Nintendo's new Star Fox reboot for Switch 2 has all the trademarks of something that should be totally creatively bankrupt.
It's a gussied-up remake of Star Fox 64, a game that Nintendo has already remade once before for the 3DS. On top of that, its existence feels like a big attempt at corporate synergy with the distressingly awful Super Mario Galaxy Movie, in which Fox McCloud made his surprise cinematic debut. Instead of reviving the long-dormant Star Fox series with something new, Nintendo has gone and just given us the same game for the third time.
And the wildest part is that it totally kicks ass. Nintendo and new development partner (and Troy, New York's own) Velan Studios have done the impossible and made a big, Hollywood-style remake of a classic arcade-style rail shooter that really, truly works once you sit down and play it. Star Fox for Switch 2 marries timeless levels and mechanics with gorgeous visuals, a breathtaking soundtrack, and just enough new flavor to make me excited about the future of Star Fox for the first time since the Bush administration.
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Star Fox proves that 'cinematic' doesn't have to be a dirty word in games
Credit: Nintendo
If you haven't been following along closely, I should probably clarify a few things about Star Fox for Switch 2.
First, yes, this is a one-to-one recreation of Star Fox 64 in terms of level design and mechanics. Enemy placement, boss strategies, the branching path system, and the way scoring works are all retained here, exactly as they were in 1997. It's still a rail shooter with some open-zone segments, and you can still finish it in roughly half an hour. I have played through the original game dozens of times in my life, so I can speak pretty authoritatively on this subject.
What Star Fox lacks in innovation, it makes up for in pure, timeless arcade-style gameplay. Controlling the Arwing spacecraft has, in my mind, never felt better than it does here. It took all of 30 seconds for me to feel totally comfortable with everything I was doing, and a new, extended tutorial should be pretty good at easing newcomers into the fun, too. Using a charged shot to eliminate a group of enemy ships and then quickly barrel rolling out of the way of an incoming obstacle was thrilling 29 years ago, and it's still thrilling now.
I am largely uninterested in conversations about whether a remake is better or worse than the original. In my mind, remakes are either additive or can be safely ignored, so long as the original is readily, legally available on modern hardware, as Star Fox 64 is on Switch.
Credit: Nintendo
Having said that, there are actually a couple of aspects of this new Star Fox that I feel elevate the experience beyond what the N64 was capable of. The new visuals, for example, add personality to some levels that badly needed it. Corneria, the game's opening level, regardless of which branch you choose to pursue, is downright apocalyptic here, befitting of a planet undergoing a violent invasion from an evil empire. I'm also a fan of the new take on Katina, which turns that level into a wetland marsh environment rather than the nondescript brown smudge that defined it on N64.
I'm also particularly fond of how reactive each environment is to player actions. Shooting basically any surface in the game produces a satisfying graphical effect, such as space dust on meteorites or sparks from metal surfaces. In one section, you can shoot pine trees on the ground to set them on fire. It all looks and feels right in that respect, and frankly, I think the new character designs are kinda cool. I like how much more animal-like they are.
Arguably, the best aspect of this remake, and the one thing that I would say is a straight-up upgrade over the original, is the soundtrack. Star Fox 64's score was, and remains, extremely well composed, but the N64's sound hardware just wasn't particularly good at producing artificial orchestral sounds. Nintendo has gone and re-recorded the entire thing with a real orchestra for this remake, and I would say every single song is better here than it was before.
There are also new cutscenes sprinkled in between every story mission. These are typically pretty quick mission briefings that serve to add a little bit of flavor to the Star Fox universe, and they're mostly successful at that. I enjoy seeing the crew hang out with each other between battles, and I particularly like how often Fox makes it clear that his main motivation is getting paid because he's a mercenary. Making the world of Star Fox feel a little more grimy is cool.
As a fun bonus, you get different cutscenes based on which branching paths you choose in the campaign, so there's another little reason to play it over and over again.
These visual and audio changes work in concert to make the new Star Fox feel "cinematic," a term that has evolved into a pejorative for glossy AAA productions. In this context, though, Star Fox earns the compliment. A rail shooter ought to feel cinematic, given the genre's inherent reliance on heavy scripting while still preserving interactivity. Star Fox 64 also felt cinematic in its day, but I do believe the new version does that particular thing better than the original.
New modes are fun, but some changes fall a little flat
Of course, Nintendo and Velan also made a bunch of changes, as you'd expect from a full-on remake. Most of them are fine, but some of them are not.
I'll start with the bad. The new voice acting is generally done fairly well, in line with how modern video games and cartoons sound. That is to say, the tone on each line read is usually a bit more muted and less theatrical than the original. It can often be jarring if the lines from 1997 are imprinted on your brain like they are on mine, but I have to imagine anyone starting their Star Fox journey with this version will not notice anything wrong.
Still, it was hard for me not to notice how many lines that were previously screamed dramatically are now spoken more casually. I prefer the original reads, but that's to be expected of someone who has been hearing them for three decades. I also want to bemoan the lack of a weird robot voice saying "GOOD LUCK" when you start each level. There was no need to take that out.
Credit: Nintendo
Other than that, though, most of the additions are worthwhile. Challenge Mode adds a bunch of achievement-like objectives to each level, giving you even more reason to replay them after you've earned all the medals in the story mode. Battle Mode is a new, expanded multiplayer experience that offers online 4v4 dogfights across three maps, with a different team objective on each map.
I'm pretty into what I've played of Battle Mode, but I can easily see it wearing a little thin after a week or two, given the lack of maps and (thus far) lack of indication that there will be any more added to the game. Regardless, the dream of online Star Fox dogfights has finally been realized in a console game, and that counts for something.
Star Fox for Switch 2 might not be the franchise revival many of us had in mind when rumors of its existence started trickling out months ago. But on its merits, this is a mostly excellent take on a tremendous N64 classic, and one that I think would be a fantastic starting point for anyone who has ever been Star Fox-curious. Given the way Nintendo has treated remakes made by external studios in the recent past, I also fully expect this to be an on-ramp to a new, original game in the near future.
And for the first time in a very long time, I'm actually excited by the prospect of a new Star Fox game.