Star Fox: Charting Possible Courses for the Future

With the recent announcement of Star Fox for the Nintendo Switch 2 and people lamenting that it’s yet another release of the Star Fox origin story while wondering what other directions they could have gone in, I was reminded of this piece I wrote for the 1up.com “It Came From Outer Space” Cover Story that was published back on February 11th, 2013. As such, I thought maybe it was time to go dig up the original from the Internet Archive and finally republish it here on my own site, since it’s effectively dead on the modern internet.

Please bear in mind, the latest release in the franchise at the time was Star Fox 64 3D, so there was no Star Fox Zero yet, or even an official release of Star Fox 2!

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This year marks the 20th anniversary of Star Fox, the Super FX Chip-driven shooter which helped usher in the age of 3D on the Super NES with a crew of anthropomorphic wildlife mercenaries piloting sophisticated spacecraft to shoot at lizards and save the Lylat System.

But though we’re on the cusp of celebrating two decades of ferocious flying furries, Nintendo has been mum about any sort of plans to celebrate, leaving us to question what– if anything– the company has planned for the future of General Pepper’s pet guns-for-hire. Though Fox McCloud and his Zoo Crew nearly made the cut for Nintendo Land‘s range of attractions before being ousted in favor of Metroid, our last “new” Star Fox experience came on the Nintendo 3DS two years ago, though it was but a remake of the Nintendo 64 title Star Fox 64.

E3 may provide the answers we seek, but until then, we are left to merely speculate on what may eventually come to pass and what routes the series could take in the future.

 

Star Fox: The Next Generation

 

Perhaps the best place to begin looking for answers is at the end of the story. Prior to Star Fox 64 3D, the last game in the series was 2006’s Star Fox Command for the Nintendo DS, a title with a fair amount of controversy around it.

Besides the love-or-hate touchscreen controls, Star Fox Command featured a total of nine different endings, each seemingly designed to offer closure both happy and hollow. As most of the endings don’t mesh together very well, there is question as to whether any of them– and perhaps, in turn, the game itself– is in continuity with the games which have come before.

Two endings seem to keep the team intact, with one even adding a new member in Slippy’s fiancee (we can only imagine that a Star Fox with two toads on the team would be among the least-popular choices for sequel fodder), allowing for business to more or less continue as usual. But then there’s another, arguably more interesting scenario available for Nintendo to pursue.

In the ending “Good-Bye, Fox,” the Star Fox team disbands so that Fox and Krystal can be together, and together they have a son– a blue fox named Marcus. He follows in his father’s footsteps by displaying a great talent for flying and forming his own Star Fox team with Slippy’s son, Peppy’s granddaughter, and the legendary pilot Falco Lombardi. Couple this with two other endings which feature Andross’ grandson, Dash Bowman, taking control of the planet Venom (one of which clearly showing Dash with malicious intent against Corneria), and you have the seeds for a new generation of Star Fox.

 

Star Falco?

 

Speaking of Falco and Dash, one other ending shows the two teaming with Katt Monroe to form their own elite squadron. Could the future of Star Fox actually be Star Falco? We could go for that.

 

To Star Fox 64 and Beyond

 

As noted above, the latest release in the Star Fox franchise was Star Fox 64 3D, a remake of Star Fox 64 for the Nintendo 3DS. Perhaps, with Star Fox Command offering a number of different scenarios which end the team and otherwise provide closure for the Star Fox team, Nintendo feels that it’s time to do what so many others have (Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat, DmC, Castlevania, etc.) and reboot the series by using new release of the critically-acclaimed best-seller as a starting point.

Naturally, this could go in one of two possible directions. One would be to continue retuning and re-releasing the subsequent Star Fox titles in turn: Star Fox Adventures, Star Fox Assault, and Star Fox Command, perhaps addressing certain issues players had with each previously. The other would naturally involve crafting all-new adventures featuring the Star Fox team, and hopefully getting it right where some feel Nintendo got it wrong before (such as keeping the crew in the cockpit).

Then again, Star Fox 64 3D is hardly the first time Nintendo has re-released one of their classic titles in an updated form without rebooting a series or anything– take Super Mario 64 DS and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, for example. On the other hand, Metroid: Zero Mission remade Samus’ first adventure to Zebes following Metroid Fusion, and we’ve yet to see a new tale which picks up where that fourth numbered game in the series left off; everything since has been set between prior games, which is another potential path Nintendo could follow.

In fact, between The Legend of Zelda and Metroid, that seems to be Nintendo’s MO with some of their longer-running series as of late. Rather than having the story progress forward, they continue to go back and fill in various gaps. So if Nintendo continues that sort of trend, we could see new games taking place between the four main entries of the series.

Of course, if Nintendo were to reboot the franchise, then Star Fox 64 wouldn’t necessarily have to be the place they’d restart. In theory, they could go back further…

 

Back to Polygon One (or Square One, if you prefer)

 

While Star Fox 64 sees the lion’s share of Fox’s fame these days, it can be easy to forget that there was a Star Fox before the Nintendo 64. One Super NES game was released and a sequel was planned before being scrapped in favor of newer hardware and perhaps the fastest series reboot in gaming history.

What’s more, the original game seems to have been all but forgotten by Nintendo, with not even so much as a Virtual Console release. Fortunately, some tunes from the title’s stellar soundtrack have managed to make their way into the Super Smash Bros. series of games, and the title itself was never remade because, well, Star Fox 64 was the remake.

But if there were ever a time to revisit the original game, perhaps it would be now. While many of its graphics are quite primitive compared to… well, pretty much everything to come since, the gameplay is still quite solid and as noted, the music is to die for. If Command were to mark the end of the Star Fox 64 era/continuity of the franchise, then why not pick up where they left off?

Making things even easier is the fact that the simply-named sequel, Star Fox 2, was pretty much a done deal when it was scrapped. Though its concepts have been borrowed for other games (Producer Shigeru Miyamoto said that about 30% of Star Fox 2’s ideas made it into Star Fox 64, while Command borrowed some of the strategic elements, and still other aspects made it into– of all things– Super Mario 64), the game as a whole still stands on its own in a fairly unique way among everything else.

One unique aspect is the ability for the Arwings to transform into robotic walkers, and space battles were to take place in real-time, necessitating a management of space battles and attacking bases while also protecting Corneria from the revived Andross’ constant attacks. Rather than being a straightforward space shooter, Star Fox 2 aimed to have more of a real-time strategy feel mixed in with the classic Star Fox gameplay.

Star Fox 2 would also have featured a mix of new and familiar characters. For example, fan-favorite rivals the Star Wolf team were to have made their debut in this game, and were one of the elements brought over to Star Fox 64 in its wake. Meanwhile, Star Fox’s own forces were going to be bolstered with a bit of girl power, thanks to a white poodle named Fay and a tomboyish lynx named Miyu.

As good as Star Fox 64 was, it’s unfortunate that the original sequel was never released. But again, we say, with the basic groundwork done, now seems like as good a time as any– or perhaps even better than any to date– to bring back the originals with a nice bit of HD or 3D polish.

Cosmic Comic Adventure

 

This is more of a spin-off of the aforementioned idea, or arguably even a way to enhance it.

When preparing for Star Fox’s arrival, Nintendo Power magazine (R.I.P.) ran an 11-month long comic serial by Benimaru Itoh, based on the original game. While some elements were the same, the comic featured many differences as well– mostly in terms of depth and characters, as the game did not utilize very much in-game story. But as the franchise– and gaming itself– has evolved to become more story-centric, more of these elements could be included in a new Star Fox relaunch.

One example involves Fox and crew’s origin. Rather than inheriting a starship and traveling the Lylat System as mercenaries, Fox and his teammates were simple Robin Hood-esque bandits who attacked Venom cargo ships that happened to venture to their humble outlying planet of Papetoon and delivered hyper-Twinkies to the villagers (while keeping the android pig named Herbert for themselves). After a message from General Pepper relayed their struggle against Venom, the Star Fox team ventures to Corneria, which is where they’re trained and equipped with their SFX Arwing fighter ships.

The feud between Fox and Andross becomes much more personal as well. The simian scientist was madly in love with Fox’s mother, seeking to eliminate his rival for her affections in Fox McCloud, Sr. (who would become James McCloud in the reboot) by planting a bomb in his car. Unfortunately for him, it was Fox’s mother who would take the car that day, though he would get Fox Sr. by rigging an experimental gravity bomb to detonate at a certain velocity, creating the Black Hole.

Keeping the comic from becoming a complete boys’ club was a fifth member of the Star Fox team, Fara Phoenix. A female fox who bore a striking resemblance to Fox’s mother Vixy (enough to fool Andross, at any rate), she was Corneria’s Chief Test Pilot and joined the others in her own custom Arwings. She was also featured in the early beta versions of Star Fox 2, only to be replaced later by one of the other new characters. Despite this, she still retains a following among the Star Fox fans who remember her.

Though some elements are familiar to what we’ve seen in Star Fox 64, basing a reboot on the comic would still provide enough variance and new elements to keep things fresh for fans if Nintendo were to use it as the basis for new installments.

 

Game Over?

 

While there is plenty of potential for new ways to continue Star Fox, it could be that not everyone at Nintendo sees it that way. In particular, one Shigeru Miyamoto.

Though he’s not addressed the future of the series, he did respond to a question about another popular futuristic Nintendo franchise from the 16-bit era, F-Zero. When informed by French gaming website Gamekult that the game fans surveyed on Twitter miss most is F-Zero and asked about a possible Wii U version, Miyamoto’s eyes reportedly widened before he stated the following (as translated on NeoGAF:

“I am really pleased to hear Twitter’s opinion, because since the first episode on SNES many games have been made but the series has little evolved. I thought people had grown weary of it. I’d like to say: Thank you very much and try to wait by playing Nintendo Land’s F-Zero minigame. I am also very curious and I’d like to ask those people: Why F-Zero? What do you want that we haven’t done before?”

So, what does this have to do with Star Fox? Simply put, Miyamoto may think we’ve grown weary of the series, particularly if he thinks that there is nothing more they can do with it. As it is, the series has branched out considerably, going from 3D space shooter to RPG to third-person shooter and back to 3D space shooter again. Plus, if the remake of the hit Star Fox 64 didn’t perform as well as they had hoped, he may think we’re tired of the franchise.

Of course, given one of the endings to Star Fox Command, perhaps Nintendo could just fold Star Fox into F-Zero if they do make another in the latter series.

 

What Haven’t They Done Before?

 

Moving beyond narrative, however, we can look at Miyamoto’s question about F-Zero, “what do you want that we haven’t done before?”, and apply it here. Popular answers would likely involve high definition graphics on the Wii U, or the inclusion of online gameplay– something which was felt to be sorely lacking from Star Fox 64 3D’s multiplayer mode.

Perhaps more curious than that is the complete absence of the franchise on the Wii. With the Wii Remote’s motion controls, flying an Arwing seems like one of those “just makes sense” ideas that go with the concept, like swinging a sword or driving a car. And yet, we never saw anything of the sort.

However, we cannot say that Nintendo has a complete aversion to a motion-controlled Star Fox, as Star Fox 64 3D itself used the gyroscopic sensors of the Nintendo 3DS to allow players to do just that– a much more curious proposition, considering that moving the handheld does not really mesh very well with its 3D display. But now that the Wii U is here, perhaps the time for a motion-controlled Star Fox has arrived?

With any luck, we’ll hear some news sooner (close to the anniversary) or later (E3, perhaps?) about where Nintendo plans to take the Star Fox team next. These are just a few of our ideas for possible courses, but what would you want to see Nintendo do with Fox McCloud and his crew next (besides a barrel roll)?

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