StarFox 64 is not just my favorite videogame. It is one of the greatest works of art mankind has ever produced, top to bottom, succeeding in every element a game can excel at – gameplay, story, design, music, sound design, and as an entertainment package on the whole. I’ll die on that hill, as I have been for almost thirty years now. To wit, Nintendo, seeing the buying power of the Millennial parents in Universal Studios and LEGO sales data, have inevitably decided to trot out Fox McCloud for one more Lylat War tour.
I was over the moon at this sudden announcement in the form of a random mid-week Nintendo Direct, long-rumored but much anticipated. Watching the reveal on my phone in the middle of a work day, it took me all of five seconds to forgive Nintendo for remaking my all-time favorite videogame rather than giving us a new entry. Why shouldn’t we have a modern HD remake of StarFox 64, given the technical state it was in, with it being prone to bouts of slowdown?
But Isn’t the Slowdown Part of the Charm and Challenge?
My main question then became whether this new StarFox could retain 64’s pace and rhythm without certain quirks, like the very specific weight to Arwing movement and the iconic slowdown that was a result of the N64’s limitations but made certain very clutch situations doable. To this end, Velan Studios are acquitted by more clear timing windows thanks to a silky smooth 60fps gameplay and extremely responsive controls that can thankfully be customized, so you can swap the Y and B buttons for quicker button travel time when performing aerial maneuvers. The cut-scenes run at 30fps, but that’s barely noticeable.
Somersaults and U-turns can now also be activated with a single button press on the d-pad, a very welcome addition. I actually think that most tough time-based challenge maneuvers feel easier to pull off reliably here, as I remember the slow framerate really getting in the way of my reliably activating the Meteos and Sector X warps in the original. Not only can you go into cockpit mode again, but you can stop the screen from flipping whenever you turn. Instead, the HUD moves to indicate your position. It’s a brilliant move that makes first-person flying actually feasible for once.
Growing up, my brother and I didn’t know about the whole advanced scoring system where you’re supposed to use unlocked charged shots on surfaces to get an additional bonus hit, but even so, I think we got scores in the 1,600-1,800 range. That is very achievable here even without min-maxing, as I managed near 1,400 on my first go-around, on a suboptimal pathway, and felt that I was just beginning to see the ceiling of what was possible, score-wise, with this new game.
In terms of other changes, you need to actually lose Slippy on Sector X now in order to change course to Titania. Also, restarting a level will not utilize any of your extra lives, which somewhat blunts the challenge. I wish there were a way to turn this off to preserve the original game’s challenge, but that’s a very minor nitpick.
Is This More the Fantastic Mr. Star Fox, or “A Fox In Space”?
The primary new addition to the game are fully-voiced cut-scenes that take place between levels and show off both the decisions Fox and company must make, as well as flesh out the characters themselves. The visuals have been updated to more closely resemble the SNES ads and promotional material, evoking a more animalistic style, and therefore a more grounded presentation, that may be kind of an acquired taste. While I would have been happy to see a more StarFox Assault-like art style, this isn’t badly realized. I feel like future entries might want to tweak certain details, but New York-based developer Velan Studios wisely limits the models’ movements and emphasizes facial expressions, restricting between-mission cinematics mostly to the bridge of the Great Fox mothership. The cinematic intros and exits to each level are rendered faithfully as well, with some new camera angles that really show off the world they’ve recreated and built up, adding fresh new details here and there to really sell it all.
