I remember as a child one of my friends rented Star Fox on a weekend when I was staying over. The game struck me as very odd (that box art is the stuff nightmares are made of) but it didn’t take long for us to get into it. What’s particularly interesting about this title is the fact that it was the first game to use the Super FX chip. What this piece of hardware did was increase the capabilities of the Super Nintendo in a pretty significant way. It’s impressive that this game was fully polygonal, but it does look rather archaic by modern standards. Star Fox hasn’t aged particularly well because of its rudimentary three dimensional aesthetic, but it’s still fun, and stands out as one of the most memorable games on the platform even despite the aforementioned issues.
Star Fox takes place in an alternate universe where, instead of people, the planets are inhabited by anthropomorphic animals. The antagonist of this story is a mad scientist named Andross who has been banished by the planet of Corneria to a life of exile on the hostile Venom. It is from here that he raises an army and starts an all out war against those who banished him, and it’s up to a local team of mercenary fighter pilots known as Star Fox (which includes Fox, Peppy Hare, Falco Lombardi, and Slippy Toad) to defeat Andross and put an end to his reign of terror.
What’s interesting is that from the start of this game you’re given a choice of three different paths. All begin in Corneria and end in Venom, but each feature different stages. Even the few areas they have in common have pretty major changes in each route. The three paths represent different difficulty levels with one being easy, another medium, and the last hard. Star Fox doesn’t spell it out to the player. Once you start playing it quickly becomes apparent that one path is significantly more difficult than the others. It’s a pretty interesting idea, and works well to increase its longevity.
This game plays like your traditional on-rails shooter. The camera displays the action from behind your aircraft and you can move up, down, left and right. In what was an interesting twist for its time you can apply brakes to slow down, and you can also apply a speed boost for when you want a quick burst of acceleration. These two maneuvers are limited by a bar on the bottom of the screen, but it gradually recharges on its own. You’ll find they’re both useful in different situations. They are sometimes required (especially the brakes) in specific areas of each stage in order to avoid being hit.
Your primary weapon is the single blaster on the arwing craft, but this can be upgraded up to two times with items dropped by defeated enemies. You also have bombs at your disposal and while these are powerful their use is limited. Your ship is not destroyed with one hit, rather, you have a meter which displays the level of your shield. When this is depleted you lose a life and must try the level once more. What’s really cool is that you can break the wings off of your craft by hitting environmental elements in specific ways, and this affects your maneuverability and prevents you from upgrading your blasters.
One of the most interesting parts of this game is the fact that your wingmen (Peppy, Falco, and Slippy) help out in each level. All three have their own life bars, and when depleted they are temporarily out of commission. Unfortunately these interactions are not dynamic and are instead staged at specific intervals in each level. Most of the time these are simple actions such as asking for help when an enemy is on their tail, or to pursue an enemy. It keeps you in the action, and it makes the action feel more dynamic in every stage. I just wish that these interactions were more candid because even your first time through they feel very scripted.
Unfortunately they just don’t help out significantly. In no situations do they make the game any easier. There are many instances where your allies get in the way. The only saving grave is that your own fire cannot harm them. While it’s not as interesting as it could be the interactions with your team mates help make the game more interesting. It gives a false pretense of Star Fox being more interactive than it actually is. The exchanged radio chatter is often funny and very charming. I can’t fault Star Fox for the lack of significant wingman interaction.
The level design is pretty interesting with well placed hazards and creative movement patterns for each enemy. It isn’t uncommon for the screen to be filled with enemy fire as well as obstacles, and the gameplay is often frantic. My favorite aspect of this game however is in its boss fights which occur at the end of every stage. Many of these enemies feature only specific weak areas that flash red and yellow. Often times you must wait while dodging attacks for these to come back into view.
The developers did a great job of making these encounters dynamic, fun, and challenging, and they’re my favorite aspect of this game. Speaking of difficulty Star Fox is a very hard game even on the easiest path. Even as someone who has been playing this kind of game for years it still sometimes takes me a few tries to make it through to the end which is impressive. I just wish I didn’t spend most of my time with Star Fox battling the controls.
Unfortunately Star Fox suffers from a major issue which holds it back; the gameplay is extremely choppy. This is no doubt because the graphics are too ambitious for the hardware, and it’s really disappointing. The plainly filled polygons animated at a very low framerate which takes some definite getting used to because it has a negative effect on even the controls. The polygons are usually filled with just a single color and absolutely zero textures. It gives Star Fox a kind of pastel quality which is kind of interesting. As the characters speak small character portraits appear on the bottom of the screen next to their dialogue. I thought this was one of the most charming visual elements. Star Fox is impressive by 16-bit standards, but the graphics just don’t hold up well. The game itself is choppy to the point where it’s hard to play.
The music in Star Fox represents one of my favorite video game soundtracks of all time. The dark brooding themes are unlike what you would find in most Nintendo games. The lighthearted undertones make it extremely memorable. The controls demo screen theme is one of my favorite video game tracks of all time and it makes excellent use of the system’s superior sound chip. The music for each level is distinct and highly memorable with very few recycled tracks. Despite the fact that this game contains more voice acting than almost any other Super Nintendo game the general interactions with Fox and his wingmen are garbled gibberish. This was no doubt to save storage space, but it’s disappointing nonetheless. The game’s audio is nonetheless amazing.
Star Fox is a really interesting game. The levels are well designed, the gameplay is fun, and the soundtrack is among the very best I’ve ever heard. The problem is it was just too ambitious for the hardware on which it was released. The game suffers some definite performance problems and unfortunately this holds it back quite a bit. It takes a while just to get used to playing this title. If you can get past the sluggish framerate it’s still a lot of fun even today.
