AbsoluteZeroThe new film by Quentin KoopantinoRegistered Userregular
Maybe I'm in the minority but I just want a modern take on Star Fox without any gimmicks, on foot bs, non-arwing vehicles, or whacky control schemes. I always loved Star Fox 64 because it's basically a three dimensional take on games like R-Type. Zipping head on into waves of enemies and obstacles and topped off with epic boss fights. Just give me like... 20 hours of that, in HD, polished, beautiful, fast, with modern sensibilities. Oh and lots of cheesy one-liners.
I remember the sub in 64 being pretty much a hectic button masher. Mash the barrel roll for invincibility, mash the fire button and shoot anything that moves, and boom enjoy your medal.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
Star Fox Zero has an identity crisis. On one hand, it's a franchise reboot that plays heavily on nostalgia for the widely loved Star Fox 64. On the other, the game is just as much a "Wii U GamePad experiment" as it is a Star Fox game, if not moreso.
Ultimately, I wish the game was one or the other. Either be a proper spiritual sequel to Star Fox 64, unencumbered by all the gamepad experimentation, or make it a game entirely (and direct) about the cockpit view. That Zero plays so heavily on the Star Fox 64 nostalgia while not actually trying to be that is what leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
I feel like 20 hours of Arwing shooting would get really boring after a while. I like variety.
Some of us really liked Ace Combat until Assault Horizon killed it for a while, because they thought just shooting with fighter jets wasn't enough.
I'd kill for an arcade flight shooter that didn't suck. The days of Ace Combat and Wing Commander are in no rush to come back it seems.
I really never played Ace Combat until assault horizon
I thought it fun but some crap as I could not air break and do other high g tricks the other fighters could do
The non-Arwing sections in Assault weren't that bad, and were frequently even good. The problem is that I spent most of the time wanting to fly around, while the game wouldn't let me for long stretches.
Sauria was nice, what with having access to all three types of gameplay and being able to switch between them somewhat at will. It also did a good job of justifying the Landmaster as something other than a ground-bound Arwing, since you could see its shots hitting much harder against the same targets.
I would've had a lot more fondness for Assault if the non-Arwing controls were better. It was a neat idea, especially in the multiplayer., but didn't play as well as it should.
I also wasn't a huge fan of the art style or characterization of the cast, compared to 64.
I don't know Assault, the Star Fox bobblehead and one other item not Star Fox related are some of the items I have that upset my brother that I have them
I really forgot how assault plays and plan on playing it this weekend to see what it was like
Assault's multiplayer had a ton of potential. Jumping in and out of vehicles was really cool. Too bad that potential was squandered by Nintendo's onlineaphobia.
If I remember right, it was possible to get that weapon, hop into an Arwing, fly up into the air, get out and walk out onto the Arwing and plant the Fireburst Pod on top of it, and then fly over your enemies to rain fiery death everywhere.
Or that might have required you hopping on top of an Arwing that someone else was flying, I can't really remember.
I'm far from the first to say this, but it's wacky how Zero is a game that uses the gamepad functions terribly packaged with a game that uses the gamepad functions wonderfully.
Just played the first level, and I can see the controls growing on me.
I'm clumsy with them right now, but on the other hand, I haven't had to deal with learning a really new control scheme since figuring out how twin-stick FPS controls worked.
I can definitely see how this wouldn't review well, though. If you've got loads of stuff to do and you have to get it done relatively fast, the last thing you want is to learn a whole new control scheme, especially if that's never been a concern with practically every other game you play.
Also played the first level of Guard. I like it, but I bet I hit a point where it's just a little too overwhelming. I tend to get that way on tower defense games.
I died three times on the Hidden Plans level. I felt the controls were functional and kind of cool before, but I'm gonna have to get better to get through this.
I'm also not sure how revisiting levels works from a plot perspective. Like...
I unlocked a secret path in a earlier level using a vehicle received on a later level;
and during the unlocked sequence, Fox remarks on events that happened in that later level;
But if the earlier level is happening after the later level...
... did the events of the earlier level happen the first time I played it?
In SF and SF64 all the different pathways seemed like different possible ways history could have played out. Whereas in this it seems like all pathways are part of the same single story... including the fact Fox and the Team went to locations multiple times... which kinda makes no sense at all.
So, I just finished the last boss. ... I will say the good outweighed the bad, but barely. Some aspects of the controls do simply take practice, but other aspects are simply garbage. Dividing the game across two screens is unintuitive. It's bad design, and at no point did it ever come close to feeling necessary. If this game were designed for one screen, it'd easily be twice as fun.
Now I don't believe that the price:length ratio is the most important thing to consider in a game, but it's not something I can ignore either. It's not the early 90s anymore, and people have gotten used to their $60 getting them more than a single afternoon of gameplay. If Nintendo wants to keep making games like Star Fox 64, they need to consider making it a budget/download-only title.
Second play session and the game seems to click a lot more this time, though i HATE when they force the camera lock perspective to show you something that's going on instead of using a cutscene to do it. Sector Gamma was maddening because of those annoying drones, not merely because of where they were but because the game would completely gank your controls while telling you how important they were, no matter if you were in the middle of taking down one of those missiles.
A map would really help too. I overshot and was attacking the third missile at one point when i should have been attacking the second.
Titania was intense and beautiful, so was Sector Beta. I guess the Sector Z analogue just sucks because Sector Z always sucked (actively avoided it in StarFox 64 runs. Plus i think you could get more points off of Macbeth anyway).
Gah! The last boss took all my lives. I've figured out the first few phases and can generally get through them with minimal damage. I think I stunned him and then attempted to fly inside it's mouth and transform into the walker (looking for a hack point) but I seemingly crashed and died instead.
At times the controls come together perfectly and it's brilliant. I especially like turning to the left whilst using the gyro controls to hit a fixed target on the right. The more practice I get the more awesome I feel about dodging fire and sprawling bullets every which way.
However there's always something fundamentally disorienting about changing the focus from screen to pad in the middle of a fight. (It's not a problem for the DS/3DS as both screens are the same distance away).
Two other random things:
- Wing damage is back! Well, sort of. If you take enough damage you'll lose the blue dual lasers. I don't think that happened in 64, did it?
- This game reminds me a lot of Taxi from Game & Wario.
Played through Corneria just now. Seems like a blast so far, it's just gonna take my brain a bit to adjust. I keep trying to aim with the left stick while looking at the gamepad but I end up crashing into stuff instead. I need to shut off my brain and try to stop that.
- Wing damage is back! Well, sort of. If you take enough damage you'll lose the blue dual lasers. I don't think that happened in 64, did it?
No, that was in 64. It was pretty rare to get it once you got used to the game, though. Expert mode made you lose them on the first hit (which abruptly made Katina the hardest level to get through without a scratch, as your AI allies had a habit of flying into you and tearing your wings off).
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Some of us really liked Ace Combat until Assault Horizon killed it for a while, because they thought just shooting with fighter jets wasn't enough.
I'd kill for an arcade flight shooter that didn't suck. The days of Ace Combat and Wing Commander are in no rush to come back it seems.
What I didn't like was the Arwing sections in Adventure, for being pretty mindless and token.
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Ultimately, I wish the game was one or the other. Either be a proper spiritual sequel to Star Fox 64, unencumbered by all the gamepad experimentation, or make it a game entirely (and direct) about the cockpit view. That Zero plays so heavily on the Star Fox 64 nostalgia while not actually trying to be that is what leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
I really never played Ace Combat until assault horizon
I thought it fun but some crap as I could not air break and do other high g tricks the other fighters could do
"You got that right!"
Fox is brutal.
Sauria was nice, what with having access to all three types of gameplay and being able to switch between them somewhat at will. It also did a good job of justifying the Landmaster as something other than a ground-bound Arwing, since you could see its shots hitting much harder against the same targets.
I doubt it will drop much in price anytime soon. Still, there are two games in there.
I also wasn't a huge fan of the art style or characterization of the cast, compared to 64.
I really forgot how assault plays and plan on playing it this weekend to see what it was like
If I remember right, it was possible to get that weapon, hop into an Arwing, fly up into the air, get out and walk out onto the Arwing and plant the Fireburst Pod on top of it, and then fly over your enemies to rain fiery death everywhere.
Or that might have required you hopping on top of an Arwing that someone else was flying, I can't really remember.
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Seizure warning?
More like siezurelicious.
I'm clumsy with them right now, but on the other hand, I haven't had to deal with learning a really new control scheme since figuring out how twin-stick FPS controls worked.
I can definitely see how this wouldn't review well, though. If you've got loads of stuff to do and you have to get it done relatively fast, the last thing you want is to learn a whole new control scheme, especially if that's never been a concern with practically every other game you play.
Also played the first level of Guard. I like it, but I bet I hit a point where it's just a little too overwhelming. I tend to get that way on tower defense games.
I'm also not sure how revisiting levels works from a plot perspective. Like...
In SF and SF64 all the different pathways seemed like different possible ways history could have played out. Whereas in this it seems like all pathways are part of the same single story... including the fact Fox and the Team went to locations multiple times... which kinda makes no sense at all.
Now I don't believe that the price:length ratio is the most important thing to consider in a game, but it's not something I can ignore either. It's not the early 90s anymore, and people have gotten used to their $60 getting them more than a single afternoon of gameplay. If Nintendo wants to keep making games like Star Fox 64, they need to consider making it a budget/download-only title.
A map would really help too. I overshot and was attacking the third missile at one point when i should have been attacking the second.
Titania was intense and beautiful, so was Sector Beta. I guess the Sector Z analogue just sucks because Sector Z always sucked (actively avoided it in StarFox 64 runs. Plus i think you could get more points off of Macbeth anyway).
Yeah, Assault is the game that forgot the importance of replayability in Star Fox.
Steam: pazython
As far as I know?
I think I'm going to be playing the hell out of this, you guys.
At times the controls come together perfectly and it's brilliant. I especially like turning to the left whilst using the gyro controls to hit a fixed target on the right. The more practice I get the more awesome I feel about dodging fire and sprawling bullets every which way.
However there's always something fundamentally disorienting about changing the focus from screen to pad in the middle of a fight. (It's not a problem for the DS/3DS as both screens are the same distance away).
Two other random things:
- Wing damage is back! Well, sort of. If you take enough damage you'll lose the blue dual lasers. I don't think that happened in 64, did it?
- This game reminds me a lot of Taxi from Game & Wario.
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No, that was in 64. It was pretty rare to get it once you got used to the game, though. Expert mode made you lose them on the first hit (which abruptly made Katina the hardest level to get through without a scratch, as your AI allies had a habit of flying into you and tearing your wings off).
Been lurking getting impressions but had to share important information:
Ace Combat 7 is apparently a sequel to 5 so the dream is very much alive.