"A few steps forward and a quick jump back."

Over the years, Star Fox has gone through many changes, and they've mostly been unfavorable in recent years. The series hit GameCube with Star Fox Adventures, a game by Rare once called Dinosaur Planet. It was edited into a Star Fox game and featured just a little bit of actual flying. It was mainly an adventure game, and it didn't feel much like Star Fox. Later came Star Fox: Assault. This Namco-developed game was hyped as a return to the action form, but it really wasn't. Assault didn't so much focus on Arwing flying as it did ground combat, including somewhat weak on-foot action. It was widely regarded as another "Star Fox" game that didn't feel right. Finally, for the first time in many years, Nintendo has taken the series back (sort of). Teaming up with Q-Games, a team involved with the original and best games, Star Fox and Star Fox 64, Nintendo has released Star Fox Command, a return to the series' flying roots. How well does it fare, though, compared to early Star Fox titles? Read on.

Graphics

If there's one thing the Star Fox series has consistently had, it's awesome graphics. Every Star Fox game has had advanced graphics for its system. This is no exception. Star Fox Command features excellent graphics that aren't the very best on DS, but defy the typical grainy textures and other flaws. The frame rate is usually smooth, though there is some slowdown at times. The environments look great, and the enemies--a mix of old and new designs--are very Star Fox-like, complete with flashing weak points and colorful attacks.

I give the graphics 9/10 points.

Gameplay

Star Fox Command uses a very different style of gameplay than other Star Fox games. In this game, it's all flying all the time. Even underwater, the characters stick with the ships they fly through air and space, which doesn't really make a lot of sense, but whatever. To pilot your ship, you use almost nothing but the stylus. All face and shoulder buttons are used to shoot or charge your shot. Start pauses, obviously, and Select is unused. The basic Star Fox mechanics are mostly the same, but you have to lock on to fire a charged shot, and under certain conditions, you can lock onto multiple enemies, and some firing systems do other unique things. Barrel rolling (annoyingly continuously called "rolling," lacking the "barrel" part that we all know and love from Star Fox 64) is held until your Boost Meter runs out or you tap to stop it, and in single-player mode, deflecting fire awards a time bonus. To do a barrel roll, you have to do a slightly obnoxious little maneuver. You must slide left and right or quickly draw a little circle, and it can be annoying, but it generally works okay. What really burns me, however, is that no matter which direction you scribble or circle, the ship always rolls clockwise! You can't roll your ship sideways, either, making maneuvering a bit tougher at times. Also, barrel rolls now attract items and prevent crash and kamikaze damage. Boosting and braking is accomplished through a double-tap on the top or bottom side of the screen, respectively. This works well, but messes up sometimes. Why not just map them to up and down on the + Control Pad or X and B? Meh. The classic evasive loops and U-turns are still here, and this time they don't take up Boost. They look awesome and are much faster (as is your overall speed) in Star Fox Command. The only problem is that you need to tap an on-screen icon on either side of the screen to do them, and in an intense dogfight, you may miss and do a sharp turn instead, but it doesn't happen much. You can drop Nova Bombs (still obnoxiously just called "bombs," despite obviously being the same type of Nova Bomb from the original Star Fox) with awesome precision by dragging a bomb icon from the side onto your on-screen radar where you want the bomb to explode and dropping it. Last, but not least, movement is done with great precision by sliding on the touch screen to move the reticule, and the ship with it. Since you can't roll sideways, sharp turns are done by touching the edge of the screen instead. Overall, the controls are mostly smooth and precise, but can have slight problems sometimes.

All action is in free-roaming All-Range Mode, with the exception of short parts where you chase down and destroy missiles, or attack a mothership, rather than the classic on-rails play. In the single-player Adventure, you play through levels of turn-based strategy and action. You draw your pilots' flight paths and pick up powerups, attack enemies, take out missiles, liberate bases, clear out fog of war with your stylus, and launch missiles from the Great Fox. If you run out of extra ships (lives) and all your pilots go down, you run out of turns, or the Great Fox is struck by a missile or enemy, you lose and have to restart the level. When you engage an enemy, you must fight them and collect cores from certain enemies. You're on a time limit, but it's easily restored through Time Bonus items, kill total-based time bonuses, shot deflection, and other methods. Score is based entirely on how many of the enemies you take out. There are no bonus points. (Charged shots don't even have a blast radius anymore.) Aside from standard fights, there are quick on-rails chases to shoot down missiles, and also bases you must free by destroying a mothership. This works the same way as a regular dogfight, except you have to take out the "core enemies" (sometimes other skilled pilots such as Star Wolf; that can be tough) and then fly through the red squares to speed up (just like you do to chase down missiles) and then barrel roll to destroy the mothership. Odd, yes, but pretty fun. Once you clear out the base, you'll get bonus turns (often essential), and you can fly onto the base to get more "fuel" and go farther on the map. Also, when there's fog of war, the area around the base can't be touched by it. Single-player is fun for a while, but can get really old. One major problem is that the game is usually pretty darn easy, with some challenging exceptions. The boss fights can be pretty cool, but many of them are also very easy.

Multiplayer is totally different. You and three (Wi-Fi) or five (LAN) other players have a simple fight in one of a few locations, flying multicolored Arwing II's. You can grab several powerups: Plasma or Twin blasters to do more damage with your regular shots, Stealth to disappear from enemy radars, a special Time Bomb to ambush opponents, and the healing Supply Rings. When someone gets killed, they leave behind a star that you grab to earn points. Whoever has the most stars in the end wins the round. Each match consists of three short rounds. The multiplayer is intense and pretty darn fun, but the variety is somewhat low. That's not a big problem. What is troublesome is when players steal stars too much, especially when they play like cowards and never contribute to the kills.

While the regular wireless Download Play doesn't really amount to anything but some big fun, the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection mode has a cool ranking system. In Wi-Fi mode, you can play a stat-recording Battle Royale with three other players, or play a match with one to three other players just for fun. All Friend matches use this unranked system. When you play Battle Royale, your Wins, Games, Disconnects, and Stars are all recorded, and you also have a Rank from Z-A that increases or decreases depending on your current Rank and how well you did in the match. It shows how far you've got to the next rank in the form of a percentage, also. What's good about the Wi-Fi system is that you can see your opponents' stats before you start playing, and matches are set up pretty fast. Unfortunately, the ultra-simple system has you always using the same ship (this really isn't that bad, though, and it keeps it fair), and if anyone disconnects in a match, it's over. Quite annoying. Also, there's no Friend lobbies or chat of any kind (think Mario Kart DS). Overall, though, the multiplayer modes are fun, if not somewhat limited.

I give the gameplay 8/10 points.

Music/Sound/Voice

Star Fox Command's music and sounds really deliver. Lots of the music in the game is taken from past games, especially Star Fox 64, and remixed. It's mostly really good. Unfortunately, while some characters have awesome theme songs that play while you play as them, some of them are really horrible, like Krystal's ridiculously dramatic music. Ugh! The sounds are pretty good, with some nice weapon and explosion sounds. Nothing's really obnoxious, but not much really stands out, either. Another weird thing about this game is the voice. Since the Star Fox 64 series reboot, every Star Fox game has had voice acting. Not this time. They speak in a sort of gibberish that is something of a cross between the original Star Fox gibberish and the chatter of Animal Crossing. The game does give you a cool option to record your own voice and use it. The DS has you answer fun questions like "What color is your DS?" and "What is your special ability?" and records them with the mic. Once you've answered a few, you can have the characters say your words fast, garbled up, and with their own tones.

I give the music, sound, and voice 9/10 points.

Story

Star Fox used to have a story, but they've pretty much shattered the thing now. Star Fox 64 starts the story strong, Star Fox Adventures messes with it and passes some time, Star Fox: Assault makes things confusing, passes even more time, and changes characters radically, even in appearance, and then Star Fox Command comes in and throws a grenade in the canon. Apparently, a lot more time has gone by, Peppy looks really old, Slippy and Fox have become pansies thanks to their stupid girlfriends, and Falco got really, really awesome. The whole thing's a mess. There are nine different endings, tons of characters, and completely different results for each path. It's some kind of sick experiment! Most endings pretty much see the end of the series. There are only one or two truly satisfying endings. Guess what, folks? This story's so insane that they've said little of it will be canon at all. In fact, the next game is apparently going to take place somewhere between the start and middle of Star Fox Command.

I give the story 2.5/10 points.

Length/Replay Value/Cost-Effectiveness

As big as this game is with its nine endings (taking a few hours each), there's not a lot to make you want to play through that many times. You play through the level, see the lousy, rushed, boring story play out, and repeat ad nauseum. The game's not a bad deal at $30, though. Wi-Fi is probably what you'll like best and play most.

Length: 8/10
Replay Value: 4/10
Multiplayer Replay: 9/10
Cost-Effectiveness: 8/10

Overall

While this game does take a small step in the right direction, there's a long way to go. Please, Nintendo, reboot to right after Star Fox 64, totally remake the unreleased Star Fox 2 on Wii, then take it from there! Any more time passes, and the characters will go Solid Snake.

No, but seriously, pretty fun game. Wi-Fi's above average, and the single-player game is okay. This one's worth a try.

Overall, I give this game 8.5/10 points.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/10/06