Y'know, I could complain about the extremely choppy framerate, but who needs a stable FPS when you have thE APE CUBE?
There once was a war even greater that the Lylat Wars, known only as the terrible and cruel Bit Wars; even if as a child I did succumb to the tempting and stupid brutality of the console wars, the bit wars are a time I didn't got to live, much less to see. But I do know some things about it, how its players were locked in a race against each others clocks, always raging to be the first to arrive at the stop of progress, or to put it in other words, to see who had the machine that could produce prettier shapes.
It was, by all accounts, a contest to see who had the largest wang, but it was a very good marketing strategy; being able to say in the magazines that you next game would look better than any prior product was going to catch eyes, hell, it still does today in some ways. And that's precisely where Star Fox enters, a showing of how with even 16 bits, you could have the 3D everyone so desires (kinda), an to be honest, to say that Star Fox shines only because of its graphics is both in part true and a disservice to the game.
Star Fox is impressive beyond believe, partially even to this day, to think that THIS was running (or rather walking) on a SNES is something that could only be attributes to some kind of black magic and really fancy chips. It's incredible how, even if its crude in some respects, the presentation holds up so amazingly even to this day; the never fails to communicate where the action is taking place, in big part thanks to the amazing pixelated background, but at the same time it has this kind of surreal and abstract feeling that makes it so incredibly original. The starships of Andross feel like they defy every kind of conventional design or even physic law, they all share this kind of clean and simple color palette that clashes with their complex and confusing nature, but not in a way that feels jarring, but adds to just give designs that truly feel alien to any world, all culminating in Andross' himself, there may be an ape cube under there, but man does is he weird yet imposing and I love it. Also, special mention to the BANGER soundtrack, they managed to capture such a special feeling with it and I understand why so many people like it so much.
The price to pay for the looks is, of course, the extremely choppy framerate; look, personally I don't find it as bothering as others tho, maybe because its consistently bad, but it's true that sometimes it makes it incredibly hard and confusing to distinguish anything, especially when the screen gets filled with enemies.
When this game throws you at ton of stuff at you, it can be HELL to manage it all and extremely confusing when the frames decide to be specially clunky, which is an huge shame because the gameplay and game feeling as a whole is outstanding! The way the ship controls, combined with the set pieces and possibility to change view, it's all so surprisingly fluid and works extremely well, and when you add the fact that you have multiple initial routes and you can even deviate of it... how? How did this come out in 1993?
I think that is where the true value of Star Fox lies, not in the fact that it may be a tool of war or a marketing strategy, but that the impression it causes is genuine, there was a ton of passion put into it and it shows, and despite its many unfortunate flaws, it still has very fun moments and I really enjoyed it!
Even if you end up disliking it, I really think it’s worth giving it a shot before jumping into other games of the series; it's an incredibly unique game that surprised me even 30 years later- WAIT, 30?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!... That somehow feels wrong for so many reasons.
Anyway yeah, game pretty good... but I really hope that the companions are more useful in next installments, it feels like they don't do shit, THAT GOES SPECIALLY FOR YOU, FALCO... but you are pretty good in Smash so its forgiven.
There once was a war even greater that the Lylat Wars, known only as the terrible and cruel Bit Wars; even if as a child I did succumb to the tempting and stupid brutality of the console wars, the bit wars are a time I didn't got to live, much less to see. But I do know some things about it, how its players were locked in a race against each others clocks, always raging to be the first to arrive at the stop of progress, or to put it in other words, to see who had the machine that could produce prettier shapes.
It was, by all accounts, a contest to see who had the largest wang, but it was a very good marketing strategy; being able to say in the magazines that you next game would look better than any prior product was going to catch eyes, hell, it still does today in some ways. And that's precisely where Star Fox enters, a showing of how with even 16 bits, you could have the 3D everyone so desires (kinda), an to be honest, to say that Star Fox shines only because of its graphics is both in part true and a disservice to the game.
Star Fox is impressive beyond believe, partially even to this day, to think that THIS was running (or rather walking) on a SNES is something that could only be attributes to some kind of black magic and really fancy chips. It's incredible how, even if its crude in some respects, the presentation holds up so amazingly even to this day; the never fails to communicate where the action is taking place, in big part thanks to the amazing pixelated background, but at the same time it has this kind of surreal and abstract feeling that makes it so incredibly original. The starships of Andross feel like they defy every kind of conventional design or even physic law, they all share this kind of clean and simple color palette that clashes with their complex and confusing nature, but not in a way that feels jarring, but adds to just give designs that truly feel alien to any world, all culminating in Andross' himself, there may be an ape cube under there, but man does is he weird yet imposing and I love it. Also, special mention to the BANGER soundtrack, they managed to capture such a special feeling with it and I understand why so many people like it so much.
The price to pay for the looks is, of course, the extremely choppy framerate; look, personally I don't find it as bothering as others tho, maybe because its consistently bad, but it's true that sometimes it makes it incredibly hard and confusing to distinguish anything, especially when the screen gets filled with enemies.
When this game throws you at ton of stuff at you, it can be HELL to manage it all and extremely confusing when the frames decide to be specially clunky, which is an huge shame because the gameplay and game feeling as a whole is outstanding! The way the ship controls, combined with the set pieces and possibility to change view, it's all so surprisingly fluid and works extremely well, and when you add the fact that you have multiple initial routes and you can even deviate of it... how? How did this come out in 1993?
I think that is where the true value of Star Fox lies, not in the fact that it may be a tool of war or a marketing strategy, but that the impression it causes is genuine, there was a ton of passion put into it and it shows, and despite its many unfortunate flaws, it still has very fun moments and I really enjoyed it!
Even if you end up disliking it, I really think it’s worth giving it a shot before jumping into other games of the series; it's an incredibly unique game that surprised me even 30 years later- WAIT, 30?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!... That somehow feels wrong for so many reasons.
Anyway yeah, game pretty good... but I really hope that the companions are more useful in next installments, it feels like they don't do shit, THAT GOES SPECIALLY FOR YOU, FALCO... but you are pretty good in Smash so its forgiven.