Until a couple years ago, my first and only experience with Star Fox was Star Fox 64. It immediately endeared me to on-rails shooters, but I knew at some point I'd need to go back and play the first game. I suppose it's also a little serendipitous that I caught up to this one on my bucket list less than a week after praising Ex-Zodiac, which takes heavy, heavy inspiration from Star Fox.

I think Star Fox is pretty good, and I can certainly understand why kids who played it back in 93 would have a lot of continued fondness for it, but without that nostalgia in place, I think Star Fox is more interesting as a technical showpiece than a game. That opinion is probably borne from the fact that I've already played so many other on-rails shooters that have taken directly from Star Fox, so there's a huge chunk of this game that feels all too familiar, too known to be impressive. At the same time, I think it's incredible they got something like this running on the SNES at all, even if it may come with some compromises (like game speed, which is overall pretty sluggish.)

The character designs are all cute, though. As a kid, I would've killed for plushes of the Star Fox crew. Actually, as an adult I still kind of want that. I'm not a 'plush' guy, I swear! I have like, four, so I don't think a few more would be excessive...