Long gone are the simple, flat, multicolored polygons of StarFox past! Now they're fully rendered in 64 bits! Sure, it's not a phenomenal looking game by today's standards, but I remember being impressed as a kid. The gameplay is classic, rail shooter action, with some fun twists by way of new evasive maneuvers, all-range mode, and even a variety of vehicles (only in a few stages, though). It also rides a fine line between obnoxious supporting characters and some of the most quotable lines in video game history. Cruising around the diverse planets of the Lylat System provides some nice variety, and the ability to take on different paths gives the game solid replay value. Definitely one of the highlights of the N64 library.

A nice arcade style rail shooter (mostly).

For me there a lot of good moments mixed in with some bad. The on rail sections were great - they are fast paced, exciting, control well and finish with tense boss fights. The game falters when it tries to switch things up. The dogfight sections are a bit clunkier and just aren't very fun. Aquas was also bad due to the Blue-Marine being slow and hard to aim. I'm guessing they wanted to add some variety, but that isn't really necessary in a game of this length and with the core rail shooter gameplay being so good.

I was initially disappointed by the short length once credits rolled but then I found out about the alternate routes and true ending which got me to do another playthrough. I was surprised to see I had only seen about half the stages. The route required for the true ending was fairly harder than my first playthough and provided a pleasant amount of challenge.

My only other criticism is the low frame rate and slowdown present. I would love to replay it at a smooth 60 fps, hopefully someone will get a patch working or maybe even a source port in the future. I'll have to give Star Fox 64 3D a go too.

I did enjoy my time with it and I am eager to try out some other rail shooters a go. It's a shame that the genre seems to have died out.

Star Fox 64 (or Lylat Wars as I knew it as a kid) is a fast-paced on-rails shooter made by Nintendo. The gameplay is extremely solid. Fox’s Awring has lasers that you can charge up for a lock-on, along with limited bombs. Movement is fast and precise and you can perform loops and barrel rolls – the latter reflects bullets.

If you complete levels normally, you’ll go through a really fun route through the game. On top of the on-rails levels, you’ll also encounter “all range mode” where you can fly in 3D. These typically aren’t as “cinematic” as the on-rails levels, but still a lot of fun.

Slippy will get attacked by one of the bosses and will crash land on a planet, here you get to use the Landmaster, a tank that is also really fun to use. You can hover temporally and barrel rolls will now move you across most of the screen.

To get to the credits for the first time, Star Fox 64 is a very short game, but that’s because it’s made to be replayed for a high score, and because it’s so much fun, you don’t mind doing so, trying to get a higher score than last time – but that’s not all of it.

Most missions in the game has a secret objective, complete this and you’ll get “Mission Accomplished” and to a different mission, the “hard route” will take you across some more challenging missions, although personally this is my least favourite route of the games – while all missions but one of the missions in Star Fox 64 are good, I do think these are some of the weaker ones, plus the one bad mission is in this route - The underwater level. It’s slow, plodding and is rather boring. The bombs are replaced with infinite torpedoes which also light up the way, because the level is also dark and dreary. This is easily the worst part of the game, but at least it’s just the one mission.

Some of my favourite missions are in the middle, including the best all-range mission as you fight an Independence Day-style UFO and the second Landmaster tank mission as you chase a train.

Once you’ve played all the levels, there are also gold medals to unlock, which are extremely difficult. A level select at this point would be nice so you wouldn’t have to work through previous levels, but it does provide something to work towards.

Star Fox 64 is a incredibly fun game, and one you can just have a quick blast through every now and then.

Easily my favourite N64 game of all time. Starfox 64 feels infinitely replayable and is something I can always come back to every few months. The arcadey 3D shooter feel has been perfected on the N64. The controls are responsive as fuck. Shooting things is the most satisfying shooting has felt. Music is amazing. Graphics are charming even to this day. The fact that every playthrough can be different as there are different level paths. Nintendo really got the formula right with this one, but sadly never came close again. Fun fact: back in the day, my cousins used to play this all the time, but I really didn't care for it since I had more interest in Adventure type games like Mario and Zelda, but didn't like the idea of rail shooters. Coming back to it, it is now one of my all time favourites.