"Only YOU have the brains to protect Lylat!"

Good old Star Fox. I've always liked this series, ever since I first started playing it with Star Fox 64, despite not even knowing what I was in for. The vast amount of replay value and fun battles always drew me to it. Now, after two interesting GameCube versions, a DS incarnation of the series has been released, and it doesn't fail to deliver. Let's find out why.

Story: 9/10
The story is generally what you would expect if you've played any of the other Star Fox games – classic sci-fi, played out with animals. After a short recap of the events from Star Fox 64, the prologue goes on to explain the new threat that faces the Lylat system – a sort of fishlike race called the Anglars. However, Team Star Fox has split up by this point in the series, so it's up to Fox to try and bring them back together…or not!

In a nice twist to the series, there are many paths the story can follow. Though Star Fox 64 had a similar system, there are a great amount of variations in the paths you can take, and the story does not always end in the same place. After an initial run-through with a demonstration of one story, you are able to make many more choices that have an effect on which characters will be on your team for the next mission. Because of this, the stories of all of the Star Fox characters are very fleshed out.

Graphics: 9/10
The graphics in Star Fox Command really take advantage of the DS's capabilities, making everything appear very clear, and more or less smoothly flowing. The main action in the game is mostly in 3D. The characters are drawn very well, in a sort of semi-2D form, and the map is very easy to understand due to its graphical layout. Each area in the game has a distinguished personality because of the type of graphics used; yet it doesn't push the DS so far that it would detract from the rest of the game.

Music and Sound: 10/10
Oftentimes, music can make a game's experience so much better, and this holds true with Star Fox Command's. To add to the personality of each area, there is a theme song for that area played outside of battles. During battles, depending on which character you are controlling, you will have a certain song playing, which is the theme song for that character. Though characters with happier music don't always seem to fit some of the serious situations, you don't always seem to realize it in the intensity of the battles. The sound is the usual Star Fox fare – laser sounds and the like, with the voices being the sort of gibberish that was apparently used in the original Star Fox games. Though it sounds odd at first, it doesn't really detract from the story of the game. Whether it's a remix of old Star Fox music, or something completely new, you will probably find yourself enjoying the tunes.

Gameplay: 7/10
Despite still being very well-done, the gameplay is where this game falls a bit short, at least in some aspects. Star Fox Command is different from the ever-popular Star Fox 64 in that it does not use the straightforward shooting stages, but opts to do something similar to the “all-range mode” all of the time. This may sound odd, but a sort of strategy game is thrown into the mix as well.

Basically, in each mission, your characters have to protect the Great Fox from the enemies attacking it, so you draw a path towards these enemies and the bases which they are coming from to defeat them before they reach your ship, causing instant mission failure. Sometimes a missile or two that you have to chase and destroy is thrown into the mix too. Sounds easy enough, but your ship can normally only go a limited distance per turn, and you have a limited number of turns, as well. You have to formulate a strategy for every mission you go into, as a result.

Once you get into a battle, your goal is to defeat the target enemies, and collect the cores that they drop. Other enemies are in the area as well, but they are optional to kill, usually giving time, health, or bombs. The troublesome part is that your radar does not show the enemies that you need to kill until only one remains, so sometimes you may find yourself wasting time that you need by looking for a certain enemy. Occasionally, you may have to fight a boss, which still retains the fun of any other boss battles in Star Fox, but you do not have to worry about the turns during that portion. Even after all of this, the bombs you can use, despite limited, seem a bit overpowered with their large blast radius and the ability to drop them wherever you want.

Aside from singleplayer mode is the multiplayer of the game, which is quite amusing. Sadly, the game lacks a multi-card option, so you and your friend (or friends) must either use Download Play or the Wi-Fi Connection to have a battle with eachother. Luckily, the experience from either of these is the same – a classic dogfight set in a random arena based on the areas in the game, complete with various powerups and the like. I found it disappointing at first that the only ship you may play as is a regular Arwing, despite the fact that having it any other way would imbalance the game a bit, but only because of the fact that this means certain characters' ships are available only in certain single-player stages, but the battles are just as heated anyway.

Replay Value: 9/10
After all is said and done, the game still has a great amount of replay value. You may play any stage you have completed from the menu to try and achieve a higher score, and there are quite a lot of stages to complete. The many paths and missions that you can choose contain enough storyline to make you want to go through the story in as many ways as possible, just to see what changes. There are many characters and ships to play as, with various styles from each of them, and achieving the goal of being good enough in Wi-Fi to get the highest rank will take quite some time. Overall, buying Star Fox Command will keep you busy for many long months.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/07/06