Let's be honest: it's easy to forget that Nintendo has franchises other than Mario and Zelda. While Nintendo's two main series have been pushed to the point of over-saturation, the Big N has several hit franchises sitting on the shelf, doing nothing but collecting dust — Star Fox being a perfect example.
Following an extraordinary re-imagining on the Nintendo 64, the Star Fox series took an extended hiatus through much of the GameCube's life cycle. Unfortunately, the two follow-ups to Star Fox 64 left much to be desired — and despite the outcry for something that took the franchise back to its roots, Nintendo waited for more than a decade to finally bring the Arwings out of retirement.
Now, with Star Fox Zero, Nintendo is hoping to simultaneously bring the series back and inject some life into the Wii U's struggling library. With forced motion controls and GamePad segments already scaring some fans off, can Star Fox Zero possibly live up to its inspiration ... or is this another case of Nintendo forcing a silly gimmick onto one of its old franchises?
Star Fox Zero, like its predecessors, features a very simple story. Players take on the role of Fox McCloud, ace pilot and leader of the Star Fox mercenary group. He and his merry band of pilots are hired by the Cornerian Government to fight off the evil Andross' invasion, along with their rivals, the vicious Star Wolf gang.
In a lot of ways, Zero is a retelling of Star Fox 64: the individual story beats may be different, but the overall plot is essentially the same. That's not really a bad thing, as the story of Zero is fun to play through — it's just a shame that there aren't any sort of twists or curveballs, especially seeing how long it's been since the last proper entry in the franchise.
The game itself has been built with a similar adherence to franchise tradition: at the outset, players are presented with Star Fox Zero's solo campaign and a few training missions, and that's basically it. A few extra levels and optional challenges do unlock along the way, and while they're fun, they're not exactly worth writing home about.
Clearly, Star Fox Zero is all about the single-player, and the classic formula translates nicely to the Wii U: Fox and his crew still travel from planet to planet, destroying enemy ships and taking down massive bosses. The alternate paths of Star Fox 64 also make a return, rewarding players with new missions and boss fights, should they complete a hidden objective. It's about as classic as you can get, and modern additions like saving and mission replays help Zero from feeling as archaic as its inspiration.
Thankfully, the presentation does a lot to bolster the game's stronger moments. Star Fox Zero evokes a sense of nostalgia without completely ripping off the older entries in the series: a ton of different characters make a return, while the sheer size and scale of the environments and enemies are far beyond anything of which Nintendo's older consoles would have been capable. As to be expected, particle effects and explosions are another highlight — there are times where the entire screen will be covered in pyrotechnics.
The visuals do come at a cost, however: when things really start to heat up, Star Fox Zero will suffer from some pretty noticeable slowdown. It doesn't hurt the gameplay in any way, but it's surprisingly frequent. Aliasing is also a recurring issue, though it's much harder to notice when playing the game. Other issues are smaller, such as muddy textures or simple models, and they don't really hurt the experience unless you're looking for them.
Star Fox Zero is a frustrating game — not because it's difficult, but because it's hard to ignore Nintendo's blatant disregard for playability. The original games were fun because you could pick up a controller and instantly understand how to play — Star Fox Zero, on the other hand, sacrifices all of that in the name of poorly-executed GamePad gimmicks.
It's a shame, too: there are so many amazing moments in Star Fox Zero, especially for longtime fans. The levels are all fun to play through, the characters are just as great as you remember, and the difficulty curve is near-perfect — which is why the moments where the GamePad cripples itself feel so terrible in comparison.
As a result, the game is hard to recommend: on one hand, Star Fox Zero is a kind of fun that's impossible to find elsewhere ... but you have to slog through a lot of frustrating nonsense to get there. If you don't mind a relatively short campaign, or are willing to put up with unnecessary motion controls, Star Fox Zero will be well worth your time — otherwise, you may want to find a way to try it out before you pick it up.
