'Star Fox' will return ... again
It's been about a decade since Nintendo released its last remake of Star Fox, originally a space shooter featuring furry characters for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1993, so Nintendo is finally moving forward with another version, to be released next month, June 25.
Though the story is going to be the same old, same old (the Star Fox mercenary team of starfighters fights the evil ape Andross), the character designs have at least been considerably updated, both graphically and even stylistically. Though the series has previously featured plantigrade furry designs, for the first time, series protagonist Fox McCloud will be digitigrade, while avian wingman Falco Lombardi will have bird claws.
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This will be the tenth game in the Star Fox franchise, which means exactly half the franchise is either the original Star Fox or a remake of either it or Star Fox 64, itself a remake. The original SNES version only managed one sequel, Star Fox 2, which until recently was an unreleased game, finally getting a release in 2017, making it somehow the most recent game in the series.
Though Star Fox 64 was the only game on the Nintendo 64 console, the next Nintendo console, the GameCube, managed to somehow garner not one, but two non-remake games in the series, with Star Fox Adventures and Star Fox Assault. The new games kept on coming, with the first handheld game in the series, Star Fox Command, for the Nintendo DS coming in the same time period.
This would be the last game non-remake, full release in the series, as the next two entries would be remakes, the Star Fox 64 3D for the Nintendo 3DS being a straight port of the 64 version, while Star Fox Zero for the Wii-U added some new story and gameplay elements, but was still basically a retelling of the same story. (Technically, Star Fox Guard, released alongside Zero, is an original game set in the Star Fox universe, but it was literally a bonus disc and/or paid DLC, and not a full, stand-alone release.)
At this point, Fox and the Star Fox team have appeared in almost as many non-Star Fox games as they have Star Fox games; Fox has been a playable character in the Nintendo "All-Stars" fighting series Super Smash Bros. since the first game in the series, while Falco has been available since the second, and rival mercenary pilot Wolf O'Donnell off and on since the third. That series has five or six entries, depending on how you count the Wii-U and 3DS versions. The Star Fox team also had a guest appearance on the Switch version of Starlink: Battle for Atlas.
More recently, Fox appeared in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which, given his track record of having more appearances in games not his own as original entries in his own franchise, perhaps should not be that surprising. There, he was voiced by celebrity actor Glen Powell, and rumors that a Star Fox movie are on the way, which were circulating even before The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Ironically, given the changes made to the Mario games adapted by the Illumination animation studio, a straight adaptation of the plot of Star Fox may not actually be what is eventually produced, should the Star Fox movie actually happen.
That's okay, however. We've got plenty of other versions.
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2cross2affliction (Brendan Kachel) — read stories — contact (login required)a red fox
New teeth. That's weird.
Comments
Since I don't have a Switch 2 and don't really have interest in another remake I'll probably sit this one out.
Good think we don't have to buy it from Subscribestar, eh? Fox doth have the unholy legs.
I did end up playing the Starlink version for my channel. Was an interesting game, but pretty open world and repetitive so it was kind of a one and done. Having the toy of it still on my shelf so at least I did get something out of it.
I am mostly realizing this franchise for is more about "how can we get a hot furry vixen on the Super Smash Bros. roster" than about actual Star Fox at this point, and this constant retelling the same story is not helping that cause. At the very least, I'm not sure why they can't bring in what is now the Star Fox sequel trilogy characters. Krystal is at least as popular as Slippy and Peppy, they made her an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros., which everybody is treating as "warmup for playable character", so somebody besides me has to be asking for her, and Panther is sure as hell more liked then goddamn Andrew.
I do like the character designs, and since people are posting comparisons, I mean, I guess I'm used to fan-art because Fox has been actually pretty awful since Assault. I mean, Assault just looks bad, with those weird piranha teeth and ditching the iconic outfit, and Brawl tried to ape the cartoony Command look (which I did think worked there) which did not work at all in a fully rendered 3D model (and also for some reason gave him just ginormous feet, which they have overcorrected a bit on in this design, I'll admit). Zero and Starlink seemed to be going for a "let's make them look like the old advertising puppets everyone liked" without realizing, actually, no, nobody like those old advertising puppets, they were weird and creepy. Super Mario Galaxy movie fox is a pretty good cartoon version, and this is an okay "realistic" version. I also don't understand why everybody's so pissed off about Falco. He has bird feet now. That's actually kind of cool.
Katt Monroe's redesign, that one's bad, though. She's got to be basically a new character, right? Because I don't see that character design coming in with that "doo-dee-doot, DOOT-DEE-DOO" cutesy leitmotif and flirty banter.
One thing I didn't mention in the write-up I maybe should've and actually seems like something worth bitching about is that they did announce there will be cooperative play, which sounds like, great! So, let me guess, what would make the most sense? First player is Fox, second player Falco, third player is ... oh, there's only two player co-op. And, uh, Nintendo gonna Nintendo, because first player is the pilot, second player is gunner. Wow. That does not sound fun at all.
Well, anyway, the rumor mill is still there is going to be another game soon, more "adventure" like, so, we'll see how that works out.
Katt's official backstory is that she used to be in a street gang with Falco, they're leaning into that.
Digging the digitigrade look
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