Star Fox is a rather odd Nintendo franchise. It doesn't get frequent releases like Mario, Zelda, and Kirby do, but it does remain quite popular.
If you mention Star Fox 64 around gamers who enjoy games, you'll probably hear some kind of positive response. Is it really an amazing game though? Why yes.
But see, the next game, Star Fox Adventures, was not based on shooting things with your neat little spaceship. It was about saving a planet full of dinosaurs, and you didn't get to use your spaceship much. This was because the government on the planet banned Arwings due to the dinosaurs' concern for the environment.
OH NO!!!
K, that's not exactly how it goes.
But the main point is that it's not the on-rails shooter like the SNES and N64 Star Fox games. It's got a few sections, but the main part of the gameplay is actually based on Zelda. And that made some Star Fox fans upset.
OH NO!!!
Then Assault came out. It started off in space with Fox driving an Arwing. And it actually seemed like Star Fox was originally. But there were on-foot sections too, since Fox got a job with Orkin pest control and had to actually do stuff outside of his vehicle. And again, some Star Fox fans were upset because itz not lik the sixtee fore.
And again, that is slightly inaccurate.
And there was Command too, which was just flying in Arwings, but ACTUAL SPOILER
it had a bunch of dumb endings and they were dumb
.
OH NO!!!
So with all that said, I can get to the point of the blog. Some people didn't like Adventures, Assault, and/or Command because they weren't like the originals. But it's really not that strange for a franchise to change up. Sure, there are some that remain essentially the same in each installment like Zelda, but then there are others like Kid Icarus that don't. It started out as a 2D platformer for the first two games, but did fans complain about Uprising because it switched to an on-rails shooter type game? Not really.
Fun fact, apparently Star Fox was being considered instead of Pit for the game.
But yeah, the changes in gameplay styles aren't necessarily bad, they're different. And you've got Star Fox 64 to keep playing if that's the only 'true' Star Fox in your opinion. But you can have fun playing other great Star Fox games too.
The best Star Fox games have involved experimental gimmicky things, such as a Super-FX chip and Rumble Pak. The core of the franchise has always been to demonstrate new technology. I'm surprised the Star Fox crew didn't star in Wii Sports.
If Star Fox on the SuperNES has flopped, we'd never have gems like Stunt Race FX or Dirt Trax FX. If it has flopped on the N64, secrets would have been harder to find in Ocarina of Time.
By @BanMan
@Waffle King
@SCREECHiNG FLARE
