The Nintendo 64 suffered a major shortage of new software following launch. Super Mario 64 was enough to ensure that the console was an immediate success, but third parties weren’t all that stoked on the cartridge based machine. Maintaining momentum was left up to Nintendo, and despite being just one company they did an admirable job. To be honest I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from Star Fox 64. I played the original on the SNES, and while fun it didn’t seem like anything particularly special. That’s why I was surprised that this sequel, packaged with Nintendo’s innovative rumble pak, turned out to be one of the best games of that generation. This is easily one of my favorite on-rails aerial shooters of all time.
What’s surprising about this release is the fact that it’s more of a remake of the original than a direct sequel. Star Fox 64 takes place in the fictional Lylat system composed of several planets and space stations. A mad scientist named Andross was banned from the planet of Corneria for developing illegal weapons. He was sentenced to spend the rest of his existence on the remote planetary body, called Venom, on the opposite end of the Lylat system. Corneria later noticed suspicious activity coming from the barren planet, and a recon mission goes haywire when the Star Fox team is betrayed by one of their own members. Years later the former leader’s son, Fox McCloud, sets out with a new team consisting of Falco Lombardi, Peppy Hare, and Slippy Toad to bring and end to Andross once and for all. One aspect of this game that has always struck me as odd is the fact that all of the characters are animals; it’s not just a naming scheme. The art style is a lot less creepy here than it was in the SNES release thanks to the use of polygons.
Star Fox 64 is a fairly traditional 3D on-rails shooter. You guide your ship (known as the arwing) and move up, down, left and right. Your forward movement in each stage is automatic, but you can regulate it by using a boost or the brakes. Your ship is also capable of performing the now infamous barrel rolls that block attacks, and loop-de-loops that allow you to dodge or get behind enemies. Your standard shot is a single laser burst, but enemies and destructible objects often leave behind power-ups. Your shot can be upgraded twice, and there are even bombs which can be used to take out large groups of enemies. Your ship’s life bar is located in the upper right section of the screen, and when it runs out you lose a life and must start the stage over. Fortunately this can be restored with silver rings, and expanded by collecting three gold ones. When the arwing takes a specific amount of damage to either side it can lose one of its wings. This not only makes the ship more difficult to control, but also resets your weapon power-ups to the basic level. The wings can be restored with a separate power-up, and until you do you can’t upgrade the primary shot.
What sets Star Fox 64 apart from other similar releases is the fact that you have three wingmen, and they play pretty significant roles in basic gameplay. Generally your three allies will give hints about how to proceed or exchange funny banter, but this goes a long way to making it feel like they’re living breathing characters. Each features their own life bar, and at some point or another will need your help to get enemy fighters off of their backs. If you aren’t able to save them in time they will be out of commission for the remainder of the current stage as well as the next two. The points you score by the end of a stage directly affect how much of each ally’s life bar is restored. All three of your teammates serve different functions. Falco is the best pilot of the three and helps out the most, Peppy gives advice and tips, and despite being the weakest Slippy can analyze enemy shields and uses this skill to display their life bar on your screen.
The stage designs are diverse, and well designed. The obstacles are well thought out, and no two levels are too similar. Star Fox 64 features three different routes to proceed through the main game, and your path is determined by the stage exit you reach. It’s a really cool feature, and actually has an effect on later areas. This game even introduces more vehicles to the roster. On top of the traditional arwing a few of the stages will put you in command of the landmaster tank, and the blue marine submarine. These are more limited in movement and range than the arwing, but they do manage to keep things fresh. The one underwater stage in particular is probably the worst level in the entire game, but the fact that you’re piloting a submarine is definitely novel. Easily the best addition to the series brought by this Nintendo 64 iteration is all-range mode. Usually these are reserved for some of the boss encounters and only take place in the last leg of a traditional stage, but in some instances the entire stage takes place in one of these arenas. You’re given a radar to show the location of your allies as well as enemies, and must complete different objectives to finish the level. Generally you’re usually tasked with defeating specific enemies or destroying objects, but you’re frequently distracted getting enemies off of your tail, and by pleas for help from your teammates when under attack. One of these such levels in particular is a re-creation of sorts of the final sequence of the film Independence Day. The all-range mode feature is a ton of fun, and I wish it was more frequent.
I remember the first time I saw Star Fox 64 in motion it almost floored me. The graphics are really good for the time in which it was released, but they obviously aren’t nearly as impressive several generations later. The environments look decent, but the blurry textures are off-putting because they’re worse than Nintendo 64 standards. The ships and enemies feature high polygonal counts, and the bosses in particular are often huge and quite impressive. Unfortunately the the draw distance isn’t particularly good. Star Fox 64 is plagued with that typical fog of the era, but it’s never enough to cause any hardships on the player. It is however quite noticeable. The framerate is generally pretty solid except in some of the all-range levels, but it gets notoriously bad in the undersea stage. The included four player versus multiplayer mode also causes a downgrade in graphics, but it’s still perfectly playable. The soundtrack is mostly subdued here. I usually turn the music down so that I can hear what the co-pilots are saying. The soundtrack is nothing special and to be honest you won’t be missing out too much. The voices are a little muffled, but they’re still perfectly understandable and quite impressive overall considering the limited cartridge format.
The fact that Nintendo has pretty much left Star Fox to rot is a real shame. The original Star Fox suffered some major hiccups for sure, but Nintendo was able to get it right here with the better technology in their sixty four bit console. Star Fox 64 is easily one of the best on-rails shooters of all time, and to think, this was released less than a year after the console debuted. If you can’t track down the original release the 3DS remake is also worthwhile. No matter the version just make sure that you play this.
