The feelings are familiar. The characters, the planets, the arrival: skimming over a water-covered planet. I’ve played StarFox in all its previous iterations on Nintendo consoles, but my hour or so playing the new Switch 2 version ahead of its release on June 25 made me smile like a kid.
I also got a wakeup call when I told a younger CNET colleague about playing StarFox, and they asked me, “What’s StarFox?” I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. The Nintendo game reemerges with the regularity of a comet. The last StarFox game on the Wii U, StarFox Zero, came out a decade ago. StarFox 64, the classic game that this Switch 2 StarFox is a remake of, came out in 1997 and then again on the Nintendo 3DS in 2011 (and is on the Nintendo 64 Nintendo Classics app that comes with the Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription).
Nintendo just posted a new overview video for the newest Switch 2 StarFox game to YouTube which goes over some things I got to try for a little while. I was only able to play for about an hour during my hands-on preview time with the game, but I’m ready for more.
Seeing Fox McCloud cameo in the Super Mario Galaxy Movie was a heavy hint that Nintendo had StarFox plans afoot. A lot of people, and I’m one of them, were a little disappointed that this new $50 StarFox is, in fact, an old StarFox with new pieces. But hey, Nintendo does this. Metroid Prime Remastered came out on the Switch, and it was still fantastic to play again.
Besides sporting the best graphics I’ve seen yet on Switch 2, the new StarFox runs at an extremely smooth frame rate. All the cutscenes are new, giving the game a very Guardians of the Galaxy-slash-Star Wars level of finesse. The very hairy/feathery new character designs freaked out some StarFox fans who wanted something a bit less uncanny and more cartoony, but I kind of enjoy the visceral, slightly feral animal feel of them now.
In-cockpit modes for co-op can make the game feel like more arcade-like.
I remembered all the little bits of the old StarFox levels as I played the first mission and an asteroid-blasting mission after, a reminder that you’ll feel deja vu in this new StarFox if you ever played StarFox 64.
The new stuff is what’s worth coming back for. I played some co-op, where a Nintendo rep flew the ship while I used a Joy-Con in mouse mode to aim and fire at enemies, and I liked it more than any other mouse mode add-on I’ve seen on any other Switch 2 game. Because enemies are flying around everywhere, handling shooting duties makes sense. It made the game just a bit different, especially in a cockpit-view first-person mode.
Playing multiplayer battles was great, and yes those avatars mapping to your camera facial movements is unsettling.
The very best part, though, is multiplayer. Playing with a handful of journalists in a room, I had a blast in dogfight-heavy battle modes. Two teams of four had to find tanks and bring them to their team gate to earn points, while also trying to stop the other team and shooting down as many ships as possible. The open-arena free flying was fun, just chaotic enough, and I liked it more than similar-feeling Mario Kart battle modes. (My Star Wars feelings had a lot to do with it.)
The Switch 2’s GameChat mode has a wild little Easter egg for USB camera owners, too, overlaying StarFox avatars that move and open their mouths to map onto your face movements as you talk if you’re all using video chat. I can’t say I was paying attention to the animated characters much as I played, but it adds authenticity.
Yes, it’s StarFox again. But I love it. And I want to play the rest soon. Also, come on, make an actual sequel already.
