Star Fox walked so Star Fox 64 could run. ...or it might be more apt to say that Star Fox flew so Star Fox 64 could fly at a playable FPS. While this reboot is obviously technically superior to the original, it's a whole host of other details that make this the definitive Star Fox experience; for one, the addition of the charged shot and aiming reticle make the simple act of flying around and shooting things feel much better and less random. The addition of Saturday morning cartoon style voice acting - with just the right mix of scenery-chewing and earnest emotion - adds enough personality to both your wingmen and your enemies to ease you into the role of Fox.

However, it's one change in particular that elevates Star Fox 64 from 'excellently-done game' to 'one of my favorites'. The game's structure is far more organic than the original - rather than a preset 'easy' 'medium' and 'hard' path through the game, SF64 dynamically moves you between the various paths depending on how you do in each mission, creating a multitude of possible routes to the final stage (which itself has two variations). This variable difficulty keeps the player on their toes and rewards aggressive play with progression to the more interesting and higher-dopamine missions of the 'medium' and 'hard' routes, making Star Fox 64 a greatly-replayable score-attack game. If you manage to get to the 'harder' variation of the final sequence, hearing the increasingly-panicked enemy radio chatter as you punch through their final lines of defense makes you feel like an absolute badass, and you know what? You earned it.

Speaking of the missions, they all carry enough of a unique twist to keep the rail-shooter formula from getting stale - from an Independence-Day style level where you need to shoot down a mothership to protect a base, to a mission over a molten planet where the heat continuously drains your shields and the only way to stay alive is to destroy background objects for health pickups, to intense free-flying dogfights, to (shockingly well-done!) land and sea levels in alternate vehicles, there is so much imagination that went into these.

I'm aware that the fanbase is pretty split on the music - quite a few players prefer the soundtrack of the original Star Fox for being more eclectic and unique, but you know what? Koji Kondo's soundtrack is more 'standard' but I love it more, the same way I prefer all of Alan Menken's Disney soundtracks to any of the modern stuff. It just stirs my heartstrings and makes me want to go out there and do stuff.

To sum up: great game, absolutely essential playing as a representative of both the N64 library and of rail shooters in general. Highly recommend!

When it comes to childhood video game memories I don't have many games to call out. They either weren't played enough or I played them way too much. Star Fox 64 is a latter example. This singular entry is enough to validate anyone who calls themselves a Star Fox fan, it's a game that deserves its love. It's the only game in the entire series that got absolutely everything right and this is not a hot take. Every single thing that you ask for from a 1997 console rail shooter is right here in this N64 cartridge (besides 60fps but who knows, a PC port may be upon us in the near future!)

There's a lot to divulge from this game when discussing what makes it so fucking good to the point that it's almost overwhelming to know where to start. I could start with Corneria, and how as an opening stage it provides the most amount of visual variety, approachability and interaction-based secrets in the game, making it an extremely replayable stage despite not necessarily being the best it has to offer. Or how the branching paths allow you to create your own journey or headcanon as you fight towards Andross, choosing whether it's your fate to defeat a fake Andross, or to become a true hero and face your father's ghost in one final fiery escape; an experience that can be influenced by enjoyment, immersion or picking the stages you're the best at racking up points on. Or the more obvious choices like the fantastic soundtrack and iconic voice lines. Or the fact that the charged shot becomes one of the highest skill oriented tools in any score based game when you realise if it makes indirect contact with a target that it grants you an extra point.

I don't think anyone that hasn't played for hours upon hours realises just how addicting the charged shot is to use and optimise and it showcases just how insane people can get at this game. An average score on Corneria for a casual player varies from 100-150, a more experienced player will reach 200-230 and a world record contender will hit 330. The difference between someone who's good and someone who's REALLY good is huge and it's pure skill. This isn't just about memorising patterns, that's the bare minimum requirement. Becoming good enough to get 300 points on Corneria takes some absolutely unreal level of precision, timing and movement that comes from the result of hundreds to thousands of hours of practice. And think about it, you have 6 more stages to reach that level of mastery at yet.

I don't want to run off the more casual players with my charged shot diatribe, so I'll note more generic points that I find more relevant than given credit. The voice lines, I know everyone recognises how iconic they are. I can't really explain why they ended up being so iconic and at such a high frequency, anyone that played this game a lot knew every line after a certain point before they were even said, myself included. Something about the dialogue is just super charming. It's not bad voice acting for 1997 and the caricaturised character models help sell this cheesy but high stakes sci-fi story of saving the world. The bad guys, they're all bad fucking news. You could tell when you were fighting a boss that they were bad and you were the heroes. It plays into this classic purism where everything is black and white, something that video games have long since tried to steer away from in favour of creating more realistic narratives. Does Star Fox 64 have a well written story? Hell no. But it is a GOOD story and it's sold by your little guys flying through space, interacting every so often. Peppy yelling that it's a trap, Slippy getting cocky before his ass is bitch slapped down to Titania and Falco's no nonsense tone that always makes you feel obligated to take things seriously when he's around -- All of these little moments are what make this game so iconic. Everyone remembers these moments not just because they're fun interactions, but because you're getting these interactions while playing a dope ass game.

Star Fox 64 needs to be played by anyone who finds the characters cool but hears bad things about the franchise. I'll be the first one to tell you - Star Fox as a whole franchise sucks. But I'd say this applies to something like Shinobi as well, yet Shinobi III is one of the best 16-bit games there is. Franchises can be dealt a bad hand by continuously unlucky circumstances. Shigeru Miyamoto has no idea what makes this series special, it's why every game in the past 2 decades they put out every so often is disappointing. What makes this series special, is Star Fox 64. This game has by far aged the best of every game in the franchise and perhaps when the PC port eventually comes out more people will realise how good it really is. It was never replicated or bested, nor in its own franchise nor by indie projects heavily inspired by it. It's in a league of its own as the definitive space rail shooter.

One of the most appreciated N64 classics, I remember being a little disappointed by it when I first tried with the 3DS remake... I am not sure why, I remember it not feeling it that much, I suppose.

Replaying it after years, more specifically on the Nintendo Switch Online, mad eme revaluate it a lot.
Despite the years, this title is able to capture an amazing feeling of action, with a fast-shooting adrenalinic gameplay and stages that offer always new challenges and cool gimmicks (my favorite being Titania with the Landmaster and the cool bossfight, Sector X creepy atmosphere and Venom with the great endgame encounter and the MONKE temple). I admite I don't really like the way you control the Arwing in the open stages, like Corneria's boss or the stages where you battle Star Wolf... I feel the controllers thare are never been my favorite, and I always found them really janky.


But for anything else I feel it's great to this day: the way the story open different paths depending on your failures / decisions is incredible and offer an incredible amount of replayability, that even makes you want to go back to levels that you already beaten over and ove again (something that I cannot say for other titles that offer these similar split pathways), and this is helped for the always fresh gimmicks and cool environments showcased (though none of the stages are winners, I particularly despise Solar's whole gimmick of "just take damage").

The writing and voice acting is also iconic and incredibly cheesy, but able to be enjoyable from start to finish.
People always argue that Slippy is an annoying brat, but... I like that aspect about him: I like that the game puts you literal allies as obstacles, that you have to help and protect in order to keep them around and possibly even unlock new stages.
Falco, Slippy and Peppy not only add a lot of charm to the story, but they also forces you to not go completely berserk and shoot every single object on screen: it adds a lot of carefulness to the stages, since you want to keep and manage your resources for the rest of the run.

Overall Star Fox 64, as probably stated by many already, is an iconic title that is able to be enjoyed even today, a title that deserves its reputation as one of the greatest N64 titles (even though it's not among my personal favorites)

One of my favorite "arcade" games of all time, Star Fox 64 took the concepts of the original SNES games to the next level by improving graphics, sound, and gameplay all while adding new features such as the innovative rumble pak experience. This game managed to create the perfect recipe of combining all these elements creating a need to replay the game and its levels over and over again while maintaining an incredibly high fun factor.

Gameplay is fast-paced and focuses on defeating as many enemies as possible to get more rewards/upgrades for your ship while unlocking new paths and competing for gold stars if you are up for the challenge. Some of the requirements to get to different paths were very cryptic and nearly impossible to figure out in your own but that's what Nintendo Power was for :)

The voice acting is limited, cheesy, and to the point, adding to the game's historical charm. Gameplay variety was greatly improved over the original game by adding all-range mode stages where you dogfight against the newly introduced Star Wolf faction and new stages featuring the Blue Marine (submarine) and LandMaster (tank). Star Fox 64 does a great job of keeping all these added gameplay components at bay as opposed to other future games in the series where new vehicles were not as intuitive or fun to use.

The branching planets/paths progression design for levels provided a ton of replay value for what in reality is a fairly short game. Replay value was further extended with the gold stars ranking system for players looking for a bigger challenge.

Multiplayer mode was a fun distraction but the single-player mode is where this game shines all the way.

King of the genre in my eyes, excellent varied environments, a simple story with a fantastic cast of heroes and Villans, and iconic voice lines and appropriate voice acting, especially innovative for it's time

The ability to go down different routes adds insane replayability, when I was younger I thought only the easy route existed and the other planets on the map were just there for decoration, finding out about the hard route years later blew my mind

Gameplay is fantastic, I think even non rail shooter game players would find joy in this game, beautiful graphics as well for the N64, remember watching the old N64 ad for the rumble pak that was included with this game and the hype was unreal

Excellent game that I come back to all the time, it's short length, insane replicability and tight satisfying gameplay keep this one a classic in my eyes and still hasn't been topped. Nintendo keeps trying to chase this high but hasnt come close except with some stages from Assault

9.5/10

Pros: Sitting down for a session of Star Fox 64, is like popping in your favorite action movie, where you enjoy it from the very beginning to the final moment when the credits roll. But with Star Fox, you're in control!! It's the player choice, the non-linear progression, and how that alters the story to make it your own, that makes this game rise above the rest!

Every little element of this game, is designed to feel great. The controls are snappy and responsive, movement feels spot-on, just fast enough, with moves like tilts, barrel rolls, somersaults, and U-turns fleshing out your ship the Arwing's abilities to a comfortable degree during on-rails stages, as well as all-range mode arenas. The combat is also improved, where now you can lock onto targets before blasting them away, and any nearby enemies taken out by the blast will be added as combo points, making your shots and your aim count that much more! In addition to the Arwing, there's now the Landmaster tank in a handful of stages, including my favorite, MacBeth, that has you destroying a train, car by car until you reach the boss fight at the front engine! The tank controls satisfyingly as well, with spiral cannon blasts, rolls, and the ability to hover for short periods. There's also one stage that features a new vehicle, the Blue Marine, a submarine that has infinite torpedoes that light up the abyss, creating a wonderfully atmospheric setting, in a stage with enchanting music. And in many of these stages, you're given prompts or challenges, that can affect your path going forward, with the help of your teammates Peppy, Slippy, and Falco, who each now offer you, Fox McCloud, much more valuable services. Peppy provides gameplay tips, Slippy reveals health bars for bosses, and Falco tells you how to access other branching paths in stages, so keeping all of them alive is important this time around! And more characters join in on the fun too, depending on the paths you take, you may bump into more friends like Bill the dog from the Cornerian Army, Katt the cat, a rogue pilot who maybe has a history with Falco, and team Star Wolf, the rival gang of mercenary pilots, Wolf O'Donnell, Pigma Dengar, Leon Powalski, and Andrew Oikonny (who of which, is the nephew of the big bad boss Andross!), who you'll engage in heated all-range mode dog fights with. They're also all very talkative too! Fully voice acted, which was very rare for a Nintendo game at the time, and it brought this world to life, and made it feel even more cinematic on top of the wonderfully animated art style and graphics. The presentation is full of spectacle, with the right amount of camera sweeps, cheesy one liners, movie references, touching story moments, and perfect pacing for a full adventure from start to finish in one sitting.

The Lylat System is full of several planets, bases, asteroid fields, and a big-ass star in the center, but you can't visit every single stage in one go, no, your campaign will lead you through seven different stages, always starting on Corneria and always ending on Venom (though each have alternate forms too) and depending how you play them, you'll change your route, which leads you down entirely new stages, with new storylines, and possibly a new ending! There are 15 different stages to visit, and 25 different routes possible to take, with stages altering depending on the route! There's a TON of replay value here, and highscores granting medals on each stage are encouraged for completion too, which have some unlockable benefits, like a Hard mode (where Fox wears the sunglasses of his father, James) as well as unlockable modes of combat in multiplayer, such as Landmaster and on-foot (very cool to actually run around as Fox, Slippy, Peppy, or Falco in one of these games for the first time, blastin away with a big ass bazooka over your shoulder!). And a final unlock of a new title screen, well "new" it's just a cool new dynamic angle, heh. Anyway, this game let's you craft your own story, and it plays out like a complete film, with the right amount of highs and lows, action and humor, and even a bit of heart at the end. With a great soundtrack by Hajime Wakai and Koji Kondo, you'll be entranced the whole way through, with an incredible orchestral style piece playing over the ending, that'll sure to lift your spirits! But my favorite track of all, and one that feels the most emotional even, is, believe it or not, the menu music! It's so serene, and one of my absolute favorite compositions from Kondo, maybe ever. And I can't forget the biggest selling point for this game, one that immerses you in this world, and makes you feel part of it and in control like never before, the RUMBLE PAK, the forcefeedback device that shakes and buzzes at contextual moments, like firing a bomb, boosting, crashing, bumpin around, you name it! This game puts you in the cockpit of the Arwing, and with that rumble pak, you feel every little movement of the ship. It's the first Rumble Pak game, and possibly the best, they put more nuance behind this one than they do most games, it feels frickin' GREAT!

Cons: None to report!

What it means to me: This game was the reason my family got an N64, our first game for the system! Just like with Donkey Kong Country before it, we were sent a promotional VHS tape in the mail, and it did a great job selling us on the game, and boy, did the game deliver on that! This is a game that specifically reminds me of my older brother, who would master each and every stage, and simply watching him play was mesmerizing. Equating the game to a film, like I have several times above, is most definitely a positive, as often, I'd just watch him play, and witness the story and thrills he created! But of course, I had to jump in too, and I had a blast every time! And luckily, we got to have a blast with the whole family, as the game included a really fun multiplayer mode, and team Star Fox being four members, and N64 promoting four controller ports out of the box, it was perfect. And yeah, perfect is a good word to describe this game. Honestly, this is one of those games I'd call a quintessential masterpiece, a 10/10 experience.

The first man able to capture the essence of this game's presentation, gameplay, and writing will be the crowned king of "all of my money".

This is an on-rails arcade style shooter with emphasis on combo scoring gameplay. It features several different routes that change the story outcome and events, and are tailored for three different levels of play marked colored lines between planets on the map. This game is simple enough to beat for a child, but really requires a lot of patience and mastery over the controls and levels to get the highest possible scores.

For the best cinematic experience, the Japanese voice cast is optimal and is the original intended voices for these characters. Their performances are just as incredible and as haunting as the English cast is iconic and humorous.

It's a dogpile of dog fights! This game was actually pretty challenging, to say the least and it seems there is a good bit of replayability here which is a nice addition. One of those games I have seen and been around my whole life and never actually sat down to play until now. I do also have the original Star Fox and Starfox 2 thanks to my SNES mini. Will definitely check them out if they were as fun as this one was! Great dialogue to lmao especially Andross' little nephew haha that little reject!!

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.

Star Fox is a game i start often but have never actually finished. i dont like it when games dont let you save, so i had never been able to get through this entire game. admittedly its not very long, but still, im easily distracted

that being said, i had a lot of fun with this one. im super nostalgic for the first few levels, but everything past that was brand new to me. and tbh i get why people want Star Fox to come back. Nintendo wont do it but a proper sequel is what this franchise needs, not reboot after remaster after rerelease

I've probably played 3D and N64 a similar amount, but any way you play this game it's one of the greats. I love the characterization and world of Star Fox, it takes itself more seriously than other Nintendo games, and is unashamed in how silly and trope-y it ends up being. But don't get me wrong, I think the characters are genuinely funny and heartwarming and the gameplay is arcade style shooter perfectly punched up for home console replayability. Every level is perfect, each path you take literally and spiritually takes you further and closer to heroism and the approval of Fox's father.

Sometimes a story just needs a galactic evil to destroy and friends to appreciate. It worked for Star Wars, and it works for Star Fox. There's a reason this game, being a remake, has just been remade repeatedly. It's probably the perfect execution of what Star Fox game could ever be.

Where it Shines:
Pew Pew - 10/10
Memorable Catchphrases - 10/10
Music and Sound Design - 8/10
The Good:
I may have nostalgia goggles on, but nothing scratches my "pew pew in space" itch like this game. It's got high replayability earning trophies and trying different planet routes. The combat is challenging without being obnoxious, and the characters and their interactions for such a basic game are really fun, charming, wholesome, and engaging. The game also is very short to beat and can be accomplished within an hour or two making it an easy pick up and play game.
The flight controls are also very simple but very fun. The choice to give you combat manuevers like a u-turn and somersault, but making them require a simple flick of the joystick plus brake/accelerate just makes such intuitive sense, but more importantly, it feels satisfying to execute. Combined with "DO A BARREL ROLL" for deflecting incoming enemy attacks, you've got everything you need for a fast, frenetic, and fun space combat game.
The levels are also varied and unique, and allow you to do dogfights with the evil version of your squad, Star Wolf, and there even Independence Day style levels where you have to destroy motherships via their weak core.
There is also a tank and submarine section so you don't just get to play in the sky, but also on land and water. It's a remarkably dense game for it's time and has aged well, imo.
The Bad:
For what it is and when it came out, it looks good, but the 3DS version really has improved on so much and I'd only recommend the n64 version if you really can't play it on 3DS. All the complaints I may have about the game, like lack of saves, are all addressed in the 3DS port.
Summary:
If you like outer space or have nostalgia for this game, it still holds up. If you've never played before, give it a shot on 3DS, you won't regret it.

****note on my ratings:
half ⭐: hot trash garbage
⭐: below average, needs work
⭐⭐: average
⭐⭐⭐: pretty good
⭐⭐⭐⭐: excellent
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: all time favourite
half star ratings between those mean it's slightly better or worse than stated in this list.
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