Star Fox

Utilizing the fancy Super FX chip in the game cartridge, Star Fox brought true 3D to a system that shouldn't have been capable of it. For that alone, this game is novel and exciting. The next console generation brought native 3D to the table, and with it a quasi-remake of this game with the same story and massive gameplay improvements. However, there is a strange magic to playing something three-dimensional on the SNES.

Star Fox is an on-rails space shooter where you play as an anthropomorphic fox attempting to stop an evil mastermind and save the galaxy. Each level is pretty straightforward, tasking players with dodging obstacles, defeating enemies, and protecting allies before taking on a large robotic boss. The game mixes things up a little by providing players with different levels depending on the difficulty they choose, so you have to be skilled to see everything. I definitely found the game to be challenging, but I thought it was well-balanced as a whole, and the environments did a good job at requiring different maneuvers, so navigating didn't get stale.

With Star Fox 64 available, the original holds it's place as more of a novelty than a necessity. Novelty is still fun though, and Star Fox does have fun to offer, especially in it's secret levels. Because of that, I'd recommend at least giving it a try, especially to fans of the Nintendo 64 legend.

The game is available for Switch here (as of 9/26/20): https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/super-nintendo-entertainment-system-nintendo-switch-online-switch/

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