All aircraft report! Let's Play Star Fox!

I can't believe no one has mentioned the music yet. This game has awesome fucking music. It's a shame that the music in SF64 isn't nearly as good.

SF64+SNES SF music= my perfect game.

Yes, I barged in here to mention the music, too. Star Fox 64 is the better play in some ways (Star Fox is cluuuunky), but there's no doubt in my head that the original has the better music.

OH SHIT the Nintendo Power Pod in Ontario Place. Sometimes I think I only dreamed up that fucking venue. It was so awesome. First time I played Link to the Past.

Hey, it make look like three triangles shooting at cubes, but it still plays AWESOME. I recently got my SNES working for the first time in years and I played through the Easy path in my first try. Damn that game (and the N64 version) was so much fun, why can't we get another good/pure Starfox game? Shut the hell up, stay in the ship, and shoot shit. How hard is that?

This. I want all future Starfox games to have an option to turn off the voices in favor of this space-animal-babble.


They shoot down a bit of the ships that get past you to help your score at the end of the levels, and you get continues for your score, so it helps a LOT.

I think SF64 has better music...but it's not the kind of thing I would ever remember when I'm not playing. Each song fits each stage perfectly, but they've got the whole "1997 N64 sound chip"-thing going on so it's not something I'd want to listen to when I've got the game turned off. SF's is a lot catchier as a whole, but I think SF64 does a better job overall.

Oh, and SF64's ending theme is BAD ASS. Well, wait...so was SF's. *sigh* What happened to you Starfox? You used to be so wonderful.

"Now we be jammin'!" (At least that's what it sounded like to my friend and me)

The galaxy...is at peath.

YES! That's the thing! I'd totally forgotten the name.

I always heard "Whatever you say, dude."

You know, I wonder what's up with the Shakespeare-inspired names in this game. Macbeth and Titania are the obvious two, and Corneria is kind of like Cordelia.

Corneria looks like a half-Japanified "Cornelia." In the game's ending, when Owsen says, "Come in, Corneria," it actually sounds more like Cornelia.

Of course, right after that, when he's supposed to say "Pepper speaking," it sounds more like "Heffer speaking."

I had chickenpox when this game was released. I only had the energy to play maybe 30 minutes before I had to sleep again and it physically hurt my hands to manipulate the control pad, but I played anyway.

Remember how awesome this series was before they introduced Krystal?

Don't forget about Fortuna! Shakespeare used to reference the wheel of fate (rota fortunae) a bit in his plays as well.

Everything was better before they introduced Crystal. No drama, no dinosaur planet - just flying through multiple courses and shooting Andross's fleet to pieces.

I remember being excited about Dinosaur Planet back when it was an N64 game, before it was a Star Fox game. I like to think that in a parallel world that game came out on time and was good (for an N64 action-platformer) and Starfox went on unspoiled.

When it was played on CRT televisions over a composite connection?

With another, more attractive game being played on another television directly in front of it?

Star Fox Command has the babble.

But then, it also has really bad furry melodrama and Fox and Falco becoming race car drivers.

Amateurs did it on the pc in their spare time for free, Nintendo can do it on their own freaking hardware. There is no excuse.

This sounds terrible.

This sounds awesome.

Honestly, the F-Zero ending was the best part of Command.

And this is from a guy who likes, nay, LOVES Command.

I guess there had to be ONE person out there who liked it.

There are more than just the blackhole off track? I've gone through the blackhole once or twice though I can't remember how I got there. I'm looking forward to the secret levels of this game being revealed

There's a kind of wacky easter egg level called "Out of this Dimension" where you're attacked by origami and a slot machine. It's a dead end, though.

I'll do you one better then that, too. I didn't think Assault was all that bad.

It was still immensely disappointing, but the points when you were in an Arwing made up for... everything else in the game.

Y'know, for all the bitching about SNES Star Fox's visuals, Nintendo was pulling some pretty impressive shit out of their console for the time. I would argue that it looks nearly as sophisticated as some of the super-early first-gen PS1 titles.

Okay, it's kinda fugly; but in that awfully endearing Nintendo way.

Make that two. Calling it the best Star Fox game since 64 may sound like a back-handed compliment, but Command is a great game. I sure as heck got my money's worth out of it, and I'd totally buy a sequel to it.

Yes, I do. God do I ever. I've beaten Star Fox 64 at least a hundred times. AT LEAST. It's not really Krystal herself that ruined it, but more that the people they keep putting in charge of these games don't understand that WE JUST WANT TO FLY THE ARWING.

No! No, I said we just want to fly the damn arwing!

No, mother fuckers! I want to fly forward and I want you to throw the god damn kitchen sink at me. I want to twist and turn through asteroids, I want to barrel roll through hundreds of incoming laser blasts, and I want to dogfight the living shit out of Star Wolf! Like the old days. Remember the three levels of Assault where you actually did fly? Make a whole game like that! Like you used to!

Next stop on our path to Venom is through the Asteroid Belt surrounding Venom. A veritable river of planetoids of all shapes and sizes, we’ll have to cut our way through here if we want to have any chance at making it out alive.

Our other objective is to shoot down Andross’s Rock Crusher, which is currently clearing a path for the Armada following the field. The Asteroid Belt acts as a natural wall around Corneria, so letting it be destroyed would be a terrible thing, no?



We'll be flying in First-Person view this time, since we don't have any natural landscapes to judge distance and the targeting reticle makes it easier to aim anyway.

Oh, and we're ambushed at the very start, but our Twin Blasters cut them to pieces anyway.



Ugh, cloaking enemies in an Asteroid Field. They pop out of no-where for hit-and-runs, which is as annoying as it sounds. I always take great pleasure at dispatching these guys.



And what would an Asteroid Belt be without asteroids? Prepare for evasive action!

Man, Peppy's on the war-path. I miss the Nova Bomb on the left, but flying through the rock formation on the right nets me another Nova Bomb and a blaster upgrade to boot. Sweet!



Ladies and gents, we're now practically unstoppable.



Secret time: Shooting the destructable rock in the middle of the three spinners and flying through where it originally was results in the appearance of this fellow here. Perhaps he's the relative of the moon from Majora's Mask?

Not really. Rather, he opens up the path to the Awesome Black Hole when shot, which will show up... later. For now, let's try and make it out of this asteroid field first.

Alert! Alert! Incoming enemy!



Asteroid Destroyer
-ROCK CRUSHER-

Okay, this is the bad boy that's been carving away at the asteroid belt. He's got a big shield on him which deflects most, if not all, projectiles, and those diamonds on the wings of the ship open up and barrage us with lasers. Not... too big of a deal, right?



Not at all, actually. The Rock Crusher has a major design flaw that makes it vulnerable in space combat, in that its weapons are wide open when their firing. And since the shield can only cover half of the ship at a time and shifts in timed intervals, it's no trouble at all stripping it of its arsenal.



Once its lasers are gone, it ejects the shield and starts firing more powerful weapons in exchange for the lost defense.



Too bad the shield was the only thing keeping it alive to begin with. After only managing to fire a single volley at us, the Rock Crusher goes down in a flash of light.



Woo, 100% score this time! It also pushes us over the 10,000 point mark, netting us our first credit. Not that we'll need it, but might as well take it.

Next Time: An interlude with a smiling asteroid, then onto the Space Armada!

You know, I never considered the why of the missions in Star Fox. This has opened up a new world for me.