Pipe Dreams – Star Fox

Star Fox. Star Fox, Star Fox, Star Fox… or Starwing, apparently – if you’re reading this from Europe – though I have no recollection of ever hearing that name in the UK. This is a franchise that was very much a staple of the 90’s Nintendo era. There was not a single person I knew who had an N64 and yet didn’t own Star Fox 64. Despite being essentially an on-rails shooter, the Star Fox series was best loved for its colourful array of characters, quippy one-liners, and thoroughly enjoyable spacecraft shooting. Which is why, obviously, following Star Fox 64 what we were all dreaming of for the sequel was an RPG game about the game’s protagonist, Fox McCloud, rescuing baby dinosaurs on a planet without his signature spacecraft or weapons… Wait, WHAT?!

Yes, as was somewhat prophesied previously, we’ve got ourselves another case of Rareware-despair. Actually, that may be a tad unfair (and cheating slightly), as at least there is a pencil-thin silver lining around this McCloud of doom. This time round Nintendo takes the brunt of the blame for this bastardisation of a beloved franchise. Star Fox Adventures was originally slated to be a game named ‘Dinosaur Planet’, an action RPG game featuring a fox-like main character, developed by Rareware for the Nintendo GameCube. Unfortunately Nintendo caught wind of this and came to the decision that this needed to become a Star Fox game. Why? Who knows. Because money?

It could also possibly be because the game that would become ‘Star Fox: Assault‘, being developed by Namco at the time, was having serious development delays. Star Fox: Assault was booed when it was first shown at E3 2003 – likely due to its first-person perspective on-foot shooting and multiplayer focus – and disappeared until it was released two years later in 2005… when is was still poorly received by fans.

So why has there not been a new Star Fox game since then? By which I mean a Star Fox game that is true to the original games, with the Arwing battles and kickass crew-mates, that made the franchise so popular. Sure, Star Fox 64 3D technically counts, but it’s a very basic retread of the original only with 3D graphics. Even then you could argue it proves Nintendo is well aware of the demand for a new Star Fox game, but simply isn’t putting one into production.

Technically speaking both Adventures and Assault weren’t even Nintendo’s doing. One was a game already in the works that had the brand name hastily stapled onto it like a stolen last minute school assignment, and the other was a project that Namco had requested to do unsolicited by Nintendo which flopped at almost every turn.

Nintendo has gone on record saying they want to revive some older IPs, but their internal teams tend to gravitate more towards the bigger names – like Mario and Zelda. They’re aware of the demand for franchise revivals, such as Star Fox, but their attention is being focussed elsewhere for the time being. I believe, and I doubt this will be greeted with much resistance, that the demand is high enough to constitute a new Star Fox game. Statistically, if every person who bought Star Fox 64 3D for the Nintendo 3DS bought a hypothetical new Wii U Star Fox game, then approximately 1-in-9 Wii U owners would own the game. That’s not even factoring in that those statistics are based on a 20 year old game being re-released on a handheld device, and not a glorious, new, HD console addition to the Star Fox franchise.

Come on, Nintendo. It may be too late for Conker, and Banjo & Kazooie, but we can still save Fox and the crew – together. Give us a new Star Fox title. It’s only fair – you’ve been using the franchise in Super Smash Bros. long enough to owe us at least one more try. Just make sure this time to make it about, you know, the Arwing combat and not Fox babysitting a triceratops.

That’s it for this episode of Pipe Dreams, my name’s Duncan Aird and I approve these dreams.

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