Star Fox for the Switch 2 is, for the most part, a 1:1 remake of 1997’s Nintendo 64 classic Lylat Wars (as it was known in PAL regions). A rail shooter where you play as an anthropomorphised fox, piloting your Arwing across a series of stages, shooting down enemy aircraft, spaceships, alien lifeforms and, of course, giant floating heads with two huge hands.
There was more than a little hubbub surrounding the announcement of this remake. The loudest delegation of said furore was in response to the art style, specifically that of the characters themselves. Going with a sort of muppet-adjacent and/or taxidermied look was certainly a choice, and while it was rather startling at first, I personally got used to it almost immediately. I think growing up watching Australian millennial cultural touchpoint Feral TV helped me greatly in acclimatising to the Star Fox team’s new look.
The other gripe people had was that Star Fox 2026 would be yet another remake of the Nintendo 64 game, telling the same story, featuring the same stages and largely the same gameplay. While it’s true Star Fox 64 3D was released for the 3DS back in 2011, Star Fox Zero for the Wii U (2016) was enough of a reimagining that I don’t think it should count. Regardless, I can see why people would be disappointed that a new Star Fox game comes along taking full advantage of the Switch 2’s visual capabilities, only for it to retell the same story of a game almost 30 years old.
So, a bit more about the game itself for those unfamiliar. Star Fox features a campaign made up of seven stages set on different planets, space stations or asteroid belts. Most of the stages are on rails; you move side to side and up and down, but your overall path from the start of the stage to the end is set for you. Enemies will come at you from all angles, and you have to shoot them down while dodging various obstacles, collecting power-ups and (usually) defeating a boss.
Occasionally there will be a mission in all-range mode, which allows you to fly around in all directions within a set arena. These feature larger dogfights with lots of enemies and a central objective like a giant enemy mothership, satellite or weapon installation. There are also two missions that use the tank-like Landmaster, and a single underwater mission where you pilot the Blue Marine submersible. These shake things up a little but play more or less like the rest of the game.
Aside from the dramatic improvement in audio and visual fidelity, the biggest change to this version of the Lylat Wars is the addition of fully voiced and animated cutscenes in between missions. For me, these quieter moments between all the action were worth way more than the sum of their parts. Everything within them does the job; the acting is fine, and the script is serviceable, but it’s worth remembering this is a Nintendo game. Cutscenes of this kind, with a gang of characters chatting, interacting with each other and the environment and delivering exposition, aren’t really in their wheelhouse.
With this in mind, these cutscenes are remarkably un-Nintendo, and in that way, kind of revelatory. I’m not going to say that you should buy this game just for the cutscenes, and indeed after your first playthrough you’ll more than likely immediately skip them, but I do think they mark a turning point in modern, cinematic, first-party Nintendo games. Anyway, enough waxing lyrical about what elements of this game might mean for Nintendo at large; back to the Lylat Wars.
After playing a few levels I found myself wondering about how I was going to get more than a couple of hours out of this game. After all, you can easily finish the campaign and hit credits in one sitting. However, the addition of the campaign map noting when each level has an alternate path, which in turn sends you down a completely different set of stages, got me to come back for a second and third run. And then after that I wanted to go after the medals.
Medals are achieved by hitting a certain number of targets in each mission. This goal ranges from being pretty straightforward to rather challenging, depending on the level. Suddenly the game takes on a totally different feel. All the fancy graphics and new cutscenes are stripped away, and it becomes just about efficiency and memorising patterns as you work to perfect your runs. Your route, which enemies you leave and which you go after, only using bombs at opportune moments – all of these elements that were always there become the only things you’re paying attention to.
In this way Star Fox extends its life well past the two hours or so the first campaign will take you. Making your way to all the different levels (16 in total) and then returning to collect the medals will take you some time, depending on your familiarity and skill level, of course. When you add in the brand new expert and multiplayer modes, there is a decent amount of stuff here for those willing to dive deep.
It’s worth mentioning too that all of these alternate routes and requirements for medals were in the original Nintendo 64 game, but due to the fact that I was around 7-10 years old when I was playing that, this extra layer of replayability and challenge was completely lost on me. For example, I at first thought the submarine level was a new addition to this remake, as I never got to see it as a kid.
Ultimately, Star Fox is an impressive release. It’s gorgeous to look at; the updated music, voice acting and sound effects are as high quality as they are nostalgic, and the all-new cutscenes are some of the best-directed Nintendo has ever put out. Whether this is a game for you will really come down to how likely you think you are to play through the campaign multiple times to go for the alternate routes and medals. Regardless, Star Fox for the Switch 2 is a great entry point for the series, and hopefully a follow-up with a brand new setting and story is on the horizon.
Rating: 8.5/10
Star Fox was reviewed on Switch 2 with a code provided by Nintendo.