sounds bizarre and unwieldy, doesn’t it? For a while, that’s what I thought. To my surprise, I was able to adapt to this newfangled method after just a couple of levels. While confusing as hell at first, when I started to wrap my mind around piloting and shooting as two unrelated actions, everything about Star Fox Zero’s enemy design and boss battles suddenly fell into place. I and the controller became one. I entered a zen state and felt Mr. Miyamoto’s warm embrace.

Having said that, a more traditional way to control might have been a smart inclusion. At least give us players options. Although, Nintendo did provide thorough training modes and bonus challenges to help players adjust. Motion controls in tandem with tactile controls will certainly not be everyone’s cup of tea. I understand their complaints while still enjoying this new control system myself.

For a while, the future of the Star Fox franchise seemed pretty hopeless, didn’t it? But at long last we have a genuine Star Fox game to play on our HD TV’s! The graphics aren’t going to melt any retinas but they are pleasing enough that I hardly can complain about occasional frame rate drops from the standard 60 frames per second.

The soundtrack fails to stand as memorable in my mind save for the fantastic Star Wolf theme. Sound effects in battle and audio cues help to inform you of what’s going on in the chaos of the huge wars around you. The voice work for the excellently-written radio banter is on point and just as quotable as Fox, Falco, Slippy, Peppy, Wolf, Leon, Pigma, Andrew, Bill, Andross and all the nameless foes have ever been.

Is Star Fox Zero the “true” Star Fox game that fans have been clamoring for for years? Well, the aesthetic, the action and the corny dialogue and story are all there, perfectly intact. Yet the replayability, the urge to improve my best scores and immediately intuitive controls have been tossed to the curb.

I don’t see myself booting up Star Fox Zero on a boring Sunday afternoon to challenge my personal records anytime soon. I don’t feel the same compulsion to reach high scores, find hidden medals or complete the bonus challenges. However, for the simple thrill of adventures through the cosmos with Team Star Fox with some new tweaks, I think Zero fulfills my craving for now.

3/5

Satisfactory

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