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out-of-this-dimension · 4 years

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Some Thoughts on Star Fox as a Series

Disclaimer: This is a post mostly focusing on the gaming aspect of Star Fox, not really the lore and characters. I think when a lot of people in the fandom talk about the series’s future, they hone in on the story and characters but I wanted to talk more or less about the series as games, not really as a story.

I remember when the first rumors of Star Fox Grand Prix came out and I was frankly a bit bummed. I’m very lukewarm on racing games in general, having only really enjoyed Wave Race, Mario Kart, and Diddy Kong Racing out of the few I’ve tried out. I wanted a follow up to Zero, since I felt dissatisfied by it overall. I felt like it was halfway done and that it failed to breathe in that bit of life into the series that was desperately needed. A racing game for the series felt... really weird, and part of it still does, but the more I dwelled on it, the more I realized that... sure, Grand Prix wasn’t what anyone had expected but maybe it wasn’t a bad thing?

And then, funnily enough, I thought back when I was a kid and when Star Fox Adventures came out. A lot of people were very upset. I was not one of them because I had been immersed at a very young age to the idea that some games in certain series just play differently. Mario was always bopping between tennis, racing, party games, 2D platforming, RPG style gameplay, and 3D adventure jams. Donkey Kong went from throwing barrels to 2D platforming to racing and to having his own 3D adventure. Kirby went from 2D platforming to racing and even to fighting games. It made sense to me that Fox McCloud could do the same. And that leads me to my main “point” of this post.

I think it’s perfectly okay for the Star Fox series to step away from the spaceship shooter genre.

Don’t get me wrong-- I know that the heart of the series we’ve seen so far has been a on-rails shooting or all-range mode shooting. But I think sometimes we (using this loosely for certain bits of the fandom) hyper fixate on Star Fox needing to be based on vehicular combat and maybe that sort of mentality is still the result of backlash from Adventures all of those years ago. A lot of Star Fox fans were upset because of Adventures because it didn’t stick to their expectations of what would naturally evolve after SF64. And they were absolutely correct to be surprised and maybe a bit upset (some people took it overboard but I applaud their passion, I guess). Star Fox Adventures was not the natural sequel to the beloved SF64. Assault fit the bill for that, building upon on-foot fighting teased in the Versus mode of SF64 and going back to a rails/all-ranged mode series of levels rather than a more open and explorable world.

That being said, I don’t... necessarily think that Star Fox Adventures was a mistake or a bad idea. In fact, I actually think that an adventure-style subseries would work really well for Star Fox as a franchise. In fact, I think there’s a lot they could do with the series in terms of branching out from the typical on-rails style spaceship shooter. Having a racing game with a story and with boss fights (like what was rumored of Grand Prix) actually sounds like the fun Diddy Kong Racing sequel everyone kinda wanted. Sure, Adventures was put together in a very rushed fashion, but why not actually invest in adventure-style series of games for Fox McCloud? He’s a mercenary, after all, and I doubt every mission he takes is going to be able to be done in his Arwing.

“But Star Fox isn’t a big IP. Why bother reinventing the series as something beyond its genre when it’s not a big IP?”

That is true. It’s not a huge IP but it is a legacy IP, one that Miyamoto has stated he’d love to do more with. And honestly? I kind of wonder if branching out the genre would garner more interest in the series from potential consumers. Not everyone is really into the spaceship shooter genre and that’s fine. I think with some innovation, maybe branching out in the genre department a bit, and decent marketing and the Star Fox series could honestly be twice as big as it is now. It has the potential to market to a lot of different fans-- furries, sci-fi nerds, flight sim fans, general Nintendo fans, etc.

“But Star Fox is supposed to be a spaceship shooter game! That’s the heart of the series!”

And I get that, in the same way that stomping Goombas is Mario’s staple. Star Fox can still have those types of titles in the series. But I’d rather see the series evolve and thrive rather than cling onto what it’s traditionally been and the fans getting a half-baked game once every half decade or so. I think much in the way that the gaming world has changed, Star Fox as a series has dug its heels into the ground in terms of gameplay and it needs a chance to breathe and grow. I don’t think there’s been much growth for the series from a pure gameplay standpoint since Assault and that was 3 generations ago. I want to add that I’m talking purely based on gameplay-- I’m not commenting at all on story or on character portrayal.

Two extreme games that I think highlight what I’m trying to say are Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey. Of course these are both huge IPs for Nintendo and they received a lot of care. But if you look at the gameplay, what they did was take the basics and let them grow, adding a few new mechanics to those specific games within the series for variety’s sake. Assault did it similarly, particularly with vehicle swapping. But... really, after Assault, I feel like we saw a step back. Command obviously was limited by its console. Zero has virtually no excuse in my book being 2 console generations after Assault and seeing nothing more than finnicky controls and a return to SF64 form... and with no versus mode to boot (still salty about that, don’t mind me).

“But is it a Star Fox game if it doesn’t have flying/on rails combat in it?”

Yes. The answer is yes. Because Star Fox isn’t about flying space ships. There’s a billion games that will let you fly ships. But them having flying ships does not make them the same thing as a Star Fox game. Star Fox is about the charm-- the fun banter between teammates, a world full of goofy sci-fi tropes with very quotable dialogue, and fun, quirky animal friends.

And just because a Star Fox game isn’t purely on rails flying combat doesn’t mean it can’t have a nod or two.

“Okay, but if you want them to just make different genre games for Star Fox, why not just have Nintendo make a new IP entirely?”

New IPs are always a gamble and we know through the development of various games that Nintendo puts a LOT of work into making new IPs. If you haven’t looked at the development of Splatoon on Wii U, I really recommend it. It really shows why we don’t get many new IPs from Nintendo-- they’re super picky and they super wanna make sure that the IP will land on its feet successfully.

Star Fox is, again, a legacy IP and people know the characters. That’s actually pretty huge because then you’re not having to market an entirely new cast.

Starlink was a huge indicator that people want to see the Star Fox characters again. The game may have sold poorly overall but the Switch sales were remarkably high compared to the other consoles and I’m 99% sure it’s because of brand familiarity and the Star Fox team.

“Okay, okay, so you want Star Fox to evolve. But what do you want to see?”

Honestly? Something good. Anything good. Nothing that’s limited by the idea of what a Star Fox game “should” be. I am a big believer in not stifling creativity and that extends to the gaming world as well. I don’t want to see another rebranded SF64. I want to see something they make with an honest, passionate heart, even if it’s something as outlandish as a Star Fox dating sim or even a Star Fox crossover with POKEMON or KIRBY or PIKMIN or... or anything else that sounds absolutely wacko.

I just want a good game made with love that respects the series and doesn’t try to confine it.

Anyways THANKS FOR READING MY TED TALK

#fandom talk #star fox #starfox #star fox adventures #starfox adventures #long post

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