9/10. What an Amazing, underrated, gem of a game, and easily the best of the Star Fox series.
The excellent combat of the Arwing, Landmaster and Wingman sections, and the... decent combat on-foot makes for an all-round great time, with a bit of a time, the somewhat unusual controls become more than manageable even for that last section.
In addition, the worldbuilding, character-work, and stakes provided by this game blow all of the repeated Andross War storylines out of the water several times over, as you fight to stop an insidious hivemind known as the Aparoids from consuming the entire Galaxy. Andross's dark charisma might've been enjoyable, but the soulless, cold, and mostly mute Aparoids provide an eldritch-level threat that I rarely get from a video game.
Only minor issues I have are how the Wolfen managed to follow Star Fox into the Aparoid planet even after the shields closed, a decent chunk of the music is just remixed Star Fox 64 tunes (though the original tracks in this game are absolutely incredible) and I do kind of wish they had committed to killing off Pepper and Peppy.
In the end, this is, in my opinion the best on-rails shooter, the best Star Fox game, the best GameCube game, and the best game with a toad always getting shot at.
If you have a GameCube I would highly recommend giving it a go.
The excellent combat of the Arwing, Landmaster and Wingman sections, and the... decent combat on-foot makes for an all-round great time, with a bit of a time, the somewhat unusual controls become more than manageable even for that last section.
In addition, the worldbuilding, character-work, and stakes provided by this game blow all of the repeated Andross War storylines out of the water several times over, as you fight to stop an insidious hivemind known as the Aparoids from consuming the entire Galaxy. Andross's dark charisma might've been enjoyable, but the soulless, cold, and mostly mute Aparoids provide an eldritch-level threat that I rarely get from a video game.
Only minor issues I have are how the Wolfen managed to follow Star Fox into the Aparoid planet even after the shields closed, a decent chunk of the music is just remixed Star Fox 64 tunes (though the original tracks in this game are absolutely incredible) and I do kind of wish they had committed to killing off Pepper and Peppy.
In the end, this is, in my opinion the best on-rails shooter, the best Star Fox game, the best GameCube game, and the best game with a toad always getting shot at.
If you have a GameCube I would highly recommend giving it a go.