Do a barrel roll! In 3D.
As a youth, I had many a day in the N64 era spent solely playing Star Fox 64. The game’s single-player and multiplayer modes both engrossed me due to their variety and my love for anthropomorphism. The game is back in upgraded form on the 3DS and I got a chance to sit down with it at E3.
Star Fox 64 3D features upgraded visuals that look redone instead of just smoothed out with anti-aliasing. Your team’s Arwings, the scenery, and enemies have all be given a brand new look. This alone is nice, but going by the game’s menu screen it also adds new modes to the N64 original.
The mode I took on was Score Attack, which challenges players to get as many hits as possible by destroying every enemy and object in a level, and doing it with style. Charging up a shot and releasing it into a group of enemies will blast them all at once, increasing your combo score. Star Fox 64 3D gives players three medal rankings to shoot for with your total score in each individual level.
I was able to check out Corneria, Star Fox 64‘s first level, which is exactly as you remember it. Players guide their Arwing under rock arches and between buildings to collect rings while blasting enemies, saving the incompetent Slippy the Frog, and eventually go up against the monkey-in-a-mech end boss. Thankfully, funny voice acting is still intact after you blast the monkey mech to bits.
The new 3DS feature I didn’t enjoy at all was Star Fox 64 3D‘s optional gyroscope controls. As with many of the current generation’s motion control schemes, it’s a situation of “what’s the point?” The game controls beautifully with the 3DS’s analog stick, and gyro controls weren’t accurate for me, so why would I want to tilt the 3DS around to control my Arwing? Thanks, but no thanks.
I wasn’t able to try out multiplayer, but Nintendo has already announced that it won’t feature online play, just in case you were wondering. Despite this, Star Fox 64 was one of the best Star Fox titles, so I see no reason why fans aren’t going to want to pick up the 3D version when it lands on the 3DS in September 2011.
