Earlier this week I posed a question to my Twitter followers about what their thoughts were on remakes of classic games. From the HD-happy Sony endeavors to the “Anniversary” version of Halo to Nintendo throwing everything into 3D, it’s beyond being a trend now: it’s a norm.
The positive side of this is that (for the most part) the games that are being remade are already wonderful. Heck, it worked for Zelda earlier this Summer. The practice can really bring out the best parts of a great game and what made it a wonderful experience in the first place. But, the practice can also expose some glaring issues with these classics. That’s unfortunately the case with Star Fox 64 3D for the Nintendo 3DS, because for all of the incredible fun that the original brought, Nintendo’s “check the box” technique of bringing remakes to the portable left it missing any compelling new content.
There are two halves to this game. One side throttles the past, adding in a few bumps to make it more modern and sexy. The updated visuals are bright and vibrant, and the 3D effect is outstanding (and worth seeing, actually). The same worlds and alternate routes are in the game, and they look very pretty. Nintendo’s grasp of visual effects touches work well, as slight glitters and transparencies when doing barrel rolls and launching weapons make the game feel “alive”. Fox and friends now have coherent voices, too, so the gibberish is completely gone — though, the supermarionation of Miaymoto’s original concept has vanished as well.
The controls work exceedingly well, and the optional combination of using both the new analog stick and the motion-sensing gyroscope give a level of precision that the original Star Fox 64 didn’t have. Playing it on the 3DS is comfortable, and the game in general seems to fit perfectly on the device. It’s a fun, enjoyable, memorable experience.
It’s everything I wanted when I saved up for it with ice cream shop and lawn-mowing money.
Back in 1997.
In case you haven’t looked at a calendar recently, the year is 2011, and games are played and enjoyed very differently now. In 1997, we huddled as groups on the floor in front of a television to play Star Fox, trading the controller back and forth to top each others’ scores. Multiplayer split screen was welcomed, and we regularly had enough friends around to play matches for hours. We had no issue replaying a game over and over to discover all of the secrets, paths, and glitches.
Today, habits have changed, and it became ever more apparent to me when one number popped up: 36. That’s how many minutes it took me to complete the game, from start to finish on the “basic” path, on a flight from Detroit to Orlando. By the end of the next hour I had cleared the remaining paths and played enough multiplayer (vs bots) to be done with the game, probably forever.
All of that comes together in the other half of this game: it’s lack of compelling content. Nintendo made two huge mistakes with the game, both revolving around online. As action-packed and enjoyable as the single player portion is, it is also incredibly short. There is no online leaderboard to compare scores with friends and with the world, something even the smallest of iOS games incorporate. Secondly, the multiplayer is local (download) only. It was impossible for me to find 3 other people to play, as the install-base is still significantly smaller than it needs to be to make this experience successful.
It’s difficult to enjoy this game outside of a few hours if there isn’t a reason to keep me coming back, whether it’s through persistent online play or through passive leaderboards, or something else. As fun and enjoyable as that short initial burst is, beyond that I’m left feeling somehow taken for not having anything more to play with.
It makes me wonder about how much I enjoyed the original game back in 1997. While this version definitely captures that, it also lifts the blanket over how shallow remaking games can be sometimes.
Who will enjoy this game: Star Fox fans, Nintendo fans, people who live near a lot of friends with 3DSes.
This review is based on a copy of the game purchased by the reviewer. All paths were opened and the game was completed, and multi-player was played versus computer bots and against one other person.
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