CLASSIC GAMING
Starfox 64/Lylat WarsDeveloper: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: On Rails Shoot-em-up
Year: 1997
System: Nintendo 64
(Better than Thundercats, complete with annoying sidekick!)
When the Nintendo 64 came, there also came a fear of whether of not many games would do well in the transition to 3D from (mostly) their 2D origins. The Mario and Zelda series were of course highly considered and thus successfully became 3D without any real danger. One of Nintendo's games, which never really became a series until the Nintendo 64, was already in 3D by the beauty of the SNES' Super FX chip to allow 3D acceleration. But now came a more purer form of 3D.
Story - The Starfox game reinvents itself with a story much different from the original game. It tells that, in the Lylat solar system, Andross was a maniacal scientist working on Corneria who began the destruction, control and desecration of many planets from his experiments. General Pepper of the Cornerian Army exiled Andross to the planet of Venom, where he continued working and with a renewed ambition to conquer the Lylat system under his palm. Pepper sent out three mercenaries of the Starfox team in the past, Peppy Hare, James McCloud and Pigma Dengar, to deal with Andross. But Pigma betrayed his team mates, resulting in James' death and Peppy's narrow escape back home, where he watched over James' orphan son, Fox. Years later, Fox himself becomes the leader of the Starfox team with his own allies of Peppy Hare, Falco Lombardi and Slippy Toad to investigate the occurring activity of Venom, as well as defeat Andross once and for all.
(Way more fun than connect-the-dots.)
Despite a different story from the first game, it becomes a more closer one of a history that is easily understood, with the odd intonation into each of the character's pasts. In terms of depth it's not incredibly deep or vast, but it certainly is a little better than the original story.
Gameplay - The gameplay is very simple to understand. You control Fox McCloud within an Arwing (the Starfox team's own fighter space crafts) and progress through the game on a predesignated path (on-rails, similar to most early shoot-em ups) shooting down enemies. You have two weapons. The laser blasters which can either fire repetitively and can be upgraded twice in the game by obtaining laser upgrades, and can also charge up and lock on to an enemy for a controlled blast radius. And the Nova Bombs, which shoot out and can be set to blow up by your press of the control button that shoots them, to explode and destroy many enemies in an area. Bombs can also be obtained while flying and you can stock several. Your arwing has a shield gauge which if entirely empty from hitting obstacles or receiving enemy fire, causes the arwing to crash and burn and lose one life. Your shield gauge can be repaired by either flying through silver rings, or obtaining the repair powerup, which also fixes up any major damage, such as losing one of your wings.
Gold rings also appear in the levels and prove another purpose. Collect three at first, and your shield gauge is doubled, making things easier. Collect another three in the same level and you obtain an extra life. You fly through the level to shoot down as many enemies as you can, before facing off against a boss, few of which can be eliminated by special means which your allies might tell you of. Your allies are important as they help you with information and shooting down enemies in turn. Falco is the most skilled fighter and can deal with enemies best. Peppy reminds you with simple but useful information and hints. Slippy can analyse a boss to give you a health gauge for it, making fighting it a bit easier.
They also have their own shield gauges which cannot be doubled by gold rings or so but don't really get hit as much as you (except Slippy, the idiot). If they lose all of their shield gauge, they are forced to return to the hangar (at the Great Fox, a huge spaceship where the team start their operations) and miss out on the next mission to repair. Oddly enough, when you lose your shield gauge, you just crash and die.....unfair? Indeed. But you do have extra lives, so hey, everything's A-OK.
(He may be an asshole, but he's the best fighter in the team.)
And lastly, some of the missions can be completed in two ways, but that's all up to how well you handle the mission. You will also be awarded a medal if you kill enough enemies (which are ranked up in numbers below your shield gauge).
Not only that, but you also get to control two other vehicles in the game on certain planets. One of them being a submarine (which is trickier to control than the Arwing for being slow, but has powerful missiles) and the Landmaster Tank (which has not-so good aim but great dodging ability).
Graphics - The then-cutting-edge graphics of the N64 shine through in this game with nice laser shots and explosions offering a good intense feel of the battles within space, as well as the flight paths of spaceships and other astronomical matter, despite them all being pre-scripted (the spaceships however are not pre-scripted and offer a good enough challenge to you). Backgrounds are very nice in the game, offworld and on a world, not too distracting to the eye yet enough of an atmosphere for you to ignore while you're chasing down an enemy's tail.
Music/Sound - Most of the music in the game is enough of a pace to make you keep within the battle instinct of blasting down enemies, nothing particularly special. This is also the game which has the most memorable music of Starfox (the most famous being the Meteo asteroid field which you've also probably heard in Starfox Adventures). Sound is very nice with laser shots and explosions and ricochets sounding quite plausible and easy on the ears. Voice acting is worthy enough, each character in the game (even the most minor of them) all have a good personality within their voices for you to immediately know what they're like, even though there is not a lot of story script-wise in this shooter. And yes, you are supposed to be annoyed by Slippy's whiny voice.
(Don't drink coffee in this, the damn thing rattles everywhere.)
This game is one of the classic Nintendo 64 games that almost everyone who had one will remember knowing of. While not as hard as the first SNES Starfox game, it plays a lot smoother, causing that very same easiness to come to play a little. It's a game that you can replay very easily without any real boredom, mainly for its simplicity to learn but slight difficulty to master.
Final's Final Rating - 8/10"Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto
Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!