All aircraft report! Let's Play Star Fox!

All right, team. Let’s Play Star Fox!



-Table of Contents-
Part 1-1 - Corneria
Part 1-2 - Asteroid Belt
Part 1-X - Black Hole
Part 1-3 - Space Armada
Part 1-4 - Meteor
Part 1-5 - Venom Airspace / Venom
Part 2-1 - Corneria
Part 2-2 - Sector X
Part 2-3 - Titania
Part 2-4 - Sector Y
Part 2-5 - Venom Airspace
Part 2-6 - Venom Highway
Part 3-1 - Corneria
Part 3-2 - Asteroid Belt
Part 3-3 - Fortuna
Part 3-4 - Sector Z
Part 3-5 - Macbeth
Part 3-6 - Venom Airspace
Part 3-7 - Venom
Part 3-X - Out Of This Dimension
Part 0-0 - Training

Released back in 1993, Star Fox was met with critical acclaim for its tight gameplay and state-of-the-art use of 3D. Pioneering the Super FX chip, Star Fox was one of THE earliest truly three-dimensional games on the market, and helped spawn one of Nintendo’s major franchises.



“But wait,” some of you may be crying, “Aren’t you already working on an LP, Papillon?” Yes, Bahamut Lagoon is technically still running, but with the LPA subforum calming down, Star Fox’s relative shortness and the sheer length of Bahamut Lagoon, I figured not many people would mind me trying to aim for two at once. It should prove to be an interesting experiment, to say the least, as concurrent LPs are in territory that has yet to be explored!



Before we start, let’s take a look at the world map. Nice, isn’t it? There are three major routes to take towards Venom, each with their own level of difficulty. The increase in difficulty is proportional to the number it’s assigned; the higher the number, the harder the route. I’ll be playing through each route, however (as well as a few stages that lie outside the beaten path), so don’t sweat the small stuff.

Story-wise, the game begins with Corneria under invasion from the formerly-exiled Andross. After having been exiled away to Venom for various crimes against hu- er, animality (?), Andross brainwashed and took control of the planet, slowly building up his forces to take back Corneria by force, and it’s our job to fend him off.

So let’s get to work, starting with route 1.



Stage 1: Corneria – The Base. According to the manual, Corneria is the most fertile planet in the system, known as the Bread Basket, if you will. With fertile soil and tolerable climates, it’s no small wonder that this is where the Cornerian people have decided to set up home. As the last line of defense against Andross’s fleet, we’ll have to repel their forces off of the planet’s soil before we can launch an assault against him regardless of what route we take.



PA: “Emergency! Emergency! Incoming fighters, prepare for launch!

All right, guys. Let’s kick some Venomoid butt.

Falco: Ready, Fox!!

Slippy: Ok!!!

Peppy: Yeah - Let's go!!

And we’re off! Feels good to be flying in the skies again.



A few seconds from our starting position, Slippy shows off by flying through some hoops that General Pepper left lying around. Following him through them nets us a set of the ever-useful Twin Blasters.



See? Look at ‘em!



Slippy gets mad when we accidentally shoot down an enemy he was tailing. Sorry about that, Slips.

Gotta love those Nova Bombs. It’s only the first stage and we’ve already maxed them out, but that’s fine – we’ll be using a lot of them over the course of the war anyways.



Looks like Slippy’s got himself into a bit of trouble! Guess we better help him out, eh?



No prob.



…? Is it just me, or did it get dark all of a OH MY GOD ITS RIGHT ABOVE US

Advance Scout Mother Ship
-ATTACK CARRIER-

Okay, first boss fight of the game here! He's not too tough of a customer - being a transporter more than an actual combat unit, the Attack Carrier's main method of attack is to send out smaller fighters to try and gun us down.



However, by releasing those fighters at us the Attack Carrier reveals a big weakspot - the hull bay doors are completely vulnerable to blaster fire. A couple of shots to each is enough to knock each one off, reducing the Attack Carrier to nothing but its hull.



Not content to just roll over and die, it makes one final rush at us, firing plasma balls as well for extra measure. But with the carrier arms out of commission, the hull's easy as pie to cut down and finish off.



All too easy.

And that's it for Corneria! Note that the lines each ally says as they fall in depends on how well their ship is doing, so the worse their condition the more harried they get. Of course, it's not like we'll be seeing those other lines, since odds are anything that so much as flies on screen will be scrap anyway.



We did pretty well too, shooting down 95% of the enemy's forces along the way. Peppy, Falco, and Slippy are still doing fine and we're still flying in great shape. Onto the next gauntlet!

Next time: The Asteroid Field and the Sea of Rock!

Aircraft carrier? Reminds me of the sequel. Weird.

Uh, this is a prequel, right? Because Starfox 1 didn't seem to occur in 64...

I tend to think of 64 as a remake more than a sequel. They both basically follow the same plot and routes, though 64 fleshed out everything more and took a few cues from the unreleased Star Fox 2 game.

I love the voices in the SNES Star Fox so much.

As do I. WING DAMAGE

god. when did this game look good? i can't even remember that.

It reminds me of something Miyamoto said once 64 came out. He talked about how after the original Star Fox came out, people would come up to him and ask what that flat triangle was. He couldn't understand what they were talking about -- he had this vision of what the game was, and to him, that wasn't a triangle, it was a ship or a laser or a building.

But then, after working on Star Fox 64, he came back to the original and saw that yes, it really was just a flat triangle.

Falco's voice is my favorite of them all.

I was blown away by this game when I saw it playing in Toys R Us. The scramble scene particular stands out because it was SO 3D MAN! THE CAMERA PANS AND EVERYTHING!!. I was 9 at the time.

And yeah, I tend to see 64 as the remake. The awesome remake that blows the original out of the water. Never beaten the original but played the hell out of the sequel.

It definitely looks better in motion then it does in screenshot form.

Is there any benefit to keeping everyone alive in this one, or did that not get started until Star Fox 64?

It started with 64 - in this one, you keep them alive because holy hell they will not shut up when they're being attacked.

At least their incoherant babbling is soothing to hear, rather then the grating chatter in the sequels.

I first played Star Fox at some Nintendo World thingy in Ontario when we were on vacation; they had it set up as a cockpit thing, I can't remember if it moved or not. Anyway it was cool! Logged so many hours playing this game.

The one thing that 64 lacks (I think!) is the awesome black hole and space whale dimensions. I don't know why those weren't included in the remake. =/

This was the first game i ever remember bugging my parents incessantly for.
I must have played through Route 1 until my eyes bled. I love the Space Armada level sooo much.

Star Fox rules!

BIP BIDDIP BIP BIDDIP

Should have been a video LP. But hey: Star Fox.


Star Fox 64 had weird wormhole sequences where you dodged insane rotating obstacles and shot down Galaga-style enemy formations for power-ups. This foreboding tune played throughout them, but what really made them eerie was that none of the characters commented on them all. In a game as chatty as Star Fox 64. Creepy.

It never did, I remember being supremely unimpressed with the graphics when it came out. It was lots of fun to play, though, which is something that cannot be said for its SuperFX Chip brother, Stunt Race FX.

I had tons of fun with that game, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Racing games are just better when the cars have eyes.

The original is still my favorite, in spite of the stone-age graphics and the incredible cheat of cutting off the edges of the screen. There are so many cool moments, like flying into a ship in the space armada, or the hidden papercraft dimension. The level of creativity they got out of those simple polygons was amazing.

Woo, Starfox! I played this recently, and dang, I forgot how hard it could be. But you can't beat me, Starfox! I know your secrets.

Man, forget Star Wars, this game right here does flying into a giant warship and blowing it up from the inside properly.

Remind me again why this isn't out on VC yet?

Prevailing theory is that the VC can't emulate the Super-FX chip properly.

Same reason that Yoshi's Island hasn't even gotten an ESRB rating.

Come on, Nintendo! You can do this if you believe in the us that believes in FX emulation!

Because Star Fox 64 is, and it's everything this game is and then some.

This line always cracks me up. I don't know who did the voiceover, but he has the worst lisp since, like, EVER. WIG DABIT is pretty good too though...

By the way, I demand you do at least one level in first person.

How lucky that a space level is coming up!

Dan Owsen, localization pioneer.

Okay. Then...

All fixed. Thanks Kishi.