X was an ambitious tank-based FPS game on Game Boy that I reviewed last year. After stopping off at Argonaut’s successor studio Q-Games’s Starship Patrol, here’s their 18 years-later followup to X. It’s either known as X-Returns, X-Scape, or 3D Space Tank in a regrettable but common act of incoherence between Nintendo regional branches. Anyway, it’s pretty much the perfect sequel to X and highly enjoyable.
Q-Games is primarily known for two things: their Pixeljunk series of games on Sony consoles, and their work on Star Fox for Nintendo. Maybe The Tomorrow Children too. Anyway, point is they also revived the difficult-to-search-for “X” IP, an ambitious 3D shooter on Game Boy that I reviewed here. Dylan Cuthbert of course created the original game, so it’s fitting that his company followed it up years later. Anyway anyway, I played Starship Patrol (aka Starship Defense/Starship Defender, thanks to Nintendo’s utter inability to establish consistent names between regions) because there’s a somewhat tenuous connection to the established X universe which in turn has links to Metroid and Star Fox. I never said I wasn’t a nerdy bundle of neuroses.
The original Lylat Wars (as it was known in PAL territories) forms part of my childhood core. As such, to me it is perfect, and happily the general consensus seems to also be that it is quite good. I’m not going to hold myself to being critical about it. This review will mostly focus on the differences in this port and what I thought of them.
The good: Being able to play any mission at any time (after doing it once in story mode) is great, the caveat being that medals earned in this mode are separate to story mode medals. Textures and models are improved so it looks better than ever! There’s now an added easier mode that disables friendly fire and gives you more wing health, although the game doesn’t tell you that’s what is different. Menus are improved and the tutorial instructor now has a voice, although the tutorial is now mandatory (boo). All cutscenes can now be skipped, including the credits. The multiplayer has been revamped; no more Landmaster or Pilot options but much more customisable, new stages, and powerups.
The bad: All the voices are rerecorded. They all try to go for the same feeling as the original lines, but this just means that they all universally end up being slightly off. Fox is more dweeby, for example, and Andross’s laugh doesn’t match his animation at all. The Lylat voice option has also been removed.
The useless: Being an early 3DS game, they tacked on gyro controls which is not only an inherently bad idea (ugh Star Fox Zero) but also is at odds with having to hold the system relatively straight for the 3D to actually work (less of a problem with the New models though). The messages telling you to take a break are only a minor annoyance but they exist.
The positive points far outweigh the negatives, albeit with some minor tradeoffs. If only there were multiple selectable voice tracks… Maybe a new level or some extras would have been amazing… The most important thing to me though is that the game feels and plays just how I remember it, which makes it a very successful port job. Plus this remake, being handled by Dylan Cuthbert’s Q-Games, now gives him some involvement in the most successful instalment in the franchise after he helped birth it and developed the first Star Fox/Wing, the cancelled Star Fox 2, and the underrated Command. Yippee! You did it!
And so I finally got around to playing the final Star Fox installment. I bought it a while ago, but waited until I’d played them in chronological order. I’m glad I did, because they do share continuity and build on previous events.
This game has been criticised, just as Adventures and Assault have, for not following up on “classic Star Fox gameplay”. I share the sentiment to some extent, but then again trying new things can be good and we can always just play Lylat Wars again. What a lot of people also fail to realise is that this game, unlike the 64 one, was made by the people behind Star Wing/Fox and the unreleased Star Fox 2. Additionally, it carries over many gameplay features from the latter, as it never had a chance to be released.
It’s surprising actually, how different Star Fox 2 is, and by extension this game. We have strategy maps, with your ships planning movement and taking simultaneous turns with the enemy. When the two meet, you enter instanced battle arenas in which you complete repetitive objectives and destroy enemy ships. There are a variety of characters, whose ships all have different attributes. All these qualities are shared between 2 and Command, which gives it a heck of a lot of legitimacy even as it differs so much from the scrolling stages we love.
There is some limited scrolling-type gameplay in missile chases and some bosses, but most combat is in All-Range mode. This is my less preferred gameplay style but the greater focus on charge shots makes it more forgiving. There’s no tanks or submarines, ships just fly underwater when they need to.
It’s also one of those DS games that does everything by the touchscreen, all buttons being identical in function as the shoot button. You move, boost, bomb, aim, and do the strategy stages by touch. It works pretty well, although the boosted usefulness of the roll belies its slightly awkward swiping activation. I didn’t have any major troubles with it, it’s just another control scheme to get used to.
The big draw of this game to me was the plot and characters. It has a familiar path-choosing system but ties it to the plot and decisions, giving you the potential not just of different stages to play but different combinations of characters in coversation and eventually different endings. The breadth of these branches makes many mutually exclusive, but the fun is figuring out what aspects of which branches are “most canon”, or at least canon to you, and which are compatible. For example, maybe Star Fox defeats the bad guys, or maybe Star Wolf does, with or without Krystal. If Slippy’s on Aquas then Falco can still be with Fox on Solar, etc, etc.
It does a great job though of involving many beloved characters. No Tricky unfortunately but many previous antagonists show up, either aligned with the new Anglar guys or with their own agendas. The new characters also mesh well, with each one having dialogue to involve them and make them feel right in that world. Said dialogue is well written for the most part, although I find Krystal’s characterisation confusing, a tradition of Star Fox I guess. It did make me laugh though at other parts. They also bring in Octoman from F-Zero as an enemy, which along with a couple other nods cements the connection between those series. Great stuff.
The mechanics of the game are relatively simple and as I said you repeat them many times, especially if you’re replaying for more endings. But I don’t mind that so much as long as the game has other factors to keep me playing, which it does, plus those mechanics feel good enough moment to moment to carry me through. Despite its lack of bombast and fidelity compared to Assault, I think I prefer it. It’s allowed to explore smaller, more personal stories in amongst the conflict due to the branching structure, and look at consequences and relationships rather than a series of big action scenes.
I’ve really enjoyed Command, it’s a fitting end to the Star Fox saga (for now!), there’s a lot of closure in there amongst some silliness with all the endings. There’s also a strange sense of fulfillment as it delivers on all the concepts introduced in the unfortunate Star Fox 2. Sure, it’s not the scrolling shooter we really want but for the DS that might not have worked so well anyway. I do want more but I concede that this game seems to end things well. Unless they do a continuity barrel roll, or else go the next generation route like Golden Sun or Sin & Punishment (I don’t have the confidence Nintendo will do that, it’s not safe enough). Well Nintendo, trust your instincts. Or not, whatever.
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