Good Luck!

Here we are in the year of our lord Two Thousand Twenty-Six and I am playing a remake of the 1997 classic, Star Fox 64. I personally think this was a really smart decision on Nintendo’s part, because they need to let Fox out of his cage every few years to perform the great story of his dad’s demise or else he starts to chew on the bars and knock his food and water dishes over. Jokes aside, it is interesting that Nintendo decided to do a remake of this game - and I get it, I really do, it was the perfect Nintendo arcade experience and they’ve never been able to improve on the formula since (and they’ve tried)! I say it’s interesting because they are also releasing an Ocarina of Time remake this year (which I also think is a brilliant business strategy but I’m going to save that for another article). So two N64 remakes in one year? Crazy beans!

To me, this feels more like a remaster. It doesn’t offer any meaningful improvement to the core game or gameplay outside of graphics (with the exception of some online dogfighting modes). But that’s okay because the core gameplay is very, very good. I do hope that for the follow-up to this (and there is absolutely going to be a sequel) they keep the forumla but leverage some improvements and upgrades… but I’ll get to that later.

This game is fun! It’s as fun now as it was in 1995. The way Star Fox works is pretty cool. You have 3 teamates, you need to make sure they stay alive throughout the mission or else they head back to The Great Fox for repairs. Upon selecting the next mission, teammates that fall will still be out “for repairs.” This can cause you to be at a healthy disadvantage, to be without that extra help and make you unable to perform certain tasks, locking out different routes, and/or preventing you from earning the coveted medals. It’s actually a pretty modern system for the N64 game and here the entirety of the system is kept in tact. It’s hard to write this lobbing compliments when all of this groundwork was laid 3 decades ago. But still, I had fun re-doing levels to earn medals, running through the game multiple times to get high scores and unlock medals, and finally getting the “best” ending and seeing the true final boss.

The graphics are incredible. Like truly an awesome display of graphical prowess on display for the Switch 2. The characters look very good with Fox having his hair rendered so realistically you’d swear you could see his mange. I don’t know why I want to defend this remake because the first game is just as playable today as it was in my N64 after school all those years ago. Was a graphical upgrade enough to justify this game coming out AGAIN? I guess, yeah? I don’t really know what other metric to use other than “I had fun.” My hope is that Nintendo has a plan to continue developing the Star Fox franchise and lets the developers of this remake work their magic on a sequel. If that’s the case and, again, I think it will be, here are 5 things I think could help make for a memorable sequel.

Continue Adding Routes

I think Star Fox really excels with this unpredictable romp through the galaxy. I think they need to keep that as opposed to instituting something more linear. They can add some variation to this by letting you choose from a larger roster of Team Star Fox members. So if you don’t have Kat on your team in Corneria the route to the next area is locked off. This would up the replayability as well.

Money

The first game ends with you submitting your invoice to General Pepper (is this a Beatles Reference?), well maybe we should use that money to upgrade things on the Great Fox or your ship. I know collecting lasers is a part of the fun of the game but I could see a world where you have the ability to upgrade the base laser strength or buy supplies like lasers or shields before embarking on another mission.

Roster

I touched on this earlier but it would be cool if you were recruiting and collecting Team Star Fox members in different missions. There is a point in the remake where if certain conditions are met Kat comes out and flies with you. Having her join up after meeting those requirements would be cool.

Larger Maps

I think one of my biggest complaints of the remake was the scale and speed of the Arwing feels increased and this makes the 3D maps feel much smaller. In the all-range mode maps I played I was constantly being turned around, reaching the edge of the maps before I could even being to lobby my assault. It was the biggest frustration point for me in the remake. I also think in this same category the Arwings should feel snappier. Don’t get me wrong they feel better than ever but by the time you do a u-turn your target is well beyond your reach.

Co-op modes

Listen, if you are going through the effort to bring me Star Fox v-tuber avatars that can move their eyes around and talk, then let me partner up with 3 teammates to fly around some sweet missions. The framework feels like its there, the online mode they launched the game with is pretty good with new power-ups and maps, but it’s pretty barebones. Having some co-op missions in the sequel would really go a long way to making Team Star Fox feel more immersive.

Final Thoughts

I truly hope this is the Star Fox that helps the series get a foothold, letting us finally move beyond the N64 game and reboot the franchises. Every subsequent game in the series up to now has felt like a homework assignment that nobody got right. This remake finally makes Star Fox feel like a modern game and a contendor for an ongoing, well loved franchise. I’ve enjoyed my time with the remake, it was certainly priced right at 50 bucks. I can see myself hopping in to do a run now and then, and take a look to see what medals I’m still missing. I don’t think I’m die-hard enough to jump in and take on expert mode but clearing out the base difficulties feels like something I’ll want to do.