Star Fox Review - Quickies Don't Cut It
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 พ.ค. 2016
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Writing, editing & narrating: Michael Hardeman
Game creation: Nintendo & Argonaut Software
Logo designs: ''RomyvdHel'', Specter Salmon & ''Ollie''
Star Fox © Nintendo
All music & imagery © to their respective owners - เกม
Honestly I feel like you have gotten better as a reviewer, paying more attention to the tiny details, and making some more comedic touches.
+Reektro Thank you. :)
Wasn't expecting to see another video so soon after the OoT review. What a pleasant surprise.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who had problems with Fortuna's boss and the Great Commander. Those bosses still haunt me to this day. Also did you ever have any problems performing a barrel roll in this game? It just felt difficult with my two SNES controllers. Great review by the way.
+cjszero01 I did notice the barrel roll wasn't as responsive as it should have been, but I just spam the button whenever I want to do one which works well enough. Wasn't a big deal for me.
Just from watching the footage, I feel like you don't realize that tilting the Arwing left or right allows you to move to the left or the right much more quickly than you'd otherwise be able to. Your orientation affects how you move, not just your hitbox (also the arrangement of your shots if you have twin blasters).
If a big rock suddenly pops up in front of you to be avoided or you need to grab a power-up way off to the side in a short time, tilting the Arwing to move in the desired direction more quickly makes it trivial to do so. You could also try breaking.
Point is, the complaints about pop-in or sudden reveals of power-ups being unfair is kinda shit. The frame rate and pop-in are horrendous, but the game doesn't do anything unfair with either of them.
I was aware of the tilting as well as the braking. I just found it irritating that sometimes you have to react so quickly to something that pops in and handle perfectly from there. The frame rate makes sudden and precise movement trickier, too.
That said, it's been a while since I've played the game and made this video. Maybe it's fine as you said and I was making a problem out of nothing. I just remember it not being ideal.
Enjoyed that game as a kid.
Regarding the Big Stingrays your teammates do warn you about them. I forgot if they told you not to shoot them or not but in case of them not telling you after the first one you should know not to shoot them. You can dodge them if you piss them off, but it takes a lot of movement.
Monarch Dodora in the beginning you have to be center right to dodge it and that took me years to figure out (I was 9 at the time).
Great Commander was a pain to fight but I love that boss and you can glitch it too, but it means starting over though.
great review
Wow. This is the greatest Star Fox review I've ever watched.
Completely agree, and I wish to see Star Fox 2 review
Dickina is a word now? :p
Great vid man! You did a good job at covering this game in depth ;) like you always do! Starfox games are defintely awesome in my opinion, yet I still need to get that Starfox Zero game...
+Zehnter I don't know if it is, but it's just what came in my head when I was writing, lol.
Thanks anyway! I also need to play Star Fox Zero sometimes soon, I haven't touched it yet.
Nice review. Petty much sums up how I feel about the game myself. It has aged but I still think there's a lot of fun to be had with this one. Also, thanks for the nod towards the soundtrack. Everyone I know only talks about Star Fox 64's soundtrack which I don't have a thing for.
On the "story in the manual"--the SNES Star Fox game was released at the time when Video Game Box Art was one of the man selling points of video games.
It was a time when awesome manuals sold games just as much as the game itself. Well... awesome manuals, keen maps and weird things in the box.
Some of us love manuals and hate sitting through story sequences during actual games because, if they're sitting there with the controller in my hand, they just want to get to the gameplay 99% of the time. Just saying: These people exist, especially in the retro gaming fandom, where manuals are pretty prized and even valuable in some cases.
If a gane doesn't have cutscenes it just saves me the trouble of skipping them. And if cutscenes are unskippable, that's a massive turn off from replaying.
The biggest flaw of this game nowadays is that inputs are tracked at the very low 3D object framerate. This is only a problem because deflecting object with a spin, which is a very useful mechanic, is way too difficult to use because spinning is triggered by double tapping L or R, and at such a low framerate the game often doesn't register that the buttons have been released because of inputs being tracked on the cycle of the 3D framerate, even though the SNES is not doing the heavy lifting here, and the Super FX is not processing the controller inputs. I understand this was an early effort but the other Nintendo/Argonaut games don't have this issue at all. And even with this input quirk intact, there's an easy solution, which is to just make rolling triggered by pressing L & R at the same time. I don't who thought the unreliable method we got was ok. And no controller configuration changes this either.
Second flaw for me is that in the 3rd person mode there is no crosshair, which is mildly annoying.
Great review! I'm playing this at the moment on my Raspberry Pi. Never completed it back in the day, but hoping to in 2017 :D
You are always really attentive to the music, and you really seem to know what you're talking about. I noticed an interesting cultural difference that made me curious; you referred to a song as "melancholy", but people from my background tend to refer to songs with those sounds as something more along the lines of "whimsical". The specific song you were referring to was actually written as an imitation of certain ideas and models found in Western/US sci-fi. I think, in particular, it appears to have been inspired by the usage of a waltz for space scenery in Kubrick's 2001. So, I wonder, do people from your background tend to find European style waltzes melancholy? Or am I just confusing your own personal empirical differences for something of a broader scope? XD
This video deserves more views. I've been binge watching your reviews for 2 days now. Keep the reviews coming man. My favorite so far is the X6. I laughed at how pissed you got at the "doughnut boss". I felt the same way about the whole game. I rented it once at blockbuster and I think i beat like 3 stages and never touched it again until the Ps2 release. When I played it again I remembered why I quit playing it.
I first played Star Fox when visiting with my older cousins as a kid. A few years later, I would rent the hell out of Star Fox 64 and always go for the high scores. I eventually bought a loose copy of that game and still have it.
Looking at the original Star Fox, it has NOT aged very well. When the game was new, polygons were the future. Today, we're like "Huh?" We've gotten so used to seeing textures with our polygons.
Nice review, it makes me want to go back and play the original Star Fox again since I never gotten far in the game when I tried it. Playing Star Fox Zero, I can see that some of the enemy designs are inspired by the SNES game which is a neat touch. I always thought that on original hardware that the original game might run a bit better in terms of frame rate but who knows. It would be nice if Nintendo decides to reboot the series again that they base it off the SNES game or just remake it and modernize it in a way. BTW, If you end up reviewing the whole Star Fox series do you plan to review the unreleased Star Fox 2?
+Bryson Morris As far as I've been able to tell, the emulators Snes9x and Higan (formerly known as Bsnes) don't cause any less or additional slowdown over original hardware from footage that I've seen.
Also, I am not sure yet if I'm going to do Star Fox 2. I feel it would be weird to review a game that isn't in its definitive state. I know a guy from Argonaut Software has his hands on the final version, all bug-tested and ready for release, but he also stated it contained a lot of elements not present in the latest public build.
Interesting, I thought the roms of Star Fox 2 floating online were complete versions all this time. I can see why you wouldn't want to review it then, either way it will be interesting to hear your opinions on the rest of the franchise since they start to get mixed reception in the latter on and thanks for the response!
YAY STAR FOX!
The original is my favorite star fox game by far, i love the evocative, bare bones story telling that leaves much to your imagination rather than forcing you to listen to a bunch of cheesy voice acting over and over. And the sound design is fantastic in every area.
Theres also a lot of thought put into each zone in regards to gameplay challenge.
In regards to hitting the gates, its been years since i played, but i rememeber with some trial and error, being able to make them all. Id recommend save states and practicing, they are all totally doable.
In regards to not collisioning with bosses, its the same as the gates, just learning their patterns with some trial and error. I remember getting the the point i never died on hard and rarely even got hit. So its not too hard, it just was old school in that it wanted to provide a good challenge, as accounting for inflation, SNES games were around $120 each. So they needed to occupy us for months at a time. And they did!
Great review. Thanks!
Sad note: argonaut made SNES starfox I and II by themselves, hence having a totally different feel to them. Nintendo, not afraid to throw a monkey wench, blocked star fox II after it was already completed, then stole all of its ideas to use for sequels without creidt or compensation for argonaut, who closed as a result.
The other day I tried StarFox 2 on the Switch and I was heavily impressed. Very surprised I enjoyed my playthrough that much
If the frame rate is an issue, just emulate it. The game runs buttery smooth on the PC as it's a total walk in the park for modern hardware.
I was a big fan of the original Star Fox on SNES, and I would agree that the outdated technology makes the game not one I'd want to revisit. I already completed all three modes, and some of the other weird stuff, so there's not a ton of content left to uncover.
On the other hand, Star Fox 64 has surprisingly aged well.
I revisit SNES Star Fox and avoid Star Fox 64.
"Ba-dah-bur-dah-bur-bur-dah-dep!" - Fox McCloud, 1993
Nice
Did anyone else notice the Majora's Mask moons? No?
real good
i dont need an hd remake, just give me uncompressed samples and 60 fps and this would be fantastic.
This is one of those games that makes the strongest argument possible that re-releases of old games should strive to smooth out the framerates instead of being so faithful to the original hardware that the game still runs like sweaty ass. The goal should be to be as faithful to the original as possible, except with a proper framerate. Any game with a single digit framerate is unplayable garbage, a goddamn slideshow. This game updated to hold steady at even 30 FPS (really should be 60, though) would be such a better experience.
I got an SNES Classic in part because I wanted to try Star Fox 2, but to unlock that, you need to beat level 1 of Star Fox. And I found Star Fox to be so sluggish and awful that I didn't even unlock Star Fox 2. Not that I'd want to play Star Fox 2 anyway since it runs even more poorly. Updated framerate would make all the difference. If Capcom once did it with the PS2 era Mega Man X collection, and Sony can do it with PS2 games released on PS4 (the PS2 GTA games updated to hold just 30 FPS is such a huge improvement over the original counterparts that slow down constantly), there's no excuse for this nonsense. Fix the framerates for releases! And then, if you must, include an option to be "faithful" for people who like playing at 5 FPS.
Yeah, this game is....cool to have on a shelf to point at and check out now and then, but the frame rate issues and such can get really painful sometimes. It's still really cool to look back and think about what it was for it's time though, so I'd still call it "good", but it aged about as well as milk. lol
I still think it's a fun game to play, impressive for the time, but yeah it's just aged poorly due to the hardware.
Agreed, and I won't be getting rid of my copy any time soon.
Love this game. IMO, its just as good as 64. I only really prefer 64 just for graphics. that's about it
+The Side Quest Gamer I have a feeling I am really going to prefer 64 because of the smoother graphics, frame rate and also the higher replay value with the medals and shit. Haven't played that in forever though so we'll see.
Outdated? This game came out in the 90's!!! Of course its outdated!!! I wonder how you feel about Pac-Man...
What's the sound effect at 26:50
Pretty sure that plays when you hit the bird that transports you to Out of this Dimension.
Thanks.
The original "Star Fox" is hands down my personal favorite in the franchise!! Love the graphical charm and steep challenge!!^^
the best star fox game is adventure u could actually play as fox
"REMIXING A MAIN LEITMOTIF INTO DIFFERENT SONGS IS INHERENTLY FUCKING TERRIBLE, BWOBWOBWOBWOBWO"
0/10 -Retropolis Zone
me: points to undertale
re we seein marathon?
+Daze 072401 Of Star Fox? Well I sure do plan to review most if not all of the Star Fox games, but I try to avoid doing games from the same series back to back as to keep the content varied.
Retropolis Zone Ofc, I was just wondering if eventually you'll cover this series. (Secretly hoping for a review that *isn't* shitting on Assault).
Dude, this was a Super Nintendo game! Super Nintendo didnt have depth!!!