Genre: Action/Adventure
Developer: Rare
Publisher: Nintendo
# of Players: 1
Memory: 3 blocks
ERSB: Teen
Also On: none
Introduction:
All games go through many changes before their initial release, but StarFox Adventures has seen one too many. Four years ago Rare decided to take a shot at a game to give the Nintendo 64’s Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time a run for its money, this game materialized into something called Dinosaur Planet. Dinosaur Planet was soon billed as Rare’s Zelda 64 killer and made numerous appearances at the infamous E3 gaming expos as a highly anticipated Nintendo 64 killer app, but things change. Unfortunately, the Nintendo 64 days were numbered and the GameCube was about to unveiled to the press so Dinosaur Planet for the Nintendo 64 was canned, or at least that’s what we thought.
Like Silicon Knight’s psychological thriller, Dinosaur Planet soon materialized on the GameCube platform except the game had undergone massive changes. With the wisdom of Nintendo’s master game designer Shigeru Miyamoto guiding the programmers at Rare, Dinosaur Planet had acquired the StarFox name and quickly became one of the GameCube’s most anticipated titles. SFA shocked fans across the globe, some were thrilled but most were pissed that their furry hero had been taken out of his Arwing cockpit. Fox’s departure from the cockpit wasn’t the only thing that caused Nintendo fans all over the globe to bitch and cry... Rumors of Nintendo’s second party developer Rare had flooded the internet, rumors about their possible departure from Nintendo. Well, these rumors well all true and just before the US release of StarFox Adventures Nintendo sold its shares in Rare to competitor Microsoft.
All this news left a sour taste in the mouths of many hardcore Nintendo fans, but this fanboy won’t let some bad news ruin a great game…
Presentation:
Rare has always known how to use their developmental tools well, and StarFox Adventures shows that they are still one of the best developers out there. Despite the massive areas that are available for you to explore in the title, StarFox Adventures has NO load times and NO noticeable drops in framerate. Menus are also nicely done by navigating the command deck of the Great Fox…
Gameplay:
Surprisingly, Fox’s latest adventure has one hell of a story and some great character development. The game begins with you playing as the foxy feline named Krystal who is trying to figure out what the evil tyrant General Scales is up to and to make him pay for his past crimes. Along the way Krystal (the time you play as Krystal is like a training stage) encounters a Krazoa spirit and then gets captured by General Scales. Fox and the rest of the StarFox team who is renowned across the galaxy as being heroes unfortunately are sitting on their arses dead broke and looking for work. Luckily, General Pepper finds a job for the crew of the Great Fox. They are to go to Dinosaur Planet and help its residents for a large cash reward. Fox’s mission isn’t going to be easy though. Like always, the hero always gets more than what he bargains for and it is now his duty to fix the alignment between the planet’s shattered pieces and free the mysterious Krystal from the clutches of General Scales. Since General Pepper won’t allow Fox to use his blaster Fox has to find other means of defending himself, luckily he comes across a magical staff which Krystal happened to drop from the sky while boarding one of General Scales’ flying fortresses. Fox must now collect the four Force Point Seals, and free the lovely Krystal with the use of the 6 Krazoa spirits.
StarFox Adventures will often be compared to a little game known as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and there is a good reason for that. SFA borrows almost every single gameplay aspect featured in the first Zelda 64 title; though this not necessarily a bad thing the game does feel like we’ve played it before (in some cases played to death).
The 3rd person lock-on targeting that was introduced in Ocarina of Time is used for fighting in SFA in a similar fashion used in OoT. The differences are that in SFA, unlike OoT, the lock-on feature goes on automatically once you are nearby an enemy which is actually less efficient then the manual lock-on in OoT. The auto lock-on in SFA is mostly annoying at times especially when it locks on to enemies in your path that you do not feel like fighting with.
The battles themselves in SFA are a bit repetitive. Fox acquires his magical staff early on in the adventure and available from the start are a bunch of attacks. Each attack can be executed by pushing the analog stick in a different direction and the repeated mashing of the A button. At first it seems that Fox is one hell of a martial artist with his large amount of attacks but later on it feels more like, “Can’t he do anything else?” During battles you have the ability to dodge the enemy’s attacks with the X button. Rare might have just removed this feature in its entirety because it proves to completely useless. Most of the time when attempting to dodge an enemy’s attacks you just end up rolling right into them! Sadly, unlike OoT, SFA does not feature a back flip or a sidestep evasion, just a roll. There’s a cool evasion attack though, this is executed by rolling out of an enemies attack and then pressing the A button, but once again this is practically useless since it almost never connects.
Available throughout the game are staff upgrades. These upgrades allow Fox to do many different things such as, shooting fireballs, freezing enemies, cause earthquakes, open magically sealed doors, and to even reach high platforms. These upgrades can be used to in many different parts of the game to solve various puzzles or defeat enemies and bosses. Also available throughout the game are items that Fox can use to solve different puzzles, unlock new paths, Feed his sidekick Tricky, or call a friend for assistance. To select these items you toggle the C-Stick menu which appears on the upper right corner of the screen. The C-Stick menu is easy to navigate and to make it even easier it is separated into different sections for quick an easy use. During battles though it might become a hassle to equip a certain weapon though, and that is where I would rather much prefer Ocarina of Time’s item screen. For quick and easier access to an item you can assign it to the why Y button.
When selecting a staff upgrade such as the fire and ice they are available to be used in battle or from far off in the distance. When in battle you can equip these upgrades, fire to launch small fireballs at a foe or ice to turn him into a block of ice. While you’ll rarely find yourself using the ice item in battle you will find yourself using the fire upgrade often since it is much more powerful than any of you staff attacks making enemies go done for the count much quicker. Of course you’re not just allowed to use these attacks in combat but also while you roaming around any of SFA’s large areas. If you were to use the staff fire upgrade the camera would pan back into the first person perspective just like in OoT. While in 1st person you can manually aim at your target whether it’s a switch or one of those annoying flying baddies. Same goes for the Ice upgrade except it barely gets any distance and is mostly used to put out fires that get in your way. The problem with the 1st person perspective in SFA is that is doesn’t not feel as tight or control as well as it does in the two Nintendo 64 Zeldas and it really becomes a pain in the arse to aim at a moving target. All these attacks drain Fox’s magic meter, to refill this meter you come across tall flowers which have various colored magic gems in their center. Cut these guys down, gather the gems and you magic bar is slowly refilled depending on the color of the gem.
Assisting you in your adventure is an Earthwalker dinosaur by the name of Tricky. Tricky assists Fox almost throughout the entire adventure. Tricky is always following Fox and almost never (I said almost) gets stuck or left behind. Tricky is needed for Fox to solve puzzles and reveal new paths. You command Tricky with the C-Stick, such commands are for him to stay, breathe fire, dig for hidden items, and even play with a ball you purchase from the Earthwalker shop. All these actions except for the play command can be used to solve puzzles such as the breathe fire command. Let’s say you come across a thorny bush, Fox cannot really do anything to get this bush out of his way but Tricky can… a exclamation point will appear above Tricky’s head notifying you that he can be used in this situation. Go to the C-Stick menu and the breathe fire icon will be highlighted, basically telling you what to do, execute the command and Tricky will burn it to ashes.
This game just like any Zelda game is full of puzzles waiting for you to solve. But unfortunately they seem too easy, it is not that they’re blatantly obvious but it’s just that gamers like me who have played both N64 Zelda games to death will find these puzzles to be a walk in the park. Rare should have taken this into consideration, pushing blocks, shooting switches and basically every other kind of puzzle you find in SFA is something most of us have seen before. This takes away from the games already little to no difficulty, I want something challenging!
In SFA you are assisted my you fellow members of StarFox, Peppy, Slippy, Rob the robot and General Pepper. When pressing start each one except for Rob can be used to assist you during the game. Slippy is used much like Navi from Ocarina of Time giving you hints on where to go and what to do, Peppy is used as your map, and General Pepper keeps track of your current status such as how long you’ve played in-game as well as what percentage of the game you have completed. In times of need don’t be afraid to ask you fellow crew members, but I’ve only got one question where’s Falco? I know he’ll show up when Fox really needs him, he’s one noble bird…
Finally, what would a StarFox game be without the Arwing missions? Well, in this case it could have been a better game since the Arwing missions in this game are extremely boring and completely lack the StarFox experience we’re used to. Fortunately, these Arwing missions aren’t encountered often and are basically just used to get Fox to one area from another. Each mission basically only asks you fly through a certain amount of Gold rings. Sounds fun right? No! You can go back and play these missions again in order to top your previous score but why in the world you want to experience that again. Hopefully, most of you can wait for StarFox Armada until then your Super NES and Nintendo 64 should satisfy your Arwing cravings…
Visuals:
Jaw Dropping…
Ever since the days of the Super NES, Rare pushed Nintendo consoles further than anyone thought imaginable. Thanks to Rare and their talented artists; StarFox Adventures is the most technically beautiful GameCube and next-gen console game to date. Never was there a moment in the game where I was not in awe, individual blades of grass, realistic water movement and reflections, excellently detailed characters, amazing textures, weather effects, particle effects, everything the GameCube is capable of and more is featured in SFA. Fur shading, something that Microsoft boasted as an exclusive feature to their console is even featured in Fox McCloud’s latest adventure. Graphic whores will get all orgasmic when they put their sticky paws on this title.
Audio:
This is another area where StarFox Adventures gets the job done, and it gets it done well…
The soundtrack to StarFox Adventures is one of the best I’ve ever heard in awhile, so good that it’s better than those found in most Squaresoft titles. The themes featured in SFA remind me of some of my favorite movies like StarGate, Conan: The Barbarian and the Lion King (you heard me), they manage to get you whistling along with the game. (I’m hoping Nintendo releases a soundtrack to this game since I can’t get the Krazoa Palace theme or the Lion King-like Thorntail Hollow theme out of my head.) Voice acting in StarFox Adventures is also top-notch, not too exaggerated but just right. Each character has his or her own distinctive voice and personality especially the WarpStone. The WarpStone’s voice and personality reminded me of Fat Bastard from the Austin Powers movies all too much. Sound effects such as explosions, thumps, screams, yells, rain-drops, etc… are just as good in quality.
Lasting Appeal:
Most skilled gamers may take around 15 to 20 hours to finish SFA the first time through, and unfortunately you may never want to go through it again. SFA was boasted to be a 60-80 hour game by Rare but it’s nowhere near that long but the game was very satisfying while it lasted. There aren’t many (if any) side quests in the game, and once you finish the game you are not allowed to go back to the hub-world (Thorntail Hollow) and do things you might have missed the first time around (i.e. using all the cheat tokens at the WarpStone). When compared to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s replay value StarFox Adventures fails to even come close.
Final Thoughts:
Despite the game’s shortcomings in the longevity department and repetitiveness in gameplay, StarFox Adventures is in my honest opinion the best Rare game since Donkey Kong Country for the Super NES. Unlike Rare’s last few games this game is NOT a collection-fest. Sure, the game might feel like Ocarina of Time in almost every way imaginable but that sure as hell is not a bad thing. This game will definitely please fans of the Nintendo 64 Legend Of Zelda games but gamers looking for the space shooter action synonymous with StarFox franchise might want to pass this one up because the Arwing missions found in the game don’t live up to the StarFox name.
I will miss you Rare…
Best feature: The ending is a SHOCKER!
Worst feature: Once you’ve finished the game you may never want to go back…
