Star Fox 64 3D: A Brief History Lesson

Instead, it became one of the best-selling N64 games. Any issue that might've happened with the SNES D-pad was gone, thanks to the new analog stick and fully-rendered 3D landscapes. One thing kept was the on-a-track play style. Some areas were completely open for dogfights, but leading up to many of them was a system of straight-forward sections designed to overwhelm a small squad of Arwings. They never did wipe out the SF team, of course; none of the members are dogs, but they could all fight. The story was right, the look was there, the play was fantastic… Star Fox had truly arrived.

Then there was some fallout. For some reason, developers thought that to keep the game fresh and playable, they had to change everything. And so, Star Fox Adventures was brought into the canon; a third-person action/platformer that lead Fox—with a big glow-stick—around a planet that needs saving from dinosaur enemies (a planet named, aptly enough, Dinosaur Planet). It might not have been a terrible game, but it wasn't what Fox fans had been expecting; everything had been flying and firing (or in the case of certain stages of SF64, submarine and tank warfare), not getting too close and bashing baddies with a stick. Still, it sold well enough, and people seemed to enjoy it, but even now I can't bring myself to call it a good next step for the franchise… just too different for my tastes.

He did get back into flight on the Gamecube and DS though, in Star Fox Assault and Command respectively, but so far the series hasn't been able to really regain the notoriety or epic feel that the N64 gave back in 1997. It's been a series that, while taking technology forward to begin with, lost some of its luster in the following years. Games were few and far between, and some thought Fox would be regulated to firing on Jigglypuff and Mr. Game & Watch for the rest of his pixelated days. But if SF643D goes well, we just might see some renewed interest in the license by everyone… hell, maybe he'll even make 3D move forward another notch, make everybody see the true capabilities of the emerging medium.

Eh, probably not. Should be fun as sh*t though in the meantime!