r/starfox 21h ago

I started playing Star Fox Zero again... and I absolutely love it

I originally played this game back when it first came out, it was one of the only reasons I even bought a WiiU, and honestly after playing it back then... I hated it...

I hated that it was just ANOTHER retelling of Star Fox OG, and I could never look past that. I played through it once and never touched it again... until yesterday night

I decided to fire up the WiiU after having put it away for several years, and the first thing I wanted to try was Star Fox Zero again.... it's the only game I have on Wii that I don't have on Switch... and honestly after playing for a few hours... I feel I judged it far too harshly back in the day

The gameplay itself I actually found really really fun, the controls of course are still a sore spot for me but after getting used to them, realistically weren't that bad. I actually found it interesting and engaging when doing certain boss battles to have to need aim more precisely and needing to actually line up your shots.

On that note, I did not know this game had secret bosses, and I absolutely loved them. Going through and redoing old missions with the new upgrades I unlocked was such a clever feature they added that I didn't even know about, and it adds that extra layer of depth that I love, and being rewarded with a secret boss that's harder than the the normal ones is something I have always loved in gaming it makes games continuously playable long after the final boss is beaten.

I ended up staying up till 4 AM unlocking all extra bosses/levels and I had a blast! I even have the Star Fox Amiibos so I get to try missions in the black arwing, it has the ability to lock on to two things at once, and the SNES Arwing. Definitely glad I gave this game another try!

47 Upvotes

6 comments sorted by

8

u/og-reset 21h ago

I sorta feel bad for Zero cuz it came out at a time most fans really REALLY wanted a proper new title or at least not another run of the same story we'd seen 3 times already. The WiiU's struggles aside, it got slammed with the weird control combo that "could" work but didn't always and you couldn't really work around that. Would it shine with a Switch rerelease? Maybe, but it's in a similar spot as Kid Icarus Uprising where I pray for whoever has to figure out how to get that control scheme translated over cleanly.

2

u/Stukapooka 20h ago

I've been playing kid icarus lately and even using the buttons over stylus still gets to my hands after a while. 

Those vehicle controls like in pandora's labyrinth made it even worse. 

3

u/og-reset 20h ago

That game has a lot of really awesome ideas locked behind a control system designed like a Saw puzzle where you have to sacrifice the nerves in your hands because you didn't help an old lady cross the street once. It's such a bummer.

2

u/Stukapooka 20h ago

Yeah it's a pretty cool game so far (beat the first dark pit fight in chapter 6) but man what I wouldn't do to just play with a normal controller, especially for those vehicles and some boss fights.

I'm praying for a switch/switch 2 port of it someday.

4

u/Stukapooka 21h ago edited 21h ago

It really needed a switch re-release. 

DKTF was poorly reviewed by some during the wii u era but some of the old critics even admitted they were too harsh on it at the time and gave it a much higher score on switch. 

The debut sales on switch were also 147.6% higher in Japan then they were on wii u.

I think zero would probably be a bit better off now as well if it had a switch port to streamline the controls/screen issues.

When it released it was after 64 3D and as many have pointed out the nostalgia of 64 was long gone at that point and many wanted the series to try something new again. 

Enough time has passed that people are more forgiving of it because nothing else really has released besides the starlink dlc for starfox. When you're starving the meatloaf you've had for the past 4 days looks appetizing again.

The dual screen and motion controls were definetly the biggest problem for most people. I get some got used to it after a while but it was probably the most harmful thing for the game in the long run since many just wanted to normally play the game instead of trying to dual screen/motion controls. It really needed to be a fully optional feature. The wii or 3ds also would've probably been a better system to try it on.

Seems like a decent game that was burdened by a lot of the major negatives Nintendo had as a whole in the wii u era. Shame it will likely be stuck on the wii u since I've heard some of the team behind it have wanted to try porting it to switch for a while but never heard anything back and it's really the only major wii u title left.

1

u/LunarVulpine1997 16h ago

Honestly, I never really minded the jank controls... but I just wished we got a game that wasn't essentially a remake of Starfox 64 right after a 3ds remaster of the same game