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.
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.