Star Fox Zero + Guard (Wii U)

[Geo]

I really dig this. Gonna break out the 64 and play Starfox tomorrow.

+10 points for including barrel roll meme.

Glad you enjoyed it too. The excitement for Star Fox Zero and the X-Wing fighters in the new Star Wars movie had me fire up Star Fox 64 3D last week, good stuff.

[Diff-chan]

lmao at Polygon implying that Minami is leaving over Star Fox right after publishing Gies' review.

Gies is a turd.

[ChaoofNee]

What do you want me to prove, that there aren't roll eyes emoticons big enough, or the fact that on a project like this Platinum would be paid for their services already, and aren't reliant on the game selling. Or how about the fact that the shit downloadable titles they put out are in the same boat. I mean shit dude could you talk about having a bigger more hyperbolic reaction to something. Plus outside of Metal Gear Rising, regardless of what reviews this gets, it'll probably be one of Platinum's higher selling games.

I seriously just wanted you to post a giant emoticon.

[Yoshi]

Click for full size

[Shin Johnpv]

[ChaoofNee]

Thanks!

[Hero]

The biggest hurdle is the second screen stuff. It's like motion aiming in Splatoon, or that touch aiming in Kid Icarus Uprising. For some folks, it just won't register. For others, it'll make sense. There may even be a third subset, where they get that something like this means learning a new control scheme, and putting in the time and patience to have it click.

If you end up in the latter two groups, there's a really fun game here. It's fast paced, bombastic with its score and scale...but it's all very reliant on being in the moment. I don't think this game is nearly as exciting to watch as it is to play. But it's a thrill to play.

It's also a more difficult game than 64...or feels that way, as someone who downright memorized 64. Getting medals means scoring really well, and finding them in stages now. You start with one life, and only get more from 3 gold rings (no more scores boosting life counts up). Hits seem to do a lot more damage. You still lose laser powerups with too much damage, but it doesn't hobble the Arwing's movement.

There's more to mention, but it's all kinda spoilery. You can move sideways and backwards through the campaign now. When I had a dogfight with Star Wolf that went too long, one of them shot Peppy down, and he had to make an emergency landing. So I had to go back and sideways a stage, pick him up, and then sideways and forward to the 'bad ending' path. There's a really cool fight where everyone can transform between Arwing and walker. Lots of bouncing on and off the planet, ducking out into trenches to hide and bottleneck enemies. Good stuff.

Yet the bad comes with the good too. So far the game feels more evenly spread between all the vehicle and mode types. Maybe other people will dig this, but I like having the on-rails, Arwing focused stages the most and wish Zero was nothing but that.

Realistically the motion part of aiming isn't that big of a deal. It would work a lot better if they hadn't designed it around looking at the Gamepad though. The targeting reticles on each screen stop at different distances. Like, 1000 ft for the TV and 5000 for the Gamepad. Something like that. It means aiming with the Gamepad is more precise for distance targets while on the TV enemies need to be closer, or you need to mentally draw a line out for where the shot continues on. It feels like a solution looking for a problem or that, in an insistence to justify the Gamepad, situations/UI are created to make it 'worthwhile.' The motion control aiming on its own would be much stronger, I think, without that insistence. It's actually pretty great to play a Starfox where you aren't wildly swinging about to hit everything you want AND get to that arch or secret path...

I'm digging it though, and if it weren't for my bum neck I would've beaten it already and started looking for secrets and highest score paths. As is, I do like a stage or two, stop for a while, do another, etc. I still like 64 the most, but I feel like Zero's not a bad game, just a divisive one. So much depends on whether the controls click for you. If it doesn't, it won't even matter that a good game is here.

[Chux]

I'm absolute garbage with the splatoon gyro controls. What a buzzkill

[Hero]

oof.

I mean, it's possible to play it wihtout, in a way. Just set it on your lap, reset the targeting, and then the target will sway like in 64 when you move. But...it's really, really not designed with that in mind. And that's such a dumb solution to put yourself through.

You could always get it on the cheap if you're still curious! I have a feeling this is gonna end up a 'selects' game like Pikmin 3 and other games Nintendo can't get rid of.

[Finch]

Nintendo got rid of all of Pikmin 3 for a long time, it was super expensive until the selects version. They were really conservative with printing a lot of the WiiU games, the prices shot up and they printed more. This'll probably be the same.

but now EVERYONE can buy a physical copy of Devil's Third for retail price because that's what they actually want