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Run the Series 7: Star Fox

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Khushrenada:
Hello NWR Forum users. Welcome to the 7th edition of Run the Series, the latest installment in that idea Khushrenada came up with that sort of has some potential but no one can figure out how to make it really work. Due to getting some encouragement to keep going with this idea from BeautifulShy, you can all blame her for this latest survey and reminiscence.


Run the Series Mission Statement

From past posts, I am sometimes surprised at what games users on these forums have played or missed in a franchise and it's made me curious about the gaming habits of all our various users here. It also made curious as to what my gaming experience looks like compared to others. I thought I'd see if I could find out more information on the matter by creating a series of threads designed to look at different franchises found on Nintendo systems to see what series the users here like. What franchises do people still find important to keep up with and what series have they let lapse or play infrequently? What are the franchises people haven't even touched or have fully completed? Which games are the most common shared experience in a series and which ones are the least?

For each entry, I've created a poll and the poll lists all the games considered as franchise entries.* Users can then select which games in the series they have beat. When I mean beat, I'm just referring to completing the main quest or storyline and seeing the credits and not if you've completed every other side quest or mission similar to how Backloggery would classify those terms. This poll is a chance to let all users see how they stack up again users from this forum.

In addition, if you want to provide more information about what your level of completion is on games, feel free to post about it. For that matter, feel free to give your thoughts on the series. Why you play it, why you don't, what's your favorite entry, least favorite entry, how you'd rank the entry in the series, what you'd like to see, what you don't want to see, etc. You know the drill. Whatever comments you want to make based on the series under discussion or specific games in the poll, this thread is open for you to do so.

*Or at least my take on what the series consists of. You are welcome to tell me how wrong I am with my selections.  :'(

Past Entries in the Series

1st Edition - 2D Mario Platformers
2nd Edition - Pokémon Main Series
3rd Edition - Donkey Kong (Country Style)
4th Edition - Wario Platformers
5th Edition - Mario Kart
6th Edition - 2D Zelda Games


If you are new to this forum series and/or you missed an entry and/or have recently played something in the series and now want to comment on it, feel free to check out the past entries and post as desired. Bumping Khushrenada threads is always a welcome practice on these forums.

Khushrenada:
The Series Up for Discussion

After a period of almost 10 years in which the only game released was a remake of the 64 edition, Star Fox is suddenly heating up again. A divisive Wii U entry which was kind of another remake of the 64 edition, a big selling point for the SNES Classic with Star Fox 2 and now being used as a selling point for Starlink: Battle for Atlas with the Nintendo crowd, Star Fox is seeing a bit of resurgence with Fox and friends actually getting included in games that are not Smash Bros. And even on that front, Wolf has been brought back in! Even NWR is getting into the Star Fox lovefest by handing over the reins of Director to a huge Star Fox fan. Might as well start trying to butter up the new boss by talking about Star Fox.  8)

While the series high point for many is often cited as Star Fox 64 which was released over 20 years ago, it's hard to argue against it as being the game that has most defined the series. It doesn't hurt that the game helped launch the rumble feature (which Nintendo is still using in their controllers to this day but now in HD!) and because of the voice acting with cheesy yet quotable lines which continue to live on with its fans. Yet, there's something about this series and property that Nintendo got right which has allowed it to continue on despite entries that haven't always appealed to those fans or other gamers in general. Rumors of its demise may not have been greatly exaggerated for awhile between September 2006 - March 2016 but thanks to the appeal of animal ace arwing pilots, the series continues to live on so let's just how popular this series has been with the rest of NWR crew!


Why Are These Games Part of the Series?

There have been 9 games released with the Star Fox moniker in their title although one of them is the 3DS remake of Star Fox 64 so it has been slotted with that game making for a list of 8 in the poll. The series was established as an on-rails shooter with the release of Star Fox SNES and Star Fox 64 to cement that ideal for fans of the series. While Adventures and Guard could be considered spin-offs due to their different styles of genre and gameplay, at this point, the series is small enough to just include all games under the Star Fox brand.


What Games Weren't Included

In this case and for the first time, none. All the titles for this series are being listed and used. But, if you want to get technical, I did find this Star Fox game tidbit on Wikipedia:


--- Quote ---Shortly after the release of the first Star Fox title, in June 1993, Nintendo teamed up with Kellogg's and Nelsonic to develop and release a promotional LCD-based Star Fox Game Watch to those who bought a box of Corn Flakes and sent the order form to Kellogg's to receive the Star Fox game watch for free. In the game watch, there are four levels and the object is to fly towards the Attack Carrier and destroy it while dodging plasma balls and falling structures. The game watch also included a pair of earphones and a headphone jack for listening to the game without disturbing anyone nearby due to the game watch missing a volume control. Nelsonic later released it in stores in a different watch appearance.
--- End quote ---

Obviously, that's not getting included with this series. Likewise, despite making appearances in Smash Bros., Mario Maker, and Starlink: Battle for Atlas those games are all part of their own series/universe and have no bearing on the Star Fox series brand so no need to include them here. I don't think that really needs to be noted but I've already spent the time writing it out so might as well include it now.



So, with that quick little rundown, let's open it up to the rest of you forum users and let's see how well NWR has Run the Series!

Khushrenada:
How long until the forum software scrambles up the poll options so that they are no longer in order of North America Release? That's the real poll question here.  :P

BeautifulShy:
I really like this idea and I am glad you brought it back but I can honestly say Star Fox in general is one of my blind spots with Nintendo.   I have beaten no games in the series and really only played 2 of the games in the series.  Those being Star Fox and Star Fox Assault.  The latter at a demo kiosk and I think for the former over at a friends house.

I do look forward to hearing from everyone else though.

Order.RSS:
Can't believe you're leaving the Kellogg's LCD game out of here, it's a bowl-afide classic!  >:(

On topic: the first one I played was Star Fox Adventures, believe it or not. I knew the character from Smash Bros. 64 and Melee, where he was pretty good, and the games magazine I read at the time scored Adventures a 9/10. They praised the gorgeous graphics and Ocarina of Time-like gameplay, but with added dinosaurs and space shooter levels; I was sold.

I understand Adventures is a rather maligned entry now, but at the time I knew nothing of the whole Rare/Dinosaur Planet situation. The game was quite incredible for the first few hours. It really is one of the best-looking GameCube titles ever released, I would go so far as saying it even gives many Wii games a run for their money. The hub world is so lifelike (remember how people always went crazy over water effects?), the Snow world had a speederbike race, there was this giant lizard dinosaur which swallowed you up allowing you to attack his tongue or something? The chill  music was  incredible in this game by the way, and the voice acting was done well too, which made up for some of its icky moments.

The game has several infuriating segments though. The Lightfoot Village Test of Strength is just a freaking roadblock which you MUST succeed at in order to progress, for example. It's just stupid button mashing too, infuriating. Likewise, the Test of Fear shrine feels like total bullshit. I spend like an afternoon just trying that over and over again, miserable.
It doesn't help that Adventures is very frontloaded. Most of the good levels are early on; the Lava World in particular is just total garbage. Looks ugly compared to the gorgeous earlier worlds, and the bossfight there is a really weird railshooter segment. Then there's the final boss switcharoo which shows how the game was rushed to market. Wish Nintendo hadn't insisted on cramming Andross in there for series continuitiy.

Despite the obvious flaws, the overall impression Adventures left on me was generally positive. So I borrowed a friend's N64 and their copy of Star Fox 64. I understand this one is seen as the pinnacle of the series, but honestly I didn't absolutely love it. It had pretty frequent slowdown issues, and the graphics were rather horrible compared to the spectacular heights of Adventures. (At the time, those things determined quality to me haha.)
That said, I did finish it once and it was a good stress-reliever to shoot down a bunch of baddies. Gotta add that since I borrowed it, I never got to do multiple paths and such, which I understand are a major reason people like it. It's a good game, but I preferred Adventures at the time.

Let's speed ahead to 2016. After having dropped out of gaming for a solid generation and a half, basically missing the Wii/DS era entirely, I picked up a Wii U in January. Not sure where I saw the Xenoblade X trailer, but it blew me away. Soon after, Star Fox Guard & Zero released.
Star Fox Guard was the first one I played. I like tower defence, the graphics were impressive enough, and this game has really underrated multiplayer potential. Since you're juggling two screens, and the TV displays another 12 viewpoints at all times, it's super fun to sit around with friends for this one. People will be yelling "robot on camera 4!", "there's one near the core!", "two incoming at 10!" etc. Really fun couch experience. While I think my old review of it here is a bit generous, this is one I can still recommend.

Star Fox Zero, I would say the hate it received was a bit undeserved. Yeah it's not great design to have two slow stealth-esque zones, which can basically not be skipped on a playthrough, sandwiched in a game known for speedrunning. I understand the controls were very strange, and it took a long time for them to click with me too. However, I think the real culprint is the right joystick here, not so much the dual-screen division. Camera adjustments I would've liked to do with a control stick, rather than through gyro only. When you instinctively reach for the right stick, your Arwing will suddenly do somersaults and the like, which is annoying Í'll admit.
Overall though, the game is forgiving enough that you can coast by just holding fire. I only used the precision aiming on the tablet screen during a few of the boss battles, really. Most of those battles were fine, too. Not to the usual degree of PlatinumGames insanity, but they felt eventful and big enough. Andross can **** right off though, took me dozens of tries.
Frankly, it feels like this one was always meant to be co-op only, and somewhere down the line a single-player mode was decided upon. It's much easier cruising if one person flies the plane on the TV, while the other does precision aiming and firing.

Concluding: of the entries I played, really none outright sucked. None of them was perfect either, but the games at least attempt to create some personalities and distinctive zones within the Lylat System. As a fan of shoot-em-up games and rail-shooters, it's a little dissapointing Star Fox never really surpasses something like the tremendous Panzer Dragoon Orta, but since they're always experimenting with the gameplay and control methods, rather than perfecting the rail-shooter, that's not surprising.

In the future I still hope to play Assault, but I've never seen that at prices I like knowing its middling reception. I also wanna give the DS game a shot, its VC release is still on my Wii U wishlist actually. Wouldn't say I'm a big fan of Star Fox games, but they tend to be better than the stuff I play on average!

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