Back in the lead-up to Star Fox 64’s release, Nintendo Power advertised the game on issue #98’s cover, featuring Fox McCloud with a gun. Those sly bastards! The best way to advertise a game to a kid in the ‘90s was having the protagonist hold a gun.

In the years before the N64’s release, I thought I was getting Star Fox 2. I distinctly remember seeing an ad for it in one issue of Nintendo Power. Or maybe it was just some random catalogue. Whatever. It didn’t happen and was completely forgotten when Star Fox 64 was on the horizon. When it dropped, I rented it. They even provided the Rumble Pak with the rental. During the second easy-route battle with Star Wolf, it got stuck rumbling for some reason and wouldn’t stop until I unplugged it. That’s rough on the wrists!

All these years later, and Star Fox 64 has yet to be topped within the series. Perhaps even the genre. It got so much right, it’s easy to overlook what it got wrong.

But we’ll get to that.

COCKY LITTLE FREAKS!

Star Fox 64 is largely a do-over of the original Star Fox, a game that needed a do-over. The plot is largely the same, with some details added to flesh out the group’s backstory. Andross is attacking the Lylat system from his base on Venom; now go make him stop. But while this is once again a largely on-rails game, and there are plenty of callbacks to the original, Star Fox 64 is full of surprises.

For starters, the easy/medium/hard pathway system of the original has been removed – sort of. There are still multiple paths you can take to Venom, but you don’t outright select them. Instead, you open up more difficult routes by accomplishing certain hidden challenges. For example, in the first stage you have to knock the bogies off Falco’s tail to ensure he survives the mission. Later, he’ll challenge you to follow him through a set of archways, and doing so will set you on an alternate path. Sometimes these goals are obvious, like don’t let the mothership nuke the space pyramid, and other times you have to pass a threshold of points to continue on the harder path.

It’s remarkable. Star Fox 64 is an extremely short game, but this wrinkle in its progression ensures that you have to play it repeatedly. Instead of it playing out the same way each time, you unravel the game’s secrets, bit by bit. Altering your route through the game will also change certain story beats in small ways, like if you beat Star Wolf on Fortuna, they won’t show up at Bolse, but if you detour to the hard route and get to Venom via Area 6, you’ll meet them a second time, and they’ll brag about their new ships. A lot of the changes aren’t amazing, but it can be fun to see what happens if you let the space pyramid get nuked or let a missile hit the Great Fox.

UNCLE ANDROSS!

The emphasis on replaying the game might sound like a drag, but there’s a tonne of variety in the missions. For every “kill all the bad guys in space” mission, there’s one where you follow a heavily armed train in a tank or fly across the surface of a sun. I hear a lot of griping about the submarine mission (even from fellow Max Utmoster, Zalno), which I can understand, but it’s never bothered me. It’s a change of pace. Plus it can be bypassed.

The downside to the necessary repetition is that you can tell which millennial had an N64 because they can almost certainly quote Star Fox 64 with pitch-perfect inflection. Which quote will they go for first? “Cocky little freaks?” “Daddy screamed reeeeeal good before he died?” No, it’ll probably be, “Do a barrel roll!” because that’s the one that has endured the longest.

For me, I confused my dog when I harmonized with every one of Star Wolf’s entrance lines. “Can’t let you do that, Star Fox.” “Andross has ordered us to take you down.” “Peppy, long time no see.” “Andross’ enemy is my enemy.”

Speaking of which, your animal friends all speak actual words now, by which I mean, there’s voice acting. And gosh, everyone talks a lot. Even the bosses will threaten you and then cry about how much you’re kicking their ass. The personalities of your wingmates have been expanded. Plus, they have their own function (sort of). Slippy will display the boss shield, Peppy will nag you, and Falco is there for sexual tension with Fox. Unfortunately, they can’t die like they could in Star Fox. Instead, they just get taken out for a level to get repaired.

GIT GUD, KID

For that matter, I still remember a lot of the tricks to maximizing your score. I must’ve been 12 when I got the medal on every stage, which requires you to reach a score threshold. That unlocks Expert mode. I then medaled every stage in Expert. Sorry, child Zoey, I just erased your score data. I need to see if I’ve still got the chops.

But I don’t really remember being bad at this game, I’m certain that it took me some time to see hard-route Venom when I first played it, but now, I have to deliberately try to lose a level. As such, as far as I know, Star Fox 64 is an extremely easy game, even on the hardest route. Dead simple.

Most of the difficulty I have these days comes from the lack of depth perception. This is something intrinsic when it comes to rail shooters, but I think Star Fox 64 is particularly bad with this. The camera is mostly locked in place with the Arwing manoeuvring within the frame, so if you’re on the right side, your shots move inward as they travel toward the horizon. To try and orient you, there are two cross-hairs layered on top of each other to communicate direction. But I find they don’t really mean much when you can’t tell where an enemy is in relation to the furthest one. You can switch to cockpit view, making it easier to aim. However, this narrows your vision, making it harder to manoeuvre or even see where enemies are.

Then there’s “all-range mode,” a hold-over from the cancelled Star Fox 2, wherein you’re freed from the rail and can move within a 3D arena. However, the camera is lazy, so if you make a hard turn, there’s a delay before it will move to meet your vision. As a result, there are times when you’re aiming completely off-screen. And to make matters worse, there is no cockpit mode in all-range mode, even though that’s the place it would make more sense.

This was still early 3D, so camera problems were widespread in games, but flight sims were one of the earliest adopters of the Z-axis. Pilotwings 64 was released the prior year. Glue the fucking camera to the back of the spaceship!

CAMERA GLUE

Anyway, I complain, but Star Fox 64 still feels right to me. Nintendo was still trying to prove how much more powerful the N64 was compared to the Saturn and PS1, so it feels like it’s ahead of its time. The controls are responsive, and the graphics are outstandingly detailed. The camera issues are the most obvious sign of its age. Otherwise, I find it just as playable today as I did nearly 30 years ago.

If there’s one other gripe I have, it’s that the music is good. That may not sound like a complaint, but considering the original Star Fox’s soundtrack is beyond outstanding, 64’s is still a disappointment.

It’s still rather surprising that Nintendo has never been able to top Star Fox 64 and is going back to the well for yet another remake. I feel like the formula hadn’t been squeezed for all its juice, but every time they revisit the series, they feel the need to add on vestigial features that tank the entire experience. Just come up with a new story, preferably one without Andross, glue the camera to the back of the Arwing, and give us some new rails to ride. It’s been nearly 30 years since we got some decent rails.

8/10

This review was conducted on an RGB-modded N64 using a cartridge copy of the game. Video was upscaled and captured using a Retrotink 4K. It was paid for by the author.