Star Fox Review

Star Fox originally debuted back in 1993, but for some reason it never once hit my radar. My stepbrother had the game (he even had the iconic puppet poster on his wall) but nothing ever compelled me to ask about it. Then the franchise was revisited and re-released multiple times over the decades, giving me ample opportunities to get amongst it – but I still never dipped a toe in. Eventually my only real exposure to the IP was on the GameCube when a mate bung in Star Fox Adventures and left me assuming the entire series was just a sci-fi Zelda clone.

Oh, how wrong I was.

To be completely transparent: I am not playing up my lack of knowledge for effect. I was a genuine Star Fox virgin prior to this year. If you are a hot-shot Arwing pilot with decades of Lylat System experience, please forgive me; I am approaching this ensemble of space critters through the eyes of a complete newbie. HOWEVER, if you are also a newcomer to the franchise, strap in – we can learn together.

At its core, Star Fox is a starfighter game that plays like a rail shooter, albeit with screen-wide movement. You control a furry pilot maneuvering a mighty Arwing spacecraft, dodging enemy fire while navigating the space and collecting power-ups where you can. This magnificent craft is equipped with standard lasers (upgradable by gathering items), a limited supply of screen-clearing bombs, and a charged shot that locks onto enemies – a feature that comes in clutch if your manual aiming is as bad as mine. The Arwing also features a high-tech MacGuffin called the G-DIFFUSER, which acts as a recharging resource metre for both boosting and braking, adding an extra layer of spice to your movement.

You aren’t flying solo either. The other members of Team Star Fox are right there with you – providing entertaining banter or sharing mission-critical details on the fly, such as branching paths or unique mid-level objectives. They aren’t just props either, they will contribute to mission objectives where possible, and if you aren’t a good wingman you may well see them take enough damage to call it quits and skip the next mission, bringing down the mood and leaving your formation feeling a little short.

Why can’t I play as the space cat!? WHY?

Confession time, I initially found the gameplay a bit frustrating.

What was on offer felt deceptively simple yet oddly difficult – if only because aiming your lasers requires you to physically point your ship, meaning you are now steering into the enemies you are intending to destroy. I was ploughing through mechanical space terrors rather than blasting them, desperately begging my uncooperative thumbs to square up and help out. Part of this was a lack of experience with such a game – the only prior skillset I could draw from was playing Panzer Dragoon on the Sega Saturn way back in the ’90s, a game where most weapons egregiously locked on to enemies before firing. Yeah, yeah, I was one of the few who chose Panzer Dragoon over Star Fox in the 1990s. I’m certain there are dozens of us.

After a moderate helping of “git gud”, I eventually started landing more shots than I missed and the rhythm began to click. I began to appreciate how ahead of its time the original 1993 release must have felt, with this 2026 version feeling like a beautifully preserved relic of a past age thanks to a few sharp old-school edges that hadn’t been completely sanded off by endless modern QA and corporate workshopping. This starfighter-fuelled friction isn’t a dealbreaker, instead it’s a friendly sort of pressure that creates and defines the Star Fox gameplay experience.

That same friction does spike a bit when the game forces you into the alternative vehicles. Sure, it is novel to jump into a submarine or a tank for a spell, but it becomes immediately apparent that these rides are not quite at the same level of gameplay snuff that the Arwing can boast. Especially with how they only appear in singular missions and then never again. Canonically it may be a case that Slippy hasn’t finished these prototypes, but it’s a huge bummer that the Landmaster and Aqua Marine sub aren’t proper tools in the grander scheme of things.

Now Falco that’s just plain rude

Another point that stuck with me was just how brief the missions really were, with most being bite-sized jaunts lasting between 5 and 15 minutes a piece, once you include a boss fight and the strategy to beat it. This structure really hammered home that the game is more arcade-y in nature, emphasising a desire to replay levels and impact your overall experience. Simple things like trying to minimise ship damage for your mates stand out as a priority, but the game even scores your overall performance throughout the campaign to keep you chasing a bigger number.

Branching paths and even sub-objectives within missions also play a crucial role in developing your campaign, with a surprising amount of changes coming from your choices. It’s not quite a pick-a-path adventure, but early decisions such as skipping a boss battle early in the game did knock me for a six when they turned up a little later on with a significantly higher difficulty level – earning me my first proper Game Over. A word of advice if you are as new as I am: If you are about to fail a mission, just restart from the checkpoint – it doesn’t take away a life. Before you judge me, I am just using old-school tactics to beat an old-school game, so pump the brakes on your G-Diffuser.

Slippy is one tech-savvy amphibian

You may even choose to mix up your next playthrough in a couple of unique Switch 2 ways, such as giving mouse-aiming a shot or grabbing a mate for the co-op mode. This co-op mode isn’t what you’d think, with your friend taking the helm of one of your animal mates. Instead, it splits responsibilities, with one player piloting the craft while the other serves as gunner, essentially turning the Arwing into a somewhat cramped two-person craft. For a gimmick, it’s actually super satisfying to suddenly disconnect your laser fire from your current heading, and using the JoyCon as a mouse means that anyone with any modicum of PC skill can point-and-click away baddies while you pitch away from danger. It is definitely a great way to drag an apprehensive onlooker into the fray.

Mouse-aiming mode in solo mode is a little different, detecting when you place your JoyCon on a surface and putting your craft into first-person mode. From here it’s pretty business as usual, only that you can now pinpoint laser fire all on your own. The slightly more cramped field of view does feel like a valid trade-off for the accuracy, but it’s a great way to emulate the co-op freedom all on your lonesome.

These features also make a great example of what the Switch 2 can offer the series as a platform, making creative use of these standard features to tempt fencesitters who may feel like they have played Star Fox enough times, because you can guarantee they haven’t played the game like this.

Rounding out the last of the special Switch 2 goofiness is the GamerChat avatars, which are essentially Vtuber avatars of the game’s cast. Plug in a webcam and pick whatever you like – you can either virtually represent yourself as the existing cast, or add some accessories to yourself to fit into the Star Fox world. It’s a weirdly wonderful little feature, and I have to say it is uniquely fun seeing other pilots in their animal guises during the game’s multiplayer. Is it a system seller? Is it a game-defining thing? God no, but it is a lot of fun.

Keeping with the animal theme, aerial dogfighting is a hoot

Now for visuals sake, this is obviously the best the game has ever looked. It still stuns me that the series started on the Super Nintendo and actually had full polygonal 3D graphics – it’s come a long way, helped in no small part by the many revisits and the immensely deep level of potential the IP has. Like, it’s humanoid animals piloting space fighters in a galaxy-spanning space war – that’s the kind of stuff creative directors salivate over. So it comes as no surprise that the team has gone full hammer and tongs smashing out an eye-wateringly beautiful experience.

One thing I kept marvelling at during my playthrough was the incredible use of colour within the game. Sure, it’s a Nintendo title – they aren’t afraid of using a bit of colour, but the application within Star Fox does a great job of capturing a cool Saturday morning cartoon vibe to the Lylat system. Each stop through the galaxy has a very deliberate and awesome colour palette to it, making each planet (or jaunt of space) unique and interesting. This is similar within the game’s cast, as each has a stark, unique colour that makes them immediately readable within a scene or when they pop up on your Arwings communicator.

Oh Landmaster, I want to love you

Cutscenes are similarly captivating, with all the animal pals emoting and behaving in a very human-like way without being uncanny or weird. The amount of detail in the cast seems right on point, and I imagine it would have been a balancing act to get them looking as good as they do without approaching ‘Ugly Sonic’ territory. I am somewhat blessed to take my first deep dive into the series on modern hardware, but I feel it’s a pretty choppy argument to say that it isn’t a pretty radical glow-up.

For all the added detail within missions, the world design is very careful to make sure it isn’t visually overwhelming. Purely by virtue of the game being a fancy rail-shooter, the amount of information parsed per second is a lofty one, so there is definitely a case for the developers to walk a very careful line between ‘making it pretty’ and ‘making the whole experience mentally exhausting to keep track of’. It helps that the sound design is razor sharp, keeping you abreast of danger well before you lose a wing – and letting you bask in some satisfying booms when you nail a bomb shot.

Oh, and the music is deadset brilliant.

Don’t let the rings fool you, this isn’t a Superman64 remake

The final part of the longevity puzzle is definitely the game’s multiplayer, a 4v4 starfighter soiree with unique match types and arenas for you to crash and burn in. You’ll start by picking a member of team Star Fox or team Star Wolf, before battling in king-of-the-hill style zone capture or picking up precious cargo in a capture the flag analogue – all while dogfighting each other with special power ups that feel like something out of a combat racing game.

It’s a very different ruleset to the traditional Star Fox experience, trying to dodge seeking rockets and map-wide laser beams – but the fast-paced experience makes it super addictive and wildly fun. I can’t imagine getting this kind of white-knuckle action out of a splitscreen Nintendo 64 outing, but with modern hardware and high-speed internet I can find myself enjoying this for a good long while.

Multiplayer is the most fun I have ever had while simultaneously being terrible at it

Final Thoughts

Honestly, I get it now. I finally understand why fans have been screaming about barrel rolls and the Lylat System for the last three and a bit decades. It might have taken me until 2026, but I am officially a convert. This could have easily been a cynical cash-grab designed to sell Nintendo’s shiny new hardware. Instead, it serves as a gorgeous re-platforming of a very unique era in gaming history. It embraces its minor mechanical quirks as defining features, delivering pure ’90s arcade action that is woefully underrepresented in today’s gaming landscape. Best of all, it acts as a perfect onboarding ramp for latecomers who waited this long to take the fight to Andross.

Reviewed on Switch 2 // Review code supplied by publisher

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