AKA Star Wing.

For my first review of 2015, I’ve played a game that was the precursor to one that defined my childhood. Lylat Wars (AKA Star Fox 64) was a masterpiece and one I know inside out. Unfortunately Star Fox itself doesn’t hold up too well.

The main issue with this beginning of the Star Fox saga is that it’s been superseded in so many ways by its sequel. Apart from a few settings and concepts that would end up being used in later games, its music, and the novelty of early 3D vector graphics, it’s been made obsolete. Lylat Wars not only takes many concepts of this game and improves on them, it outright replaces its plot as well—Star Fox isn’t even canon anymore! It’s a little rude if you think about it.

Coming as I am at this afterwards, I can only see the ways it falls short. There’s tons of slowdown when stuff starts happening on screen. The SNES’s limited 3D capabilities (augmented valiantly by the SuperFX chip) make spatial awareness difficult and obstacles and shots will hit you when you think you’re safe. There’s also less character without bosses talking to you, and much less team chatter.

Still, for the time and considering the hardware, Star Fox remains a very ambitious game, that was let down by those limitations it was pushing up against. Lylat Wars surpasses it in almost every way, but it’s got a few tricks that make it worthwhile. Flying into enemy ships and bases to fight their cores, locales such as Path 2’s Venom structure or inside Macbeth’s caverns, the “ship graveyard” black hole and the surreal Out of this Dimension are highlights, as well as the moody atmosphere that some levels set with their theme and colour schemes. It also retains the sci-fi pastiche feel, borrowing imagery from Star Wars and the like.

So it’s not all bad on reflection, but the stiff controls and dodgy hit detection made it a struggle to get through. It was perhaps reaching a little too far for the SNES, but I’m looking forward to seeing how Star Fox 2 improves the engine if at all. Did you know that Star Fox 2 was more than 90% complete when they cancelled it so they could sell more N64s? And then the N64 was delayed, making the cancellation a dumb decision in hindsight? And that modders have made it fully playable? So that’s my next (and final) target. There’s more peripheral games to the Star Fox saga, such as Stunt Race FX, Game Boy title X, X-Returns for DSiWare, and Steel Diver Sub Wars; but I won’t be covering them. Sorry. Play them yourself and tell me if they’re any good. Cheers. Oh, and do a barrel roll or whatever.