Star Fox Zero is underrated, and I completely understand why. The game is really bad at tutorializing its unique control scheme, leaving a horrible first impression.

I stumbled through my first playthrough pretty frustrated with the controls. It wasn't until after I died half a dozen times on Aquarosa on my second run that the controls finally clicked with me, and I started having a good time.

Prior Star Fox games only allow the player to shoot directly forward. You pepper enemy weak points, before dodging out of the way of return fire. Star Fox Zero, however, is designed around the ability to shoot enemies from several different angles. You're meant to circle around many of the bosses. Trying to attack them head-on as in past Star Fox games will leave you extremely vulnerable to return fire. The game is terrible about communicating the necessity of this new play-style to the player, and so most people will probably assume the game is poorly designed, and drop it within a couple hours.

The real problem with the game is that it's pretty light on content. Alternate routes are half-baked, and all routes culminate with the same three missions, which hurts replayability. I really liked the idea of using wormholes to get a jump on enemy plans, but the alternate missions lack story context, and don't change the ending, which is a big missed opportunity. You can tell they were added at the eleventh hour.

Star Fox Zero is a good game, and its control scheme is actually one of its strengths rather than a hindrance. I think if its alternate routes were more fleshed out (and maybe the gyrowing completely removed), we'd have a game to rival Star Fox 64.