It’s not Star Fox Zero.

7/10

Zalno, will you please do the actual review?

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER, EH FOX?

Seriously reader, why are you here? If you haven’t picked up on it by now, I am biased all the way up McCloud’s starfish with Star Fox. I’ve been a fan of the franchise since I played as Fox in Super Smash Bros. Melee. I have a fucking fursuit of the guy, amongst several other things. My review is going to be completely meaningless to you, whether you’ve played a Star Fox game or not. What you want to do is find someone who doesn’t have my baggage and ask them what they think. I suspect the things they like and dislike will probably be carried over from Star Fox 64 because it’s the same fucking game.

If this is somehow the first time you’ve ever heard of Star Fox, no it isn’t you fucking liar. I only need to say “Do a barrel roll” or “Can’t let you do that Star Fox” and you’re already hearing the rest of the quotes in your head. Star Fox 64 is one of the most memorable games from the N64 that continues to be meme’d to this day. So it makes perfect sense for Nintendo to remake it for modern audiences with better graphics, smoother controls, and a bit less murderously difficult in places.

Mind you, Star Fox 2026‘s existence is a tacit admission from Nintendo that they have absolutely no idea what to do with the Star Fox franchise beyond desperately redoing the same game over and over to ring as much nostalgia cash as they can. That much is given away by the fucking title. I know it’s a stupid thing to kvetch about, but this is by far the least Nintendo thing about the remake. Even when they’ve remade games before, they’ll at least do something different with the title. Not here, though. They’d rather pretend the original SNES game never existed and relive the glory days for the fifth fucking time.

Sorry, am I taking too long talking about details that don’t matter instead of the actual gameplay? What do you want me to say? I just reviewed Star Fox 64 3D a month ago. If you want to read about the gameplay, go read that. Or go read Zoey’s review of Star Fox 64. I’m gonna pleasure myself until you return.

YOU’RE BECOMING MORE LIKE YOUR FATHER

You done? Cool. The gameplay is that, but more refined. The controls are mapped a bit better than Star Fox 64 or Star Fox 64 3D, but otherwise it’s basically the same. Same level layout, same boss encounters, same wonk-ass camera in All-Range mode, same everything but with the difficulty toned down. I found it noticably easier easier to rack up hits in this game compared to the original. Maybe it’s because the charge shot can lock onto targets further away and hit faster? Maybe that charge shot made it easier to save your teammates and made the all-range modes more bearable? Or maybe it’s because I finally stopped hoarding bombs and used them to clear out screens of enemies this time? Or maybe it’s because Aquas isn’t as shit? Whatever the case, I rarely got a score of less than 100 in the levels.

You also don’t lose a ship for restarting a level or replaying a previous mission to get a better outcome. It definitely made the levels in the hard route more tolerable, but it makes me wonder why we even have a lives system to begin with. Maybe they actually mean something in Expert difficulty, but I don’t have the patience for that. I never bothered with Expert mode in the original, and, unless they locked a minigame for Fox and Falco to finally make out behind it, I’m not starting now.

There are some other changes this time around. Without wishing to dwell on it too much, the point of this and Star Fox Zero are to take the original game and inflate them big and round. But while Star Fox Zero gave the levels three acts, Star Fox 2026 fleshes out the story. Kind of. We now have cutscenes in between missions that show more detailed mission briefings contextualizing events in the game, but if you thought you were going to get more character arcs or world building in these cutscenes, you’ll be disappointed. The best we get is a prologue that actually shows what happened to James on Venom, which Nintendo already showed during the game’s reveal. The levels themselves have a bit more dialogue, but not much.

DON’T HESITATE. WHEN THE TIME COMES, JUST ACT!

Alright everybody, settle down. I’m gonna say it. The art style in Star Fox 2026? Doesn’t look great. I’m not a fan of it. And believe me or not, this has nothing to do with wanting to fuck them. The graphics are definitely the best they’ve ever looked in a Star Fox game, but I’m not a fan of the more realistic depiction they went with. While you can absolutely do a grounded, gritty story with anthropomorphic characters, most of them are still stylized to some degree. I did warm up to the designs a bit as I played, but it’s still kind of jarring to see those designs in a game about talking anthropomorphic space animals trying to fight a giant floating monkey head. Realism went out the door a long time ago.

Meanwhile, the voice acting in Star Fox 2026 is kind of a mixed bag for me. The voice actors are good choices for most of the characters save for a couple of Andross’ generals, but the direction is pretty flat across the board. I’m putting that down more to direction than the actors themselves. Mind you, it’s not like Star Fox 64‘s voice performance was stellar, but it at least added some memorable camp to the delivery. Some lines from the original persists, but the delivery kind of deflates them.

As far as other gameplay changes, you have the option to play in a first-person mode by using the mouse mode on the right Joy-Con. I swiftly turned that off because 1) Joy-Cons simply do not feel good to use as a mouse and 2) it gave me flashbacks to Star Fox Zero and the less I have to think about that, the better. The same goes for the local co-op multiplayer, which you can now play online with a friend. Whether or not they stay friends with you after that is another question entirely.

YOU WORRY ABOUT YOUR OWN HIDE

Speaking of online multiplayer, you know what this game has what Star Fox Zero didn’t, besides better controls and graphics? Online PvP multiplayer. For the first time since Star Fox Command twenty years ago (yes I did just feel myself physically aging writing that), you and up to seven friends can play online matches against each other. Or you can join a four-man squad and take on other teams around the world. Or you can just play bot matches, which I’m sure will be handy when when the servers inevitably shut down. You only have three maps/game types to choose from, which are all picked at random. They’re definitely fun, but only one map per gameplay type gets old real fast, even with the expanded selection of power ups. You don’t even have the Landmaster or the inefficient (but hilarious) on-foot mode. I know the original wasn’t exactly spoiled for choice, but you couldn’t have at least reused Katina or Sector Z for this mode? Even a simple 4-player battle royale mode like the original had would’ve been something.

But hey, if you’re like me and not terribly interested in multiplayer, you have a new Challenge mode to chew through. By completing levels in the campaign, you can replay individual stages to complete specific challenges. There aren’t any differences in the level layout compared to the campaign, so this only serves to squeeze more blood from a stone. The main thing you get for beating them are entries in the game’s lore library as well as banners and icons for the multiplayer mode. The added lore is a nice touch. Not enough to get me to complete the challenge mode on Tryhard difficulty, but I’m glad it’s here. I wish some of the character backstories were a bit more front and center in the actual gameplay or even the cutscenes, though.

It would have been nice to at least see some kind of character arc somewhere. For example, Fox’s entry states that comparisons to his father are a sore spot for him, but we hardly see that come across in gameplay past the tutorial. The very first scene with Fox in the tutorial stage has him flippantly rebuff Peppy’s comparison saying that it’s his team and he’ll run it how he wants, which you’d be forgiven for thinking that sets the tone for their relationship. You’d think that Peppy’s constant comparisons after that or even some of Falco’s remarks would eventually make him blow a gasket. Lash out at Peppy, both of them argue but eventually reach an understanding, progress their characters a bit. But nope. Outside of a few scenes where Fox throws a tantrum after they lose, Fox is still as Wonder Bread of a character as ever. Now he’s just more Italian bread than white bread.

PLAY BACK, NEVER BE THE SAME AS DREAMED

Look, if you want my recommendation to play Star Fox 2026, fine. Have it. It’s a good game. It’s the best version of Star Fox 64 to date. I’m not giving Nintendo or Valen Studios points for copy/pasting levels, but if you missed out on Star Fox 64, this will be a fun summer snack to chew on for a good while. But if for some reason you want the opinion of a completely biased Star Fox fan like me, this game is a bit of a letdown.

If all you want is Star Fox 64 but with better graphics, smoother gameplay and more content to justify the $50/$60 price tag, you’ll be disappointed because the vibes are off. Between the drab voice direction and the mid graphical style, Star Fox 2026 is more grounded than the original. While I wouldn’t mind a more grounded take on Star Fox, this just comes off as kind of bland. While the added cutscenes and dialogue are welcome, there are a lot of missed opportunities. And even with the additional challenge mode and online multiplayer, there’s simply not enough to justify the original price tag. Hell, if all you want is just the single player mode but with more pixelated graphics, you can get basically that for $12 on Steam right now.

It occurs to me that if Star Fox Zero never happened, I’d probably be a lot kinder to this remake. A lot of Star Fox 2026 is what I want from a proper remake of Star Fox 64, but it’s still Star Fox 64. Again. Some of the rough edges are sanded down, but they’re still there. Even $50 is pushing it for what it has to offer. To anyone at Nintendo or Valen Studios who would listen, I beg of you. No more remakes. Take what you have here and build on it with a new installment. Let this franchise finally step out of Star Fox 64‘s shadow again. Or, if you must do another remake, do Star Fox 2. That game needs a remake even more than Star Fox 64 did. Or bury the franchise for good. At this point, I don’t care which.

Until then, at least now we can do stuff like this:

7/10

The reviewer purchased both a Switch 2 and a physical copy of Star Fox 2026 for the purposes of this review. Jury’s still out on whether it was worth it.