Re-doing a Barrel Roll
It is 1998.
I’m playing Star Fox on the Nintendo 64.
It is 2011.
I’m playing Star Fox on the Nintendo 3DS.
It is 2026.
Now I’m playing Star Fox on the
Nintendo Switch 2.

It’s a rare feat when a game makes me come back to it again and again. Normally, once I’m done with a title, I’ll log it away and place it neatly back on my shelf, never to be played again. Not so with Star Fox. This is a title I’ve been returning to for nearly thirty years, the magic of which transcends time and hardware upgrades like no other. So, what makes this game tick? Why do I keep returning to it like a favorite meal?

If it wasn’t obvious from the title, Star Fox is a science-fiction game with anthropomorphic animals as characters. The evil monkey scientist Andross has taken over the entire Lylat system and his forces are about to take control of the crown jewel of Corneria. General Pepper, leader of the Cornerian forces, enlists the help of the Star Fox mercenaries to free the Lylat system from Andross’s clutches. At Pepper’s insistence, the Star Fox team jumps in their Arwings and try to save the system, for a price.

While each playthrough of the game starts on Corneria, you can go to different locations based on your actions in the level prior. For example, if you save one of your wingmen and fly through rings later in Corneria, you can go to Sector Y. Fail to do both of those, and you’re off to the asteroid belt Meteor. Each run can play out slightly differently from the others, adding replay value and a fresh twist to each new game.

There’s a wonderful archetype of a four-person squad in Star Fox. Each character fills out their role nicely. Peppy Hare is the experienced one, Falco Lombardi is the brawn, Slippy Toad is the brains, and Fox McCloud is the leader of their ragtag crew. During each level, their banter plays throughout, adding greatly to the idea that you’re flying as part of a squad, even if they are somewhat useless in practice.

I was worried, playing this again in 2026, that the on-rails gameplay of Star Fox wouldn’t have aged well. There have been so many advances in gaming technology over the last thirty years that have surpassed the original game in every way. But the visuals are vastly improved and help to hide the fact that I’m effectively playing a thirty-year-old game. Everything has a slickness to it, though that slickness doesn’t detract from the lived-in style seen in the mid-mission cutscenes. Everything in this new version looks slightly dirty and in need of repair. Fantastic detail work like this makes the world come alive and gives the game some much-needed character.

Gone are the three-second cutscenes between missions. Now the mission briefings last a good few minutes and give more context to why you’re going to each planet. Even more importantly, the briefings change based on how you do in the mission prior, another extraordinary addition that made me want to play and replay levels just to see how the dialogue changed.

While there are a few extra additions to Star Fox, not all of them are winners. The biggest welcome change is a challenge mode, where you’re playing individual levels and tasked with achieving certain tasks, such as beating a level without picking up any laser upgrades or saving all your wingmates. This has been a newfound source of replay value for me, and I’ve been sticking with it for a while now.

Not so great are the co-op and multiplayer options. While it doesn’t seem like the multiplayer has much longevity in it, the co-op mode is a worse way to play a great game. One player flies your craft, while the other aims and shoots. I tried playing it a couple of times and it always turned into a mess, where neither player is quite on the same wavelength as the other.

So many remakes these days try to expand the world and story of its setting to the breaking point. I remember the Final Fantasy 7 remake doing just that. Star Fox doesn’t have this problem though. The cutscenes between levels don’t overstay their welcome and the fact that the original story was sparse on details makes this expansion especially welcome.

Of the current set of modern remakes, I’d say this is my favorite, and a high-water mark for remakes to follow.