Finished the middle route and got through about half of the top route before deciding to move on.
The framerate is definitely something to adjust to, but it didn't end up hindering me in most cases. I often found the screen pretty readable in terms of where enemies are and where their projectiles are heading. The main killer for me here is the lack of a reticle and how tilting/rolling feels. Aiming just feels unsure in this game, I eventually got a bit of a feel for it, but I did infinitely better in levels where you go in first person and actually get to have an aiming reticle. There are also these levels where you have to carefully maneuver, tilt, and adjust the speed of your Arwing to make it through tight corridors, and while they accomplish their main goal of making you go "oh shit star wars", they're not very good. As someone whose reference point for Arwing gameplays is Star Fox Assault, the lack of an instant roll is deeply felt, and pulling off a barrel roll in this game never felt right.
Now, all that being said, I did come out of this game fairly positive on a lot of stuff. Obviously, the music rules, nearly every iconic Star Fox song comes from this game, and it all goes in so hard. I honestly do think the look of this game holds up, it creates this surreal world of abstract shapes and strange alien forces, I mean just look at Andross and tell me that doesn't rule. And like I said, with some adjustment, I did acclimate to the game's quirks and enjoyed a decent amount of it. Getting good at this game feels pretty fun. Finding out the way to avoid a lot of the missiles from the second-to-last boss of Venom is to boost forward made me feel like a genius (please don't tell me you knew this immediately).
The thing is that knowing 64 exists and is so much more advanced and developed than this makes revisiting it a bit of a hard sell, but I think it's worth seeking out at least once. I ended up bailing on the second route because the levels went on a lot longer than I liked, so I doubt I'll come back to finish this, but maybe someday.
The framerate is definitely something to adjust to, but it didn't end up hindering me in most cases. I often found the screen pretty readable in terms of where enemies are and where their projectiles are heading. The main killer for me here is the lack of a reticle and how tilting/rolling feels. Aiming just feels unsure in this game, I eventually got a bit of a feel for it, but I did infinitely better in levels where you go in first person and actually get to have an aiming reticle. There are also these levels where you have to carefully maneuver, tilt, and adjust the speed of your Arwing to make it through tight corridors, and while they accomplish their main goal of making you go "oh shit star wars", they're not very good. As someone whose reference point for Arwing gameplays is Star Fox Assault, the lack of an instant roll is deeply felt, and pulling off a barrel roll in this game never felt right.
Now, all that being said, I did come out of this game fairly positive on a lot of stuff. Obviously, the music rules, nearly every iconic Star Fox song comes from this game, and it all goes in so hard. I honestly do think the look of this game holds up, it creates this surreal world of abstract shapes and strange alien forces, I mean just look at Andross and tell me that doesn't rule. And like I said, with some adjustment, I did acclimate to the game's quirks and enjoyed a decent amount of it. Getting good at this game feels pretty fun. Finding out the way to avoid a lot of the missiles from the second-to-last boss of Venom is to boost forward made me feel like a genius (please don't tell me you knew this immediately).
The thing is that knowing 64 exists and is so much more advanced and developed than this makes revisiting it a bit of a hard sell, but I think it's worth seeking out at least once. I ended up bailing on the second route because the levels went on a lot longer than I liked, so I doubt I'll come back to finish this, but maybe someday.
mariowithagun
1 year ago