Video Game Review - Star Fox Zero

With the release of two highly anticipated games last week, I decided to leave Ratchet & Clank until I've seen the film which does look very promising I have to say. So Star Fox. As much of a Nintendo fanboy that I am, I will admit that for most Nintendo franchises, I have only played snippets of the games from those franchises. I've played almost every Mario game out there (including spin-offs such as Yoshi, Donkey Kong and Wario), all the Wii series, not many but a few Legend of Zelda games, a handful of Pokemon games, a couple of Metroid games, some of the old Virtual Console games that were only one shots and of course, the Smash Bros. games. In the case of Star Fox, I've only ever played snippets of some of the games. But I have a good knowledge of the franchise as a whole. I didn't put Slippy on my characters that should be in Smash Bros. without having done some research first. So I think its safe to say that this game is the first time I've actually played a Star Fox game in its entirety and what do I think? Well let's find out, but knowing that Shigeru Miyamoto made this, must mean its good, right? Well we shall see:

So this game serves as neither a sequel nor remake, but more of a spiritual successor to the original series of video games which started with Star Fox for SNES. The game has you pilot the Arwing (kind of like the X-wing in Star Wars) through various levels which if you've played the Star Wars playsets in Disney Infinity 3.0, the controls will be similar. As with all games that Nintendo make themselves for the Wii U, the game strives to use the Wii U to its full potienal. An example of this is the use of the Wii U Gamepad which is the primary controller for the game, giving you a cockpit view of the ship you control. A first for the series (or would be if Star Fox 2 wasn't cancelled) is having the Arwing move like an insect on ground which makes it most useful. The game also packs in some nostalgia with many returning locations and you're buddies being like they were in previous games. Slippy always getting into trouble and annoying you till you save him, Falco being quite arrogant and Peppy being helpful (and yes, this is the guy who is known for making the line "Do a Barrel Roll" an Internet meme). There is also this tower defence game that also came out the same time this game did, but its not really anything special.

So this game is OK. I think the game being over-reliant on the Wii U Gamepad is where the game doesn't play well in that its so over-reliant that you have moments in the game where the gamepad just doesn't work for you. Despite this, the game is good and its good that Nintendo aren't forgetting their lesser known franchises which is good. Don't get me wrong, Mario is great and all, but there's just far too much of him and less of other Nintendo franchises. So this is a welcome break from tradition, even if it doesn't play well for you. 7/10