LylatAce

StarLink is a fun cross over, but it’s very limited in gameplay. It’s part because it’s target audience is for kids. Also, since it’s openworld, it’s impossible to create 100’s of hours of unique content, so it does have repetition like all open world games. As a person who knows Star Fox gameplay inside and out, no this is no Star Fox. But again, this is a cross over. It does things differently. The combat is streamlined and easy to get into. You can master it in literally seconds. The controls are descent. The game does become more fun as you go along, but it doesn’t become radically different either. The real fun is customizing your ship and master them for skill points. As I suspected, the Star Fox missions are bland and not exciting. The cutscenes were parlor tricks in its marketing to get more sales. And that’s fine. Oh well, aside from that the game is descent. This is a good entry point for people never having played a space shooter **** adding an additional comment after experiencing the DLC, the game is still average. StarLink is one game why I don’t like open world games. They’re all repetitive, and they lack skill. Star Fox as a series has infinitely more skill than this. Not close. If you’re going to do space combat, don’t be slow and boring like Zelda. I understand this is StarLink, not Star Fox. But Space Combat benefits from being crazy, go crazy.

Star Fox 64 is the best N64 game I’ve played. There are plenty of reasons to replay, and you can always get better at the game. I don’t think it’s as good as Star Fox Zero, because there are less play-styles to use. However, it’s a great game for it’s time, and way ahead of its time, too. If I were to expand on this formula, I’d make the game easier for a newer generation. A lot of the strategies are hard to fathom if you’re a newcomer. And a lot of times most people don’t take advantage of the games design. Tutorials on how to hone your skill as a pilot would be welcomed and cut out the ambiguity.

I believe Star Fox Assault has good qualities about its design. Some of these ideas did transfer to Star Fox Zero, and it did contribute to the Star Fox formula. However, the design of this game is not well thought out. It commits a huge design flaw that most people will never talk about. It combines single player gameplay with multiplayer gameplay. Those 2 forms of gameplay are radically different and it throws off game balancing. For example: the rocket launcher makes sense in multiplayer, but it gives you no advantge in single player. No strategic value. It’s a half hearted attempt for diverse gameplay. While the rocket launcher is 1 example, it’s the reoccurring theme with every level. Everything is unbalanced. Sometimes people will claim Star Fox Assault is in an entirely different direction from 64, but I’d say that’s objectively false. They just don’t know how Star Fox gameplay works. This is a lot like 64s formula, it’s just the gameplay choices are different. Same formula. The good things about Assault is the half hearted attempt in unique gameplay. Star Fox Zero took this concept, but instead made it cohesive. The gyrowing is different, but it’s balanced for Star Fox gameplay. As was the walker depending on your style of play. That is a by-product of Assault. But none-the-less, this is a very poor game. Even if you master the gameplay. Your growth as a pilot ends too quickly and it begs for more.

This is my personal favorite of the Star Fox series. It’s almost been 3 years since it has released on Wii U. I’m writing this review, because it’s critical to objectively gauge what is good about Star Fox Zero. A lot of gamers are emotional beasts and they tend to hallucinate problems that don’t exist. What they think about most irrationally becomes most important. As a long time Star Fox player, I have to lay out what makes Star Fox, Star Fox. This game plays like Star Fox. And that’s hard for people to grasp. The problem I do have with Star Fox Zero is that the gameplay is ambiguous, as it was before on 64. It’s design is spot on, but it leaves many things open to interpretation. That is a design flaw, but it’s my only and biggest gripe. I can’t tell you how old it gets being surrounded by people who know nothing about Star Fox gameplay. Nintendo, this is an easy fix. Look at modern action games like Bayonetta. No ambiguity. It teaches the player how to play. Aside from that... the great stuff: The controls work perfectly but there’s one stipulation. You have to use them as intended to work perfectly, not how you feel like they should be used. Use the game pad strictly for gameplay. And use the TV for strategy. Focus on one screen at a time, not both. People who try to look at both at the same time are morons. The combo system is amazing in Star Fox Zero. It does a great job rewarding the player for ingenuity. And there many well hidden secrets. Secrets hidden in the levels, bosses and secret techniques you can master for alternate routes. This is a strength, but it can be amazingly ambiguous. Example: there’s a third way to destroy the first boss: lead the missiles back into the boss. Very cool, but a kid would never figure that out. Star Fox Zero is riddled with lots of secret objectives. More than any reviewer discovered. The medals do a good job teaching the player the mechanics, however, people look at medals as if they were gold stars in a Mario game. They’re actually Learning tools. And they do teach well. Again ambiguous. The variety in SFZ is quite amazing, the mechanics are too deep to type out, but watch skilled players and you’ll see how much you can strategize compared to previous installments. It’s a lot of control to hone technique and gives ingenuity to your play style. Star Fox’s genre is the action genre. It’s about honing technique and becoming better over time. This idea is lost on many because most of gaming is instant gratification. This is a game in its truest sense that asks you to learn. In the short attention span age we live in, that made this an automatic risk. I think Nintendo did an amazing job with expanding the mechanics from the 64 days and really making Star Fox fresh. I won’t list every little technique and detail, but Nintendo... if you’re listening.... please, quit making Star Fox games amibigious. Teach people how to play so they can appreciate your design choices, when people are unsure of how something works they fill in the blanks with their imagination. People who love Zelda will try to fill in the blanks in the context of Zelda if they can’t figure out the game they’re playing. People who love call of duty will do the same. I can use infinite examples. Again, make future games unambiguous. Hold on to what you have here and grow it. As a pro star fox player, this is objectively good and I think you know it too. One more time: make future star Fox games unambiguous. Communicate your gameplay effectively and conquer.