Last week, my dad was in the hospital for a few days because he had stents placed in each of his carotid arteries. Between helping my mom around the house and prepping for a friend to visit from out of town, I spent my downtime playing Velan Studios’ revision of Nintendo’s Star Fox. Silly me, forgetting that this game is all about making your dad proud of you for carrying on his legacy after his death. Maybe I should have played a game with less baggage.
This version of Star Fox is the fifth version of the 1993 Super NES game that Nintendo has published. Even with the different title of Star Fox 64, that 1997 Nintendo 64 game functioned as a remake of the original. The souped up version of the 1997 game for the 3DS (Star Fox 64 3D) that came out in 2011 was a remake of a remake, and the Wii U’s Star Fox Zero from 2016 was also a remake of the 1997 edition of the game. (I haven’t played the 3DS or Wii U versions.) You’d think they’d include a new character, like Word Girl’s Lady Redundant Woman, to let us know they have some self awareness about the absurdity of remaking a game five times.
Five games, five platforms, one story. Rather than a simple cash grab, this revision of the game seems more like an instance of theme and variation. There’s only so many ways to play the blues, yeah? There are five access points to this series that have been available for players over the past 33 years. This isn’t preservation (a topic that took on additional significance last week as publisher Sony announced that it was going to no longer manufacture physical discs for its consoles beginning in 2027), but revision. When you’ve got a really good idea, stick to it.
Well, I don’t know about that. I first played 1993’s Star Fox for the Super Nintendo because Nintendo Power convinced me that the polygonal graphics were at the cutting edge of technology. Sure they were, but that doesn’t mean the game is good or that it’s pretty to look at. Even if I understand cognitively that using polygons means programmers have more options for how many things can happen on screen in a game, it doesn’t mean that I will enjoy the game they create. I didn’t then and don’t now think the graphics look good. It wasn’t until the N64 version that I really fell in love with the game. The improved graphics, actual voice acting, and decreased difficulty all certainly helped. Those are the kinds of variations on a theme that open up the paths of the game to new players.
The N64 version is good enough that I bought it three times: soon after release, at some time in college, and around 2018 when I was getting reacquainted with video games. (Previous to that, the last console I bought during its lifespan was a refurbished PlayStation from FuncoLand in 1999.) Because Nintendo can apparently read my mind, they released Star Fox in the summer. Both this Switch 2 version and the N64 version found their way to consumers’ hands in the final week of June of their release years. It’s a summer game through and through. You are recklessly making space junk explode by hitting it with lasers and bombs. In other words, you’re making fireworks and having someone else foot the bill.
You might be wondering (as I did) how much of my enjoyment of this game is bound up in childhood nostalgia. I don’t know. I am not in touch with the friend group that I enjoyed playing the N64 game with when Nintendo released it in 1997. I don’t have fuzzy feelings about those people. As I mentioned, the game itself was good enough that I bought it multiple times. That also means I sold it that many times, too. I would get to a point of complete satiation with it after running through all of the medals, high scores, and achievements. Just looking at the cart would repulse me. I wasn’t interested in jumping back into it like many other games. Over time, the feeling would wane and I would track it down again (and again). I felt skeptical when I saw the news of this remake a few weeks back. Would I really want to go through that cycle of emotions again? When I saw the updated graphics and added interstitial narrative scenes, I couldn’t help myself. This time I can’t sell it either, so I’m stuck with it until Nintendo decides to pull the plug on “my” digital copy of the game.
In this latest revision, it took a few times through each level before I felt like I was competent at the game. That feeling of “how did I ever do this?” crossed my mind more than once. After I got the hang of it, I was hooked. The updated controls for the Switch 2 work well. I like having a single button to press for somersaults and U-turns. The graphics are excellent. In levels such as Meteo, Sector Y, and Area 6, you get a real sense of depth with the details in the background. I like the voice acting just fine. After a few times through the game in English, I did get tired of the same dialogue over and over again, so I’ve changed the spoken language for each successive playthrough. I’m on Brazilian Portuguese at the moment, so that’s something like at least 10 times through the game. I do wish the subtitles weren’t only in English so I could pretend like I’m learning new languages while I play.
One reason I have kept changing the voiceovers is because I want to watch the scenes that occur between each level repeatedly to pick up on the subtle details hiding inside. In the previous games that I’m familiar with, you would get comments from your crew as you entered or exited each level. General Pepper would give maybe a line of dialogue between missions once you’d selected your path. The story itself isn’t very special but it gets the job done. In these new scenes, the relationships are fleshed out more fully with dialogue and actions. You get a third-person view of what it’s like to hang out in the Great Fox between missions. There’s a lot to be read into the body language of your crew. The way they are incorporated into the branching paths of your attack on Venom is interesting, too. A holographic avatar of General Pepper explains the situation to you and the consequences for each choice. Sometimes your crew will go rogue and offer suggestions that conflict with Pepper’s advice, but not in front of him. It’s ultimately up to you (as Fox) to decide which path you’ll take. You do so by looking at a 3D projection of the Lylat System on a holoviewer. The music that plays as you look at this scale model of the system gives a relaxing feeling to the time between missions so that you can decompress with your crew before jumping into action once again. These are also the points where you can resume your game if you don’t end up completing it in one sitting as you would have needed to in the original game.
Between that upgrade to the gameplay experience, the vastly improved music, and the gorgeous graphics, this revision is just about the best it can be as far as I’m concerned. It’s slick and it’s smooth, which is just how it should run. There’s also the multiplayer mode that you can engage with even if you are a solo player (local and online matches exist; I played against the computer and had fun). You can also get different avatars and backgrounds for the battle mode by completing levels in the Challenge mode. There’s a lot to do besides the main storyline. I don’t think I’d call the Star Fox series one of my favorites, even though I bought the N64 cart multiple times and have since played through it via the Nintendo Classics service. It’s familiar and filling like any good comfort food should be, but I don’t get a lot of nourishment out of it. There’s no moments of genuine wonder or awe or drama in the game. It simply excels at what it is meant to do. Until Nintendo revises the game again, the Switch 2 version will stand as definitive. These Arwings’ engines are firing cleanly on all cylinders.
As of Saturday, my dad is out of the hospital and is recovering at home. Turns out his carotid blockage was 50 percent on one side and 80-90 percent on the other. He’s got improved blood flow to his brain as a result of the stents. I imagined he would feel much different with this increased circulation. He said he did not and that the doctor told him he wouldn’t feel different as a result of the surgery. That outcome is counterintuitive to me, but I’m not that kind of doctor. I figured if you opened up a passage more widely and allowed for additional blood flow that you would feel more in tune with your body or feel like it took less energy to do the same tasks. He’d been compensating for so long under inadequate circumstances that it seems reasonable to think that restoring the previous status quo would result in a noticeable change. Once you’re habituated to an experience, a revised version of it might be difficult to discern as different. It’s easy to know in your heart that it is better even if words might escape when you try to provide reasons why.
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