Star Fox Assault is my favorite Star Fox game. It's also the Star Fox game that frustrates me the most, because it comes the closest to fully realizing the series' potential. Nintendo handed the series over to Namco for Assault, and considering their adeptness at making fun dogfighting games (hell, the team behind Assault worked on Ace Combat 2), it's a pretty perfect fit. Assault's campaign is a nonstop ten-stage sci-fi action blockbuster thrill ride with tight controls, addicting arcade-y mechanics, dynamic stages, a compelling story, and a polished presentation. It lays down the perfect framework for an ideal Star Fox game, but it's just too short, and Namco never got the opportunity to make a true masterpiece of a sequel. So let's talk about why I think Assault is so good.
From a story perspective, Star Fox Assault feels like a culmination of everything the series has been building up to. While Star Fox 64's story is obviously a lot more quotable and charming, Assault's story blends the classic Star Fox heroics with a much darker and more threatening antagonists. The Aparoids are a great Borg-style villainous force, and the story surrounding them manages to involve pretty much every single character in some way. Star Wolf briefly teaming up with Fox to take down a greater threat, General Pepper almost being taken over by the Aperoids, Krystal getting to join the team proper, Slippy's father being introduced, Peppy having a personal connection to the Aperoids because the previous Star Fox fought them years ago, Tricky getting a brief cameo when the Aperoids nearly wipe out Sauria, the list goes on. Namco showed a serious respect for the series' legacy and continuity with Assault's narrative, and it makes for what is probably the best story of the bunch. While I do wish we got more Star Fox games, I do also think that if Assault was the last game, it would be a pretty satisfying ending.
Assault's gameplay switches between a variety of modes. The classic Arwing gameplay is here of course, and it controls incredibly well. This is probably the best the Arwing has ever felt to control, and it's hard to fully articulate why. It just feels really tight and fast, with a simplified button layout that doesn't remove any of the mechanics in 64 but rather just makes them feel a bit less cumbersome to use. The fact that Assault generally plays at a silky smooth 60fps certainly helps matters as well. Assault has three dedicated on-rails stages and they're easily some of the best in the series, they're lengthy and dynamic, bringing you through these detailed environments as you try to dodge a variety of hazards. There are also a few all-range sections and they control just as tightly, so they don't feel quite as much like huge difficulty spikes like they did in 64. As a matter of fact, Assault's difficulty curve is top-notch, with each mission feeling properly tougher than the last without feeling too steep at any point.
The more divisive aspect of Star Fox Assault are the other playstyles though. Assault has you spend a lot of time on-foot in these large arenas as you run around trying to take down targets. Personally, I actually quite like these segments. Most enemies can be taken out in one charge shot, you run around really fast, and there's this really snappy and arcade-y feel to everything. Assault's on-foot sections aren't designed like your average third-person shooter, they're fundamentally designed with the same arcade sensibilities that the Arwing sections have which prevent these gameplay styles from feeling too disconnected from each other. My only gripe is the fact that the Twin Sticks control setup isn't the default, this is 100% the way you should play these on-foot sections.
But I think what really elevates Assault's campaign is the mission design. Outside of those three aforementioned on-rail stages, most stages in Assault don't just stick with a single gameplay style. Many of the on-foot stages also give you a Landmaster and at times even an Arwing to use, and others may even have you stand on the wing of Falco or Wolf's ship as you gun down enemies. There is an element of dynamism and variety to Assault's missions that mean you won't be spending much time doing the same thing. There isn't just "the Landmaster level" or "the turret level", because most of the missions have several moving parts and even several different ways to beat them. Add in a variety of difficulties, collectibles, Ally Medals, and a high score system, and there is still a decent amount of replay value and incentive for mastery here even without the branching paths of previous games.
However, for as much as I love the single-player campaign in Assault, I can't deny that it wasn't the main focus here. Star Fox Assault at its core is a multiplayer game, and it's a great one at that. The Versus Mode here has a wide variety of modes, stages, and characters, and it takes advantage of the variety of vehicles and movement options to allow for these large-scale battles to play out. But you can tell Assault was designed with the multiplayer first with the campaign being built around it, with several missions being built around the multiplayer arenas that feel almost designed to introduce you to how all the Versus mechanics work. The focus on multiplayer also shows in how short the campaign is. As I said, there are only ten levels here, and beating Assault always just leaves me wanting more. More on-rails levels, more boss fights, more big and open battles, more character interactions, etc. What we did get was great, but I can't help but wonder what an sequel would look like where Namco focused more on the single-player.
Star Fox Assault is a fantastic entry in the series with so much to love. It's got a great campaign with snappy controls and stellar mission design, it has an addictive multiplayer mode with tons of content and features, and it boasts a top-notch presentation with a gripping story, smooth visuals, and hands down the best soundtrack in the entire series. It's so close to being one of my favorite action games of all time, but I just wish there was more of it! Namco gets Star Fox, you can tell they have so much love for this series, and the fact that they were never able to make more of them will always be a colossal shame.
4.5/5 Stars
No comments:
Post a Comment