August 17, 2014 by

star foxReleased: March 23rd, 1993

Not Rated

Oh yeah, now I'm getting into the classic years of gaming. Since I just reviewed a Nintendo 64 title, it only makes sense to take a look at a game from it's older sibling, the SNES. Everyone today remembers fondly Star Fox 64 and the classic lines it's given gamer's, "All aircraft report!", "DO A BARREL ROLL!" and several others. Surprisingly though, I find not a whole lot of gamer's know the series actually began here, on the SNES. But that's what I'm here for, to type up information which I hope people are reading. Or else I'm just doing this for fun.

So what's the setting and story of this title? This game takes place in the Lylat system which is inhabited by anthropomorphic animal races (e.g. foxes, frogs, dogs, birds, rabbits, apes, etc.). The two main planets of this star system are  Corneria and Venom, which represent good and evil. There are many other planets, asteroid belts, space stations and such the player can visit during the course of the game. Once the first level is beaten there are different paths the player can choose which affects what places they will encounter. This adds some nice replay-ability to what is a rather short title. My very first time ever playing through took me just below forty-five minutes. Mind you, this was on the easiest difficulty of the three. After playing through the other two difficulty settings I can tell you that, with only three lives to beat the entire game, this is no simple feat. My only problem here is that unless you absolutely love this game you won't have any real incentive to go and play through again.

Okay, so here's the story of Star Fox: Andross, a mad scientist, has fled to Planet Venom after being banished from Planet Corneria, has now declared war on Corneria and unleashed an enormous army to wreak havoc on the Lylat system. General Pepper, the commanding officer of Corneria's defense force, has decided to dispatch a prototype high-performance fighter aircraft called the "Arwing." However, lacking in time to train pilots for the new fighters, he summons the elite mercenary team Star Fox to defeat Andross. Made up of team leader Fox McCloud, ace pilot Falco Lombardi, veteran pilot Peppy Hare and team mechanic Slippy Toad, Star Fox accepts the job and sets out against a fair numerically superior foe to bring peace top the Lylat system. It's all very epic, I can assure you. A story this simple works for a game like this with there being no major arcs to worry about and plot holes which could pop up. It's a simple tale for a completely awesome adventure throughout space. An adventure in which you relentlessly shoot stuff. 

Now let's talk about a mystical point called "3-D graphics in the early 90's". So back in 1993 there really weren't a whole lot of games which had any sort of 3-D graphical effect, let alone being entirely done in this fashion. Which few existed were mostly on the PC's of the time. The fact that Star Fox is an early 3-D game is obviously apparent, and in all seriousness it hasn't exactly aged very well, what with all the rough cut polygons everywhere. But if you think back to just how much hype was built around this before the game even launched then you start to understand just how big a deal it was. Here we had a graphical style which, in addition to being very colorful and quick, could handle showing you 3-D aircraft, land vehicles, asteroids and buildings, a lot of which were constantly moving around the screen. Yes it is all rough, as I've said, but you can at least tell whats what and are able to navigate yourself through intense laser battles. Adding to this immersion are some very well done sound effects. While the main cast of four doesn't speak during the levels, at certain points there is actual spoken dialogue with that little 16-bit charm to it. For the rest of the game dialogue is presented via text bubbles and the bottom of the screen as the speaker makes nonsense noise to speak. Explosions, laser effects and hitting your ships wing on something all sound very good for what the SNES was capable of doing.

Star Fox is an on rails shooter which can be played in either third or first person. You switch these two view points by pressing the Select button on the SNES controller. I advise against playing in first person however, as it can be hard to judge how close incoming fire is to your Arwing and you'll get hit a lot more. As you progress through levels you have to avoid both hostile tanks, aircraft, giant robots and falling buildings. While you do have a health bar which allows your ship to soak up some damage before you lose a life your Arwing isn't a sponge and will explode very quickly if you're not careful, meaning you'll have to rely on it's quick movements and relatively small size to avoid incoming fire. Of course you're able to perform the trademark barrel roll by pressing either of the two shoulder buttons twice which makes your ship spin in place and deflect hostile fire. Upgrades are also placed throughout the levels, sometimes appearing once you kill a foe. These upgrades range from shield restoration to more powerful laser weapons. Keep in mind that you lose all weapon upgrades once you die. Throughout levels your wing-mates will occasionally get in front of you, either pursuing an enemy of asking for assistance shooting one down which is chasing them. If you ignore their calls of help they will take damage and sometime end up getting shot down which will effect your overall end of level score. Once a pilot gets shot down they will not return for the rest of the game. Each level has a boss, some of which has multiple stages and are more difficult than others. Each boss has a specific weak points which is of course a different color and you want to hit this point to kill the boss. all of the action is very fast and frantic and will keep you full of excitement, even though there are a few issues here.

The first issue is the occasional frame rate drop. For the most part the game runs just fine but on certain levels which are particularly full of enemies the game tends to sort of stutter along which can seriously mess up your flying, leading to unexpected deaths. The other issue here are the controls. Now I'm not saying the control scheme is inadequate, quite the opposite. Right before you start up either the tutorial training mode or the main game you have the option to choose between four different control set ups. Each one slightly changes which buttons do what so you can find the one your prefer. I played on the default setting just because. All of these set ups work, only the responses from your button press and the on screen maneuver doesn't always seem to connect correctly. This really come to your attention when trying to perform consecutive barrel rolls, as you'll keep on trying to press the shoulder buttons but nothing will happen except tilting your ship to the side. I found it very annoying and it caused me to die several times even though I was pressing the correct button. And don't you try and tell me my controller or console wasn't working, because I clean these things once a month. 'Cuz I have no life.

So Star Fox. It's obviously a really great game. Yes, it has two main issues and it hasn't aged very well. Aside from this, the game play is simple and effective, the boss fights are intense, the difficulty is appropriate and the title itself is simply a classic.

Final score: (8.5/10)

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