Star Fox Assault? More like Star Fox Assault On This Game's Reputation. Seriously everyone was way too harsh on this game when it was first released.
The foundations for a great Star Fox game are here. With just a bit more tweaking this could have honestly been as good as 64.

I'll go through what this game is, and what it was criticized for. At heart, Star Fox Assault is intended to be a successor to Star Fox 64, an evolution of that game. It's a short arcadey score based shooter that is about blasting down enemies while protecting your friends. You can easily get through it in one playthrough.
Having said that, this sounds like what every fan wanted after Star Fox assault, so what went wrong?

Let's start with the good. The music is fucking phenomenal and uses an orchestral soundtrack that remakes a lot of 64's tracks.
The story and writing is actually not bad. This is surprising considering that Star Fox Adventures had Sonic Adventure 2 tier writing (I mean that as an insult to both SFA and SA2).

The on-rails Arwing sections are back, and they're really good. Like almost Star Fox 64 good, but if Star Fox 64's on rail Arwing sections are 10/10, Assault's is 9/10. The reason for this being that stages aren't as depthful as 64 as they lack secondary objectives that lead you to alternate paths, but everything else plays exactly like 64 if not better. So what's the problem here? 3 of the 10 stages are Arwing only.

Now, 64 wasn't only on-rails. You had plenty "All-range" levels that let you fly around freely on the map. People also liked these levels in 64 and this is what the other 7 of the 10 stages are here. So what is the issue here if people also like All-range mode? What would be the gripe if a Star Fox game was more All-range focused? Well, the on-foot sections is what everyone had a problem with.

I'm going to get into more detail about the on-foot levels, and how it was unfairly criticized, because the boos this game got when it was first revealed killed any momentum this franchise had going for it (before Star Fox Zero killed it again). People were so scarred from Star Fox Adventures being so different from the standard formula, it triggered a fight or flight response if they saw Fox on foot again.

As mentioned, the on-foot sections is an expanded All-range mode from Star Fox 64. You are given an open level with objectives to complete.
On-foot doesn't only just mean on-foot though, as you are given access to your Landmaster (Tank) and Arwing at any time. You can go from land to air in seconds and it is very impressive for the Gamecube era. When you are in the Arwing, it feels no different from Star Fox 64's All-Range levels.

The on-foot gameplay was the most criticized aspect of Assault. And I will go ahead and say, the gameplay is fine. It plays exactly like Megaman legends, and there is no issue with that. Are there smaller issues that could have been ironed out to make the on-foot gameplay even better? Abosultley. You are given a couple of weapons to cycle through in your arsenal, but there is only 1 cycle button meaning if you want to switch back and forth between weapons, which you will need to do in order to kill enemies that are unaffected by some of the weapons, then it is a frustrating time. Other than that, the on-foot is fast-paced, controls well, and is satisfying to run and mow down enemies. My point here being that people just dismissed the on-foot sections because Star Fox Adventures existed.

The other big part of these on-foot sections is the use of the Landmaster. I love using the landmaster as I feel like a beast blasting groups of enemies on the ground, or locking on and shooting things down from the air. However the landmaster has one of the biggest issues I believe to be in the game. The controls. Driving and turning this tank is not the same as every other tank controlling game. You CAN adjust the settings so that the tank does control like a tank, but then you are also forced to have the on-foot sections use tank controls. You can't have one or the other. You will need to compromise.

I won't go into detail about the All-Range Arwing sections as they pretty much are the same as the 64 ones. Except the fact that you can jump out of your Arwing at any time. There is one glaring problem with using the Arwing in All-Range mode and that is performance related. Sometimes when you are flying in the air, enemies won't appear on screen till you're really close with them. That can kind kill some runs as dogfighting with aircraft kinda requires you to know where all enemies are. It doesn't outright ruin the game, but it can sour some parts.

The other minor gripe I have is that the on-rails play at 60fps and on-foot is 30fps. But this doesn't bother me too much since a certain Dolphin can help you fix that issue.

I really liked Assault. At first, I was liking this as much as Star Fox 64 but as I went further into the game, the jankiness mentioned before started to sour some parts for me. But overall I'm still salty that we effectively killed a potentially great future for Star Fox considering if the next game just followed what Star Fox Assault did and refined a few things like controls, performance and maybe a few branching paths or levels, we could have gotten the next big great Star Fox we have been waiting for. But now Nintendo have listened to your unjustified cries, and now you will get nothing but Star Fox 64. Star Fox Zero? Nope it's just Star Fox 64 gyro edition.

The peak of the Star Fox franchise (yes, undoubtedly over 64), with ideas that for some reason have never been expanded upon. Star Fox Assault offers the most variety in gameplay, characters, and concepts of the series. While these are not perfect by any means, they combine to create the franchise's most diverse and engaging experience that is a great game on its own. I would love to see the ground combat modernized and revamped in a new Star Fox game, and honestly have no idea why Zero just completely forgot about it, but sadly I'm not sure if we'll ever see another Star Fox game again, at least anytime soon. Assault overall is the most 'worth playing' Star Fox game today, with gameplay ideas that do not deserve to be abandoned as they did.

Star Fox: Assault has to be one of the most criminally underrated Nintendo games. Now I’m not saying that this is some hidden masterpiece to rival the all time greats. It definitely isn’t. But let me explain

I love Star Fox but it’s an interesting case of a series while good, never really goes anywhere. The series rarely evolved with each entry, rather choosing to continuously keep things familiar to its origins. This is with the exception of Star Fox Adventures which hardly counts due to the nature of its development (Was developed as a completely different game/new IP before being reworked into a Star Fox game). This kinda led many to share the sentiment that the franchise feels stale, has no idea where to go, etc. Star Fox: Assault seems to be absent from most of these conversations. Between people singing the praises of Star Fox 64, arguing about the strange existence of Star Fox Adventures, or saying how disappointed they were by Star Fox Zero, nobody really ever leaves room to talk about Assault…and that absolutely shocks me. Star Fox: Assault feels like the biggest and last step the series made to actually take itself somewhere, taking the formula and trying to evolve it over repeating itself. This feels like the proper sequel to Star Fox 64 rather than another loose imitation. Frankly, it feels like the final Star Fox game even though it wasn’t since what little came afterwards just went right back to basics.

Star Fox: Assault still contains the same great on rails space piloting and shooting gameplay you’ll certainly be familiar with by now. These segments are as good as ever, delivering on twice the spectacle thanks to the GameCube’s visual capabilities as well as the game’s excellent orchestral soundtrack. This is not the entire game, however. Alongside missions with the classic Arwing gameplay, Assault introduces ground missions. Now…depending on how much you get along with the controls will decide whether these missions are a make or break deal for you, considering they take up half the game. There are a few control options and while it doesn’t take long to get used to them, none of them particularly change the core issues. They’re still generally a bit clunky. The sensitivity is cranked up to 100 and everything just feels very slippery. I highly recommend the dual sticks control option which will give you the smoothest possible experience. I think the ground controls alone are enough to drop my rating from a 4 out of 5 to a 3.5, but…eeeeeeeeh. I love this game too much. While this is still A review and I like to be critically honest and fair, it’s still MY review and thus I don’t like to totally downplay or dismiss my personal feelings either.

All that being said, I do still enjoy these missions quite a bit actually. I think once you get a feel for the controls as best as you can, there’s plenty of fun to be had here. It’s really cool to run around and blast your way through enemies as Fox with a small handful of weapons at your disposal. Sometimes you have access to the Landmaster to ram through enemies on the ground with a tank or even your Arwing to seamlessly take the battle back up to the skies. Some missions even have you take up arms while standing on the side of a flying ship. 3rd person shooter segments feel surprisingly appropriate in a Star Fox game, especially when it’s integrated so seamlessly with the other classic play styles. While the controls could’ve absolutely used more polish, I love the variety that these ground missions add to Star Fox’s gameplay loop and they feel perfectly in line with the kind of series Star Fox is. I love how pretty much all missions maintain the feeling of a large scale space battle. The ground is highly populated with enemies to blast away whilst your allies cover an ongoing battle in the skies, and as mentioned before sometimes you can even hop back into your Arwing to assist them as the gameplay seamlessly transitions into SF64’s All-Range Mode. Honestly, even if you don’t enjoy these segments it’s hard to say they’re offensive. They still contain shooting, vehicle action and they typically don’t last very long at all. Nor do they take up the entire game. The classic Star Fox 64-type missions are still here to balance it out and they’re as quality as ever.

The only other thing to talk about really is the presentation and other miscellaneous things which I briefly touched upon earlier. This game looks fantastic. GameCube era visuals have continued to age pretty gracefully and Star Fox: Assault is no exception. The jump from Star Fox 64’s very simplistic, sometimes empty environments to Star Fox: Assault’s colorful, highly detailed, and populated environments is absolutely gigantic. Even other visual elements like UI and character design. I love the UI aesthetic and I’ve always enjoyed the pretty unique GameCube era designs of the cast. Everything is enhanced by the game’s truly spectacular soundtrack. Like, I’m serious. This game has a full blown orchestral soundtrack and it’s incredible. Truly makes the game feel like a space epic. Also just like Star Fox 64, the game still contains fully voice acted banter between the game’s cast during its missions. While not quite as quotable as 64, this dialogue still brings out the memorable personalities of the characters. Combined with some of the cutscenes and mission briefings, it’s actually pretty great how well the Star Fox series is able to showcase so much personality in such a short run time. Yes, this game is very short as is the case for most of the series. You can finish the main story in 2-3 hours. The story itself is nothing special but I do love the character moments it provides.

Don’t know where else to put this in the review so here’s this brief note- It’s been a hot minute since I’ve actually gotten to play the game’s multiplayer but it’s quite fun and one of the most remembered aspects of the game. Star Fox multiplayer is always a blast. Didn’t want to go by without mentioning it.

In the end, I think it’s a shame Star Fox: Assault as a whole has pretty much been all but forgotten. After the release of the DS’ Star Fox Command only a year later, the series went quiet without an entirely new mainline entry for 10 years with only a 3DS remake of Star Fox 64 in between. Star Fox Zero marked an anticlimactic return in 2016 as another reboot and becoming one of if not the series’ most hated entry. At least as of the time I’m writing this, Star Fox has been absent once again for almost another decade. You know what’s frustrating though? That they literally just had it. Star Fox: Assault was the one. It paved a great direction for sequels to follow…sequels that unfortunately never came. Nintendo has been vocally reluctant on pursuing some games because they don’t want to make anything that doesn’t offer a fresh idea. As I’d explained at the beginning, Star Fox as a series was often criticized for growing stale. So it kinda baffles me that when Assault actually helped bring the series forward…that’s where they quit? And when the series came back a decade later it was just…back to basics again? Make it make sense. Star Fox has unfortunately become a dying name in the eyes of the public and what little of it is still discussed is often spent on people’s strong opinions on other entries. But…I don’t want Star Fox: Assault to be forgotten. We don’t talk about it enough. It’s one of the couple Star Fox entries that really put its foot down in finding its place in a series that struggled to find one. A proper follow up and evolution to its predecessors. Not a repeat. A game like Star Fox: Assault is the game the series needed, but Nintendo didn’t realize that and probably never will.

I like Starfox as a series and wishes it came back like anyone else, but I just replayed this and it is awful to sit through. The on-rails levels are fine but any all-range and on-foot missions are tedious and control terribly. The on-foot and Landmaster controls are clunky and unbearable. You'll be taking a pounding and die very quickly in missions just trying to save your teammates or accomplish any goal because there are just too many enemies to deal and Fox is not prepared to deal with most things in his narrow cone of vision because of how subpar the lock-on and imprecise the shooting/aiming controls are.

The all-range Arwing sections can't save this game because you will be hounded non stop by heat-seeking missiles. You will be in the middle of doing anything and see missiles right on your tail, so you'll naturally do a loop-de-loop or the 180 maneuver to avoid it -- just for more missiles to be behind you the moment the maneuver animation finishes. It's really annoying and sucks the life out of any potentially fun dogfights (of which I had none anyway because the only challenging dog fights you have in the game is with Star Wolf -- where Panther and Leon go down without much of a fight and Wolf himself is hard to kill because he just spams 180 maneuvers)

The level where you blow up stuff inside a space station and then hop into and Arwing and join an ongoing space battle does make for a very natural, hype moment but the aforementioned blowing stuff up in the station is a slog due to bad level design and jank foot controls.

Half the of the levels are, and I am being generous here, underbaked in design. The objectives are not varied enough and have no real flow as objectives either take too long or can be crushed in no time. That said, the design team tried really hard to make the game look cool in certain areas like the last level (even if they color palette of grey and purple is unbearable to look at during the final boss.)

I did not have fun with this game. It is not fun to play. The glimpses of something more exciting is here, but never realized. Namco wasn't the right people to source this game out to. They tried, though. And no matter what I say, people are jerking off to Krystal as you read this, even though she has nothing to do in this game except psychically read Fox's emails one time in a cut-scene.

In fact, Pigma, Pepper, Peppy and Wolf are more characters here than any of the core Star Fox team in this Star Fox game. Kinda cool actually but there's not enough of that here to make getting through the levels to see that stuff be worth it.

Also there is like real sexual tension between Wolf and Fox in this game. I'm not fucking with you. Watch footage of the Corneria level and listen to the dialogue between the two of them. It's the only thing my chat popped off on during my streaming of the game.

If you read all of this, thank you for hearing me out. Agree with my perspective or not we can all agree that Starfox is a special series that deserves that perfect game with good character dynamics and world-building whilst being fun without awful gimmicks. We all deserve that.

Now let us all collectively mosh to the trumpet solo of Star Wolf's theme

Star Fox: Assault is surprisingly similar to Sonic Adventure 2: Battle in all the best and worst ways. The aspect of the game that the series is best known for (on-rails shooting / fast-paced platforming) is enjoyable for a good chunk of the levels that feature it. These levels are short, sweet, and just straight up fun, as well as forming the introduction and peak of the games. This is when there's moments that feel like they're pushing the series forward with unique enemies and creative environments. The soundtrack for these levels are also have some of the best music of the series, both for remixed classics and original pieces. Unfortunately, they're also the only sections I would want to replay.

For both these games, about 2/3rds of the main playthrough is bogged down by sections with drastically different and unpolished play styles. For Star Fox: Assault, the ground 3rd person shooter sections are a shocking parallel to Sonic Adventure 2: Battle's treasure hunting levels, both dealing with loose controls and hard to navigate maps. Likewise, SFA's stationary turret bits and SA2B's mech levels both have a very slow-paced feel with gameplay that gets quickly repetitive without the snappier controls of the rest of the game. These parts feel so tacked on, and I wish both Namco / Sega had more faith in the main gameplay style of on-rails shooting / 3D platforming.

On a more ambivalent note, both Star Fox: Assault and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle have aspects that fall into a category of "so bad it's entertaining" that usually only applies to movies. The storyline and voice acting are consistently baffling and bizarre, and feel as though they're the first and only narrative ideas and recording takes the team went with. The games have some moments where it seems to be really going for emotional bits, but a majority of the time seems to embrace the campy and weird furry universe they live in.

Overall both games are so smothered in jank that makes it hard to recommend to those that aren't already die-hard fans of the series. I can at least commemorate the first level of each respective game for providing an exciting foundation for what each series could be. I feel that's where Star Fox and Sonic are both at their best.

Kinda hype and underrated ngl.

A really fun third person shooter with a pretty interesting story. I understand why this game might be disappointing for some people. As it differs a lot from the amazing star fox 64. Yet on its own not only is star fox assault a really underrated game but it evolves the series in some interesting ways.

Sure it’s not the typical rail shooter like the games before but instead a mission based third person shooter with some fun vehicle sections thrown in. Sort of like Halo in an odd way. In fact this game imo competes fairly well with many shooters of the time. It’s really good on its own merits.

I’ll admit I do wish the game had a better balance of the ground gameplay and the arwing gameplay. In fact if the balance was better, this might be my favorite star fox. But still I wish people would be more willing to judge this more for what it is rather than what it isn’t. I think the missions and combat are quite fun. It’s got decent variety too. Besides it still feels like star fox, it offers a lot of what makes the series so exciting. Just on the ground instead of the air.

I also really like how this game attempted to give star fox a more serious story and succeeded pretty well. It can be corny fun sometimes but other times can be serious without being cringe. Really high stakes too.

Overall this could have been the next new chapter for the series. Better storytelling, and a mix of ground combat/vehicle combat. Assault is really good but sadly there hasn’t been a true follow up to it. A sequel could take the great aspects even further but sadly Nintendo would carry star fox into a directionless state and all people want now is a “true” sequel to 64.

Still I’ll continue to enjoy this game. You can shoot a rocket while standing on top of a arwing, this game is sick.

Solid 4/5

Game's so underrated it physically hurts me.

The story is pretty sweet, the voice acting is good and it's overall pretty serious and dark which I appreciate, the only real issue I have is that they kinda backed out from a couple big decisions but it's still cool.

The gameplay is great too, the typical Star Fox gameplay is as good as it usually is but the on foot stuff is a good expansion of the gameplay, hunting down enemies in these big maps, and the best part is tha tmost of these stages allow you to hop on a Landmaster or Arwing whenever you want, which just allows for so much freedom. Also, orchestral music. In 2005. It's sick. The only issue is that it's really short, but for how focused the plot is I suppose that makes sense.

The best part of the game though is easily the multiplayer, which honestly is probably some of the best multiplayer ever in a Nintendo game. Sure it's just an arena shooter, but there's so many different options you have both from the start and that you can unlock that just make for so much fun, whether it be just spamming remote controlled missiles or any other gimmick battle that comes to your head. I think this game could've been a cult classic for this alone, but Nintendo didn't have the foresight to give it online. Oh well.

Just an amazing game all around please give yourself a favor and play it.

Editing this just to say I hate 64 purists for ruining this game's reputation.

Played on Silver difficulty.

Cool story, great music, great visuals, much better characterization than Adventures, but still a massive step behind the Nintendo 64 classic when it comes to Gameplay and Replayability, and the 4 different, wildly inconsistent types of gameplay styles makes playing this title effectively feel like more effort than it's worth. I can see this being great on mouse and keyboard, but unfortunately, you're stuck with the gamecube controller, making this title range from decent to frustratingly annoying.

Good:
Missions on the ground are pretty fun. Good variety in enemies and guns and controls feel pretty tight.

Voice acting and model design is pretty good for what you would expect for a game from this era, especially Peppy's. Compare this game to Star Fox Adventures and the comparison is even more amazing.

Gameplay variance is pretty good. This game has the two types of arwing fights from Star Fox 64, plus pilot missions, landmaster missions, and arwing "wing" segments. Might be missing one or two but it's fun how much things were switched up.

Bad:
Arwing battlefield fights are ass because there will always be some enemy right behind you. Do a loop and kill them? Guess what, there's another one behind you already.

Switching guns at the end of a mission is tedious because you have to cycle through several guns trying to find the one you want, all while the fight is going on around you.

Arwing "wing" segments were a cool idea, but I feel like they could have been modified to be a bit more fun. You only have control over where you aim and whether or not you're shooting. With the amount of enemies coming at you in all directions and having your gun overheat pretty often, it often felt like you would take unavoidable damage (maybe I'm just bad idk).