- Genre: On-rails shooter
- Spoiler Free Review: Yes.
- Time Played: 5 Hours
- Too Short/Long: It is what it is, it's a remake. The campaign is pretty short but it has replayability with different routes and levels.
- Did I cry: No.
- Soundtrack: Classic Star Fox music, it's a remake and it's iconic but it's nothin new or too special.
- Why I played: I love Star Fox, not that there are entirely too many, but I have finished every Star Fox game.
- Jank: The only jank I'd really say this game has is it's uhh.. choices for multiplayer. Not having any form of split-screen is a big miss. Star Fox's design from it's mechanics to the simplicity/high contrast of the models is built for visibility. There is little to no reason to exclude Split-screen. It can't, or shouldn't be a hardware issue either, considering it's a remake. Because of the point of view, you don't need super highly detailed environments. Also I don't know if this is just "true to the original" but it's annoying that enemies will fly "off-screen" even in all-range mode. I'm not sure if it's because the camera is too restricted or they're just going to high and stuff, but it definitely feels wrong and unfair.
- Difficulty: By default it's not too hard with a couple of exceptions. However the challenges of earning medals has always been quite a requirement. It doesn't make it less playable, and at least there aren't multiplayer options locked behind it this time.
- Pleased/Disappointed: I'm Pleasappointed. Like it's Star Fox and I'm happy to get more Star Fox even if "more" is the same. There is more characterization, additional scenes, etc. This and that. It's not as much as I would have expected though, and I do feel they didn't fully realize their multiplayer as they should have.
- Recommend to others: I would if you like Star Fox and just want something to play in that regard, but I'm not going out of my way to do so. It's fine and I had fun with it, but it's not wholly something new either.
This other than it's more or less the remake it sets out to be. It's Star Fox 64 with just a little more. No reimagining, no changing things, just adding bits here and there. It's neat, it's cute, and I wouldn't have expected anything more when it comes to the campaign. Like they could have kept that 1-1 the same and I'm totally fine with that. They add some quality of life features like replaying a mission immediately if you miss the route you were going for, and a free mission select that gives each it's own challenging, it's nice but an unnecessary addition. What I did hope for was for them to take the opportunity to do something really cool with the multiplayer - which they almost did.
It's 8 player, and it's not just a boring old deathmatch where you just loop around each other constantly(like fighting Wolf on Venom), as you are provided with some cannon-fodder npcs, perimeter turrets, and unique objectives for each stage. I think those are all really cool additions to modernize the dog-fighting of Star Fox 64. I think it absolutely missed the mark by not including ANY kind of split-screen. I think 3 levels just isn't enough variety. Considering how much effort they put into having other little customization for the multiplayer and having avatars and stuff like that - you would have thought they would have actually put more effort and focus into it. Honestly I expected this remake of Star Fox 64 to be more of a multi-player game that happens to have the Star Fox 64 campaign attached as an extra little bonus. I couldn't be more wrong. The multiplayer feels half baked and more like one of those single-player games they tack on multiplayer as an afterthought. Even the co-op feels more like an attempt to promote-force the Switch 2's mouse capabilities. It offers local shared-screen or even game share, but regardless what you do you have to use the Joycon for player one and the mouse-mode joycon for player 2. Makes it a little hard to play the Switch in handheld mode. You could prop it up, sure, but who actually wants to do that? You'd also need a smooth surface to use mouse mode. Why not just allow for uhh regular controls? These even have all the capabilities of normal motion controls so why not also point and shoot as an option? Once again - half-baked multiplayer.
It's unfortunate, and what's more unfortunate is I feel like this game was potentially being used a barometer to gauge peoples interest in the series and maybe we would get some great new Star Fox content in the near future should it perform well, but I fear it just doesn't offer enough to capture a new audience and did too little to impress long-term fans, even those who eat up every crumb.
