"Decent to the XTREME!"

Everyone loved Star Fox 64 for its simple and easy-to-learn yet in depth style of both on-rail and free-form third person shooting. Star Fox: Adventures came along when Nintendo decided to rip the wings off of Fox McCloud and make a Zelda style game with him. Praise was seldom for removing Fox's signature flight, so then Nintendo tried releasing Star Fox: Assault, which granted space shooting back to good ol' Fox but had a horrible storyline and terrible on-foot shooting mechanics. Since those two disappointments, it was dark times for many a Star Fox fan. With that in mind, I begin my review of Star Fox: Command...

Story: 4/10

Like virtually all DS games, the story is pretty bad. It is conveyed via characters of the StarFox team talking to each other before and during missions. The planet Venom which was previously home to the scientist Andross has spawned an evil race called the "Anglar" from the depths of the toxic seas. The Anglar have unleashed a titanic fleet of enemies upon the Lylat System, and once again, it's up to the elite mercenaries of the Star Fox team to drive them back. However, the team has since broken up, and now Fox is alone against their barrage. The story arcs in different ways and there are nine different endings which adds to the replayablilty, but the plot is never really spectacular; all the characters do is discuss the issues at hand and then off they go.

Graphics 9/10

For a DS game, the graphics are impressive and true to the Star Fox name. All of the allied fighters look great and have their own visual style. Fox is in his signature Arwing (though it's been upgraded to the Arwing II), but since Assault, each character has found unique ships. For instance, Slippy has the “Bullfrog” ship which has a much shorter but wider cockpit than the Arwing and the wings follow the same pattern. It varies further than that though, such as Lucy's “Sky Bunny” which has a saucer-like design with “bunny ear” thrusters on top and two wings that bend to a 180 degree angle and is colored pink. It gets weirder than that, but I won't spoil it for you. Lasers and lighting effects are crisp and detailed, the lasers are not one solid color but instead have lighter “tips” on them. Most of the enemies and terrain match the detail of the fighters. One thing I disliked is the inability to fight giant enemies or bosses. This is a kind of tradition in Star Fox games, SF64 had a massive boss at the end of pretty much every level but the ones you face are decent enough and equally creative in that sense. The environments are drastically different from level to level, and depending on where your ship is on the tactics map (more on the map later) the level terrain is different and has different layouts.

Sound: 8/10
Since there are three specific things associated with sound, I broke up this section into 3 paragraphs.

Speech

There are unfortunatly no voice overs in this game. Instead, the characters speak in a garbled computer voice with a text window. What the characters say aren't even words. In its place, they use some program to chop up what they are saying and mix it all up to make it sound as though they speak a different language, and while it's a pretty lazy move, it surprisingly wasn't very annoying to me. Each of the characters has their own pitches, so there's a tiny bit of individuality. Personally I would've preferred voice overs but I suppose Q-Games and Nintendo didn't want to make the same mistake of cheesy voice overs like Assault. You can also do a small questionnaire in the options menu where you speak into the DS's microphone and it'll chop up your voice instead of an automated one, but for me it sounded badly so I simply went with the automated one.

Music

Each pilot you control has their own theme while they execute their missions; some pilot's themes are obviously better than others, but they all fit the characters and none are terrible. Star Wolf's theme is of course among the better tracks, it is full of energy and fun to listen to while fighting, while others such as ROB 64 are more generic. Some of the tactics map music has some catchiness to it.

Sound Effects

This is the best part of the sound, all of the sound effects work really well and create a sense of being in the fray during battle, especially the smooth shooting sounds of lasers, the high pitched noise of doing an infamous Star Fox barrel roll, the sound of the thrusters “zooming” when you boost, and the loud noise of getting critically injured. To me, the sounds seemed to fit the game to the dollar. The sounds are so unique that I'll bet if you've never played the game but heard the sound effects you'd instantly remember Star Fox 64. They have updated some of the sounds since then, but they simply feel appropriate.

Game Play: 9/10

The game play of Star Fox: Command will remind you of Star Fox 64 superbly. It loses the “on-rails” portion and sticks with the “free-roam” aspect, I will admit, but what they've added to the mix makes up for it. Again I've split up the game play section as there are specific parts to touch base on.

Controls

The controls have been either downgraded or upgraded depending on which side of the “control wars” you are on. The GameFAQs forum members are split on the new controls; some believe that the stylus controls are too difficult for the simple layout of the game and you shouldn't be forced to use the stylus. Others believe that the stylus is an improvement because it allows superior control over the ship and speed provided you get used to the format the controls are in. Whichever side of the fence you're on, you came for my opinion on the matter, and I say screw the D-Pad. Comments about a ruined control scheme seem ridiculous if you spend time on the tutorial. I mastered the controls within the first 20 minutes of popping in the game. I digress, however, because you need the info on the matter. Star Fox: Command controls with the touch screen rather than the previous versions using the D-Pad or control stick. Additionally, the barrel roll which was previously activated by pressing one of the trigger buttons (L or R) twice is now done by moving your stylus in either a circle or rubbing it left and right. Boosting is done by tapping the top half of the touch screen twice, and braking is done by tapping the bottom half of the touch screen twice. As confusing as that undoubtedly sounds, I found it to work quite well. The only flaw is very small: tapping the touch screen to boost or brake takes a little bit of timing as it doesn't register your second tap fast enough. Once that it figured out, you're ready to play and I speculate that playing with the D-Pad would make the game harder.

Single Player

The campaign adds quite a few things to the fray that were previously absent, such as 9 alternate endings depending on choices you make before each mission, 14 playable characters with unique crafts and stats, and a “Tactics Map” which serves as a small twist on the usual combat of Star Fox games.

The game is divided into a multitude of missions ala SF64. In each mission, 3 things happen in order: 1 .The characters discuss the situation and condition of the mission 2. You are sent out on the tactics map to plan how to engage the enemy and 3. You get to fight enemies. The first part isn't relevant to this part of the review so I'll get to the tactics map.

The objective of each mission is to receive “cores” from all of the enemy units by defeating them. However, you must also protect yourself and the Great Fox from harm. So you have to plan where your characters go by making flight plans with the stylus. When your flight plan intercepts the path of enemy units, you go into the combat. It sounds elementary, but there are some things on the map that actually require you to make strategies such as missiles to fetch so the Great Fox can defend itself, and bases to grant yourself more turns so you have more time to receive all of the cores.

The combat is great, though there are some new conditions that add difficulty. When you are in combat, you have a time limit and you must get all the cores within the time limit or you will lose a life, though you can find items to replenish your time. You must also hunt down specific enemies as only a few of them actually have the cores that you need. Killing them is quite a bit of fun, almost all of the enemies with cores are unique and require some basic level of thought to defeat them, but the combat is very simplistic almost to the point where it is shallow, because you must fetch the cores every single time you are in combat with a few exceptions. I would've liked to see a little variety in that department.

Multiplayer (Wi-Fi)

The multiplayer is nice, not quite good enough to warrant the games' purchase all on its own, but it will always provide entertainment if you're stuck somewhere boring. You are allowed quite a few options in terms of modes: Battle Royale chooses up to four enemies online for you to dogfight, while Free Battle allows you to choose to battle with specific friends or choose 2-4 enemies to fight who have the same skill level as you do. I'd put the quality of the multiplayer as second to Tetris, but it easily tops the broken game of Metroid Prime: Hunters and the dead game of Mario Kart DS. One thing people like to complain about the games' multiplayer is the lack of player options; you can only fight in the Arwing II instead of the 14 single player characters. While that is indeed a shame, it provides balance so no one can take advantage of obscure advantages one character might have over others. The combat is very simplistic: it has a few weapon upgrades that drop onto the stage to pick up, and a stealth upgrade for invisibility.

Overall: 8/10

Is Star Fox: Command the new SF64? Have the Star Fox fans finally received a true Star Fox game? Has Nintendo fulfilled our wishes? I say yes. There is no gray area here, they finally produced a Star Fox title that matches the glory of SF64. It's unfortunate for me to see others focus on Nintendo's wacky way of making things different rather that the game itself. There are few flaws in the game, other than it being slightly repetitive. At the end of the day, I urge you to at least rent this game if you can in order to forge your own opinion, because while I think this game finally signals a new age for Star Fox games, others believe that it is ruined for various reasons.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/30/06