Star Fox (1993)
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Behold, not only a nice start to the Star Fox franchise but also one of the most impressive game ever released on the SNES.
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Star Fox (known in the PAL region as Starwing) is the original Star Fox video game made for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, released in 1993, featuring then-revolutionary 3D graphics due to the Super FX chip.
Plot
It is the first game in the series and introduces Fox McCloud and the Star Fox team on a mission to save the Lylat System from the evil clutches of Andross.
Why It's A Star
- The game is very impressive for a SNES game due to being a 3D game on it, and while it didn't age very well compared to Star Fox 64 or even Star Fox 2, it's still very playable.
- In fact, the reason why this game had a perfectly playable 3D gameplay is because of using the awesome Super FX engine (which was also used for Stunt Racer FX, the SNES Doom port, and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island) that make those kind of games on the SNES possible.
- While it aged kind of poorly, the gameplay is still very fun to play, especially at levels where the framerate is good, and while the gameplay is not really that fluid or even very polished in comparison to the sequels, at least it got that kind of jankiness fun gameplay found in a lot of old game.
- The cast of characters is very good and likable, as we got the main characters, Fox McCloud, Falco Lombardi, Slippy Toad, and Peppy O'Hare, who each got their weakness and strong points, and did become iconic characters over the years, especially Fox and Falco.
- While the graphics may look cheap by today standards, they were very good for it's time and are still impressive today because back then, there weren't many 3D games yet, and the sprites and backgrounds are more detailed than many games released at that time.
- Fox had a decent set of moves, as he can speed up, stop himself a bit, of course shoot, and even throw bombs at the enemies and bosses; as such, it gives the gameplay a ton of variety and the game doesn't become repetitive too quickly because of this.
- While the framerate is bad because of pushing the SNES' graphical capabilities to their limits, at least the game is designed with this in mind so that it is not harder because of a sluggish framerate, even though in some levels it is hard because of this.
- "Good Luck!" - General Pepper
- Each character also gets their own lines and roles, in which some of the lines are funny and many of their hints are very useful against some bosses.
- For example, Falco is the one who gave the most hints to the player, such as when you're against a boss, where he tells you their weakness, which is useful especially when you fight a very difficult boss.
- Amazing soundtrack, a lot of the music are not only an absolute banger to listen to (such as the Corneria theme, or even the title screen theme), but they are very epic and fit this game a lot. Even better, some of those tracks became iconic in history of gaming, such as the aforementioned Corneria theme.
- There are a lot of power ups that are present in this game, especially that with this game difficulty, we definitely need some of those powers ups, those include:
- Supply Ring: After you fly through this ring, it will become your starting point if your ship is destroyed before you finish the stage. Flying through this ring will also restore most of your shield energy.
- Small Energy Supply: This small ring will appear after you have destroyed certain enemies or missiles. When you fly through it, some of your shield energy will be replenished.
- Power Shield: When you obtain this item, you will be impervious to the next several enemy attacks.
- Twin Blaster: This will upgrade the Arwing's Laser Blasters to Twin Blaster Type A. If Type A is already enabled, it will upgrade them to Type B.
- Wing gyro: If a wing is damaged, this will repair one broken wing.
- Smart Bomb: This will equip the Arwing with an extra Smart Bomb, up to a maximum of five.
- Extra Ship: The player must shoot the three objects to make an arwing appear in the middle. The player must then fly through the ship in order to gain a 1-Up.
- There are so many unique bosses present in this game and some of them are really challenging; they also are pretty fun to fight, even if some of them are very difficult and annoying.
- Andross, for example, is a very epic fight and his fight is challenging but in a good way, and his paths are well thought.
- Very good Simlish-style voices that are of very high quality and are rather fun to listen to, and in fact it is quite easy to recognize those voices.
- Even better, the ending had full voice acting that sounds extremely clean, which is once again impressive for a SNES game since not too many of them got full voice acting even in their cutscenes.
- The characters designs are great in both the box art and in-game, and in fact, it is one of the few games were realistic designs were well made.
- This is one of the most memorable games for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, especially since Star Fox would go on to become one of the best Super Nintendo Entertainment System games of all time.
- It was overall a very good way to start the Star Fox franchise, even if this game didn't aged well compared to it's sequels.
Bad Qualities
- There's a ton of difficulty spikes present in this game, and the difficulty here is very unbalanced and even worse than in Star Fox 64, as either it will be easy (such as in Corneria) or other times it will be unfairly difficult either because of the poor framerate or the hit-and-miss collision detection.
- Stage 4, Course 1, while not that bad compared to other stages in the game, is still very difficult if you don't know how to play the game well.
- Titania is a very difficult level because of tons of enemies that never cease to appear on you and you can die very easily, making it very difficult to dodge them.
- Some of the bosses are some of the most noticeable examples of extremely difficult part of the game, as sometime their projectiles or attacks are almost impossible to dodge even if you play well, in fact some of those are almost impossible to beat without a blaster upgrade.
- The Atomic Base, while not really difficult, is a bit hard to understand at the first time you play the game like what you must shoot to beat the boss.
- Spinning Core is one of the worst examples of a very hard boss, since it's attacks are very hard to dodge and are very hard to predict so that you dodge it easily, and of course it's attacks are extremely powerful and can kill you with just a few hits.
- Great Commander (at least in Phase 1) is not really that difficult, but it's hard to eat it's weakness, even with your bombs, as you need to be precise to attack it with your bombs. Despite all that, the boss is not really that difficult and barely even attack.
- Despite still being very playable, the game aged the worst in term of gameplay and aged way more than the other games (if one doesn't count Star Fox Command).
- First off, the controls are much clunkier than the sequels and are very uncomfortable, this is mostly because of the poor framerate, as mentioned before.
- Only 6 (and 7 in Course 3) levels are here in aol the courses, and because of this, this game is rather short.
- It only has the Arwing gameplay and doesn't have any other vehicles to controls, such as the Landmaster; howewer, it is justified due to being a 1993 game and also because the SNES isn't capable of everything.
- The framerate is quite bad in comparison to even Star Fox 2, since it sometime move at 7 FPS and sometime, the game had a hard time to show some of the graphics because of this game pushing the SNES to it's max limits, and sometime it would even result in some levels being almost unplayable.
Reception
Star Fox received positive reviews by users and critics alike, and the game would go on to sell 4 million copies. At the time of Star Fox's release, the use of filled, three-dimensional polygons in a console game was considered revolutionary. A handful of earlier titles, including the Sega Genesis port of Hard Drivin', and Atari's helicopter shooter, Steel Talons. Before the game was released, preorders exceeded 1.7 million copies. To keep up with demand, Nintendo shipped a million game cartridges on the game's opening weekend, and some dropped by parachute to game stores such as Sears.
On Gamefaqs, the game had a score of 3.83 based on 1732 users.
Videos
Trivia
- The game probably take inspiration from X released in 1992 on Game Boy, who was also a pseudo 3D shooter and was famous for having 3D graphics on the Game Boy, this is mostly because both this and that game had similar style of graphics.
- In an interview, Dylan Cuthbert said that Star Fox was his favorite game to work on.
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