Star Fox is my favorite Nintendo franchise. So much of my childhood was spent with Star Fox 64 that I lied to myself and said it was all alright when Assault debuted on the Gamecube. However, that disappointment (which really wasn’t all that bad in retrospect) was a masterpiece in comparison to what we are seeing of Star Fox Zero, the latest entry coming soon to a Wii U near you. Watch this footage, straight out of PAX Prime 2015. It is meant to be a re-imagining of Zoness, one of my favorite stages from 64, where the player frantically flew through dockyard wreckage while shooting out searchlights to avoid detection.
Granted, this is meant to show off the new transforming capabilities of the Arwing. But regardless, the game plays so slow with so little happening on screen that I would never guess it was a Star Fox game. After four minutes, the hit counter (a series staple) has only hit 20. 20! This was not for lack of trying, but for lack of targets. When you go back and watch the gameplay shown off at E3, this looks like a common theme with this title:
There is so little going on in the stages as they are navigated by the Arwing, and so few enemies appear for Fox and Co. to engage. Older games in the franchise threw at the player waves upon waves of enemies, each containing dozens of hostile ships. Is the Wii U unable to keep up with the frantic nature of the franchise? Hopefully, we’ll see some way of ramping up difficulty, or more impressive stages, as PAX Prime 2015 continues.
