Star Fox 2 Review
The space battles kick ass. They're different from the usual on-rails coming at you style the Star Fox games typically employ. They are pretty much the same as the all range mode in the later games of the series, but way more fun. In the 64 Star Fox, the all range modes were kind of lame. With the exception of the fights were you fought Star Wolf the all range fights weren't too hectic. The enemies were usually pretty cool if you flew away from them, and then took a wide arc to make an attack run. They usually would just hang out and let you come back whenever you felt like. Here it's a lot more intense. You can't make a wide arc, or use the breaks to make slow turns like in the 64 version. The controls are looser, so it's somewhat harder, but it's more like I would imagine flying around in a space ship would be like. Another big difference is that it's harder to keep somebody in your sights, and easier to get away from them. I liked that. It's a hell of a lot more fun then getting some punk ass behind you, not being able to get away and then being exploded.
Sometimes members of Star Wolf will ambush you. Star Wolf is a group of mercenaries who also happen to be a bunch of dicks who want to kill you. Andrew is a...well I don't know what the hell he's supposed to be. He looks like a lemur I guess. Here is a picture of a lemur I took on a recent trip to a zoo.
Look at that guy. He thinks he's cock of the walk.
Eventually, you're going to have to attack bases that are located on planets, because if you don't then the game can't progress, you know, because destroying the bases is required if you want to beat the game. This part of the game is significantly less fun then the space battles. The point of the base battles is to hit a certain number of switches, which opens the door to the base. Then inside you hit another switch which will either make the base self destruct, or more likely make the game crash. I'm not sure if the game crashing is suppose to symbolize Fox not being able to escape the base in time to survive, or to symbolize that whoever uploaded the rom onto the net didn't know what he was doing.
Pressing select switches the Arwing from a spaceship to the gay AT-ST thing you see walking there. This is the beginning of the Star Fox franchise's proud tradition of making players do ground missions when they would rather be flying around. I would also like to point out that during the asteroid field level depicted above I appear to be running around on nothing. Its shit like that that totally takes away the feeling of realism in this game.
The biggest problem I've encountered while playing Star Fox 2 is the fact that the game crashes constantly. I haven't been able to play this for more then ten minutes without the entire operation shutting down. Most of the times it crashed it was during the base levels, either when I entered the base, or beat the base, or thought about doing a base level. I may be taking a wild guess, but I think of the game was actually released they would have done something to eliminate any game crippling bugs that can be found in normal game play. Nintendo does have a reputation of releasing games that don't break down within twenty minutes of play time.
Final Ratings
Graphics - 6/10
On the one hand the graphics are actual 3D, a feat that is difficult to pull off on the Super Nintendo. On the other hand they are really ugly. I prefer good looking 2D graphics rather then horrible looking 3D graphics. But that's just me. The terrible 3D graphics of Steve Bushemi's face also made it difficult for me to enjoy Double Whammy.
Game play - 7/10
This game is fun. Had the game play been cleaned up for an actual release I think this game would have been seen as one of the better entries. Of course with entries like Assault and Adventures it's not like being one of the better entries would have been entirely hard to do. I did have to take away a few points due to the unnecessary "game shuts down every few minutes" feature.
Sound - Whatever/10
I don't know. I guess the music was good. I didn't really pay attention. It's not like it was horrible or anything, it just really didn't impact me in anyway. A lot of the time I played this while watching TV, so I didn't even listen to the music.
As for the other sounds I guess they were fine. The lasers sound like lasers. Explosions sound like explosions. The talking is kind of annoying because it's just frantic gibberish. They don't even bother to have the dog sound like its barking or something. They all sound the same. What's up with that? Birds do not sound like rabbits.
What the Hell factor - 10/10
This rating is based off of how quickly a person who is unfamiliar with video games would conclude that the game is completely fucking crazy. With this one it would be sometime around when you told them it's about a fox flying a spaceship in order to kill a gorilla scientist.
Conclusion
If you like Star Fox games then it would probably be worth your while to find a rom of this game just to check out what could have been. Otherwise you are better off getting a game that was actually released. Games that are actually released are not only of better quality then games that were cancelled, but also tend to not crash as often. I would suggest getting Star Fox 64 since that is not only the best Star Fox game, but also the best Nintendo 64 game. If you have a Gamecube you can pick up Star Fox Assault, but that game kind of sucks. The missions were you are flying around space shooting people in your space ship kick ass, but the other 80% of the game has Fox running around on the ground using weapons. I'm not sure why the people at Namco decided that what the Star Fox franchise needed was to implement clunky game play that is not fun. Whoever made that decision should be shot. The people who made Assault should have prepared for making that game by playing Star Fox 2, because then they could have learned that's its possible to make a game that is still very close to the original Star Fox premise, but also fun and unique.
Special Bonus Review: Star Fox 2- the early Beta version
While scouring the web I found an early beta version of Star Fox 2. This game is kind of different then the later version, so I will take a look at it as well.
There is no introduction movie or anything for this, just this screen. After selecting mission you get to choose who will be flying you Arwing.
Your choice of character has no effect on anything. The ships in this version all handle the same, and you don't even get to see the pilot.
Star Fox fans may be asking who Saru and Lady are. Well I don't know. According to my research Saru is "a Andross look-alike" and Lady is really Fara from the short lived Star Fox comic series. I read that comic in Nintendo Power back in the day, and thought Fara should be included in the next Star Fox game. It's nice to see that some workers at Nintendo share ideas as with hyperactive 9 year olds with severe mental retardation.
As an aside I'd like to point out just how much this article is pissing off my spell checker. Like half the words have the red line under them. It's not my fault either. It's just all these damned names. Would it be too much trouble for these people to have real names? Instead of Saru why can't it be Jane? Instead of Andross how about Jimmy? I don't see the problems in fighting some guy named Jimmy. In fact I kind of like that idea. I'm going to make a game about a hero named Tim fighting the evil warlock Jimmy for control of the mystical land of Connecticut.
After choosing your character and choosing a level you get to play the game. By play the game I mean fly around and shoot at enemies, who are pretty cool with you shooting them. As far as I can tell there's no way to die, or have fun. It is full 3D instead of being on rails like the original game, which I guess would be pretty impressive if it were 1995.
Training mode just tells you the controls, although they are in Japanese, so I guess I don't really know if they are telling you the controls. It could very well be a bunch of dirty jokes or something. I don't know. Test mode is like battle mode, but without any enemies and a different looking screen.
Check it out baby! You can see a blue ship and a pink ship. If that doesn't sell you on this game on you then you must be blind, and unable to appreciate that screenshot.
Battle mode is an interesting addition. It appears that it was some kind of two player game that was scraped from the later version of the game
See the left screen shows where the player would choose the stage. The left screen shot is where you choose the stage, the right screen is for choosing your character. I don't know how to make Zsnes work for two players, so I couldn't actually play the battle game. For reference the top player is Lady, a.k.a. Fara. She is a Fennec fox, which explains the large ears and why she looks like an old woman.
This is different from the comic were she was depicted as sparkly and pink
Well I guess that's all I have to say. I'd tell you were to download these games, but I sort of forgot where I got them. I could find the site again, but I don't think I will. I have more important things to do, like work on my graduate thesis. It's on Star Fox. This review is actually going to be included in Appendix D. I'm not sure if you are suppose to reference things you wrote yourself in a thesis, but there are surprisingly few works on Star Fox.
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