Surely, I wasn’t the only one to raise an eyebrow at Fox McCloud and his crew’s new look. Looking something like the Fantastic Mr Fox thrown in a tumble dryer, Fox’s frizzy rebrand took me by surprise, especially after his highly stylised turn in the recent Super Mario Galaxy Movie. But sometime during my hour playing Star Fox, the Switch 2 remake of Lylat Wars (or Star Fox 64, its much less cool name in the US), I saw the furry light.
Fox’s more animalistic appearance leans further into the absurdity of a wild beast piloting a sci-fi jet fighter on a galaxy-saving mission against a mad monkey scientist. As melodramatic as Star Fox frames itself, with new cinematic cutscenes fleshing out the conflicts between characters, it is still a deeply unserious game, and it’s all the more fun for it.
Star Fox looks snazzy, which is to be expected; it’s running on beefier hardware with a new lease on life. It also feels smoother, barrel rolling towards a more modern vibe than its comparatively rudimentary predecessors.
Why we’re getting yet another remake of a series that has never quite taken off is beyond me, but the brief preview of the Switch 2 version hints at one of Fox’s stronger adventures. (Speaking of adventures, I’m there the second Star Fox Adventures appears on Nintendo Switch Online).
Do that roly-poly manoeuvre
To say that this is the best a Star Fox game has ever looked would be stating the bleeding obvious. Most of your time is spent viewed from behind the famous Arwing spaceship. And what a view it is. How does that saying go again? Hate to see you go, but love to watch you fly away in a fictional space vessel? It needs work, but you get the gist.
What I mean to say is that everything looks spectacular. Lasers shoot through the sky with more dazzle, explosions hit hard, and the smouldering death spin of an enemy ship as it plummets to its fiery doom is oh-so-satisfying.
Star Fox doesn’t go for extreme realism, though. It still shows a strong sense of style and vibrancy, not reducing everything to a flat yellow-tinged colour grade. There’s more interplay between light and darkness, like how the bright Corneria draws you in with its lush greens and choppy waters, while the contrast of Meteo’s dark vastness of space makes the dogfights really pop.
But, in exchange for fidelity, readability takes a hit. In Meteo, the boss’ glowing weak points aren’t as prominent, making it tricky to tell where you should aim. As a returning player, muscle memory kicked in, but newer players noticeably struggled, firing haphazardly at impervious points.
The handful of cutscenes I saw looked slick. It’s nice seeing the Star Fox case interact more in these sections, as opposed to little chat boxes during missions.
Non-interactive story sections also show a changing of the guard at Nintendo. Shigeru Miyamoto was infamously against injecting too much story into the company’s early games, but times have changed.
Star Fox depicts a bit more dramatic tension, albeit playing to familiar story beats. I’m not expecting Fox to openly explore the complex trauma of losing his father to the antagonist he seeks to overthrow, but I’m open to being surprised. I don’t expect Nintendo to portray the furry protagonist hitting the bottle to cope, let’s put it that way.
Taking to the skies in Star Fox multiplayer
I played a lot of Lylat Wars multiplayer back in the day. Probably more than I played the single-player mode, now that I think of it. The perks of living in a cul-de-sac neighboured by similar-aged kids who loved gaming!
With Star Fox, multiplayer has a bit more variety than the standard deathmatch fare. Battle Mode adds a bit more structure, providing objectives in four-versus-four matches that combine cooperation and competitiveness. As part of the preview, I only played a couple of rounds in Corneria, which saw teams face off to end rounds with the highest score.
Shooting down bot-controlled minions accrued some points, while taking down other players netted a higher score. Most of the points came from capturing objectives that would appear several times a match.
Taking the form of a tight circle, these objectives quickly became hotspots of laser fire and explosions as both teams attempted to claim the area for a huge chunk of points. Like the dying stages of a Battle Royale game, it was a hectic convergence of players vying for a small bit of territory.
Eliminations were important, but not nearly as much as controlling portions of the map. The moments between capturing points still counted and could prove the difference in close matches. However, like trading jabs in the boxing ring, it’s mainly to soften up your foes for the knockout blow when a circle appears.
Levelling the playing field
Skill is important, as was evident in the gap between series veterans and newcomers. But strategy comes in handy, too. Power-ups littered around the map can equalise a lop-sided encounter. Ranging from bombs to homing missiles, these pick-ups shred through Arwings like wet paper when used well.
After getting shot down several times in quick succession, I lucked upon a power-up that conjured a massive laser with the destructive power of the Death Star. Unwieldy and slow to aim, the laser’s overwhelming force made up for any trickiness. After a brief moment of panic, I steered it towards an oncoming pilot; within seconds, they were ash. Two more fighters followed them, cursing the dickhead wielding the giant energy beam of death.
I’ll happily admit: it felt pretty good — I won MVP of the match in a losing effort, after all. If The Grade Cricketer has taught me anything over the years, it’s that the ultimate feat in competition is starring with the bat when your team loses badly.
As much as I think I’ll enjoy revisiting the single-player when Star Fox launches on 25 June, it’s these multiplayer moments I’m most looking forward to. It made me feel like a kid again, gleefully shooting down my friends while playing as funny anthropomorphic mavericks.
Chris Button attended a preview event in Melbourne as a guest of Nintendo.
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