A much-mocked Polygon non-review of Nintendo’s new Wii U title Star Fox Zero criticised the game for being a “miserable experience” on the grounds that it was too difficult. The article’s author Arthur Gies cited the game’s controls as a sticking point for him, and indeed the most vocal critics of the new game — most of whom, it has to be said, haven’t actually played it — constantly point to the control scheme as the reason the game is somehow “bad”.

Well, having cleared the main game three times now (with my last run unlocking a bunch of hidden levels) I can confirm my initial impressions of the game: the controls are really not a big deal, and in fact, for my money, are better than the inherent limitations of the fixed aiming reticle from the previous installments, allowing you to shoot in one direction while flying in another.

I don’t want to get hung up on the controls, though. I do, however, want to address the question of it being “too hard” because, having hurled a number of choice swear words both at Andross the first time I reached the final boss and at the optional hidden boss on Corneria when I first came across it, I realised I was encountering something that has become quite unfamiliar in a lot of modern games: the game putting up a bit of resistance to the player and challenging them to get better at it, rather than just brute-forcing their way through.

(That said, Star Fox Zero does have Nintendo’s “pity powerup” system that they introduced in the Mario games a while back, in that if you fail a mission repeatedly, you have the option to collect a powerup at the start of the mission that makes you completely indestructible in exchange for your score not being recorded. Gies did not mention this in his not-review, but it’s surely pretty plain to see that this option would allow even the most incompetent moron to clear the game without too much difficulty.)

So no. Star Fox Zero isn’t too hard; we’ve just become accustomed to console games — particularly high-profile, big budget and/or first party productions — holding the player by the hand and going out of their way to make sure the player gets to see everything without giving up in frustration. The difference between a Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master (who wants the players to see their adventure through, albeit with a few obstacles in their way) and an actual adversarial player in a role-playing or board game situation (who wants to defeat their opponent and claim victory), if you will. Star Fox Zero takes the latter approach; most other games of today take the former. (Which is fair enough, when you think about it — given the astronomical budgets of modern triple-A games, it’s not at all surprising that developers want to make sure that players get to see all the stuff they’ve spent time, effort and money creating.)

There are exceptions to this rule, of course, the most well-known being From Software’s Souls series, which is legendarily unforgiving and demands that players practice each and every encounter until they can complete it perfectly. Many independently developed games, too, err on the side of punishing difficulty, particularly if they’re going for an old-school feel to their gameplay as well as old-school visuals, as is (still) currently fashionable in that particular part of the games biz. But for the most part, a game on the scale of Star Fox Zero — that is to say, a high-profile, potential system-seller from a first-party publisher — is more likely to err on the side of giving the player a theme park ride: it seems dangerous and challenging at first, but in actual fact, the player is a lot more safe (and constrained) than it might initially seem. Star Fox Zero, meanwhile, gleefully allows the player to fail, and continues to hide things from the player even once you’ve beaten the final boss.

Take the hidden levels, for example — a wonderfully old-school nod to the previous games in the series. You are never given an explicit warning that a trigger point for one of these is coming up — you’re expected to notice the cues for yourself and act accordingly, and if you miss them, well, you miss them; no awesome secret level where you get to play as Peppy taking down a this-totally-isn’t-a-Super Star Destroyer-honest for you. (Delightfully, Peppy joyfully shouts “Barrel roll!” every time you do a roll while you’re playing as him.)

On top of that, clearing the game for the first time unlocks Arcade Mode, which challenges you to play from the start of the game to the end with no continues and the ability to only stock one spare life if you successfully manage to collect three gold rings. This mode isn’t actually any harder than the main game (in which you can freely select any level you’ve previously cleared) but the added pressure of having to do it without fucking up (well, without fucking up too much) makes it feel like it’s slapping you around a bit, though the satisfaction of seeing a mounting high score makes it eminently worthwhile. And, in a pleasant homage to classic arcade games such as Out Run, this mode records an independent high score for each and every possible route through the game you can take, and there are quite a few different alternative routes throughout.

So no; Star Fox Zero isn’t too hard. But it is a game that you can fail at, or be bad at. And it’s kind of telling that we’ve reached a point where, outside of the Souls series and a few other exceptions here and there, this has become unusual to some people.

My copy of Star Fox Zero arrived today, and I’ve spent most of today playing it. Here are some thoughts, organised under various headings for your convenience.

Is it Star Fox?

Most definitely yes. Combining the basic core mechanics from Lylat Wars/Star Fox 64 (most notably the scoring system) with a number of levels and encounters inspired by the original Starwing/Star Fox, Star Fox Zero is very much a Star Fox game that knows its roots, knows what the people want and delivers on all fronts.

You want specifics? Okay. The forced-scrolling stages are as pure a Star Fox experience as you’re going to get. Learnable groups of enemies (chainable for high scores and bonuses), environmental obstacles, hidden collectibles, alternative routes triggered by various actions you take in the level — it’s all here. On top of that, clear inspiration has been drawn from the SNES original with levels based primarily around simple (albeit beautifully textured) geometric shapes in awkward arrangements — plus the final boss battle against Andross is, of course, against a giant head that spits flat blocks at you.

Not only that, but there are plenty of direct quotes and callbacks to the old games, both in dialogue and music, and the end sequence is pretty much a shot-for-shot recreation of the N64 game’s ending.

So why not just play Lylat Wars?

Well, besides the fact that Star Fox looks glorious and spectacular in HD, there’s plenty of new stuff, too. The most notable addition is the ability for vehicles to transform. The Arwing fighter can turn into a bipedal walker for more precise navigation through confined spaces — ideal for blowing up capital ships from the inside, say — and the Landmaster tank is able to turn into a bomber aircraft for a limited period. There’s also a helicopter-like vehicle called the Gyrowing that can move and strafe in all directions, and this also comes with an attached robot-on-a-string called Direct-i that can either be used to grab objects (like conveniently placed bomb boxes) or sneak into tiny holes to hack computers or grab secret shiny things.

As a result of the varied vehicle lineup, stages have much more variety than the previous games. There’s a much stronger emphasis on the free-roaming All-Range Mode when you’re in the Arwing, and there are some dogfights throughout the game that rival the Ace Combat series for twisty-turny lock-on fun.

What about those controls?

People have been making much too big a deal about these. They’re really not that complicated — and not that different from the N64 version, for that matter.

Here’s how they work in the Arwing: left analog stick turns and climbs or dives. Right analog stick rolls, boosts and brakes, fulfilling the role that the C-buttons had on the N64 pad. ZR fires your guns — tap for rapid-fire laser, hold for lock-on charged shot.

Simple, right? The thing that people are getting hung up on is the addition of motion controls using the GamePad. These work by making your aiming reticle independent from the way your ship is facing, allowing you to move in one direction and shoot in another, eliminating the problem the past games had of forcing you to be in a potentially inconvenient position on the screen if you wanted to hit something in an awkward place. Much like the motion controls in Splatoon, these are surprisingly sensitive and precise, and can be re-centred at any time if you find your hands drifting from their original position. They’re really not a big deal, though; you can get through the vast majority of the game without needing the added precision of aiming using them.

A slightly bigger adjustment for some people will be switching your attention between the TV and the GamePad screens during play, because you’ll need to. The GamePad displays a first-person cockpit view of whatever vehicle you’re in, while the TV screen usually displays a rear view of your vehicle, but has the option of switching you into a ’90s flight sim-style Target Lock mode, which keeps both your ship and the thing you’re targeting in view, meaning that the camera won’t necessarily stay behind you. Most of the time, this is optional, but there are a number of boss battles in particular where you’re forced into Target Lock view, which is your cue to keep one eye on the TV to recognise your relative position, but give most of your attention to the cockpit view on the GamePad. This is particularly important in the final battle, in which important elements are only visible through the cockpit view on your GamePad, but where dodging some of the boss’ attacks is considerably easier from the Target Lock view, which gives you an overview of the action.

Once you become accustomed to using Target Lock view in combination with the cockpit view on the GamePad, you can have a full awareness of your position relative to the enemy on the battlefield, and position yourself accordingly. There’s a small learning curve, but the payoff is great — plus it makes the TV screen really fun to watch for anyone sitting with you.

Does Peppy say “do a barrel roll”?

Of course he does.

Is the “barrel roll” still not actually a barrel roll in aeronautical terms?

Correct. This is a barrel roll.

I heard this game’s really short.

You haven’t played many shoot ’em ups, have you? Star Fox Zero is actually pretty long by shmup standards, at a couple of hours from start to finish, but the point is not to play it once and never touch it again. The point is to replay it to find alternative paths, secret levels, hidden collectibles and the five medal conditions on each stage… then replay it some more in the “Arcade Mode” that unlocks after clearing the main game once to beat your best clear times and scores. There’s plenty to do.

What is Star Fox Guard?

Ah yes. I actually hadn’t heard of this at all until I preordered my copy of Star Fox Zero, but conveniently the edition of the game I got came with a physical copy of Star Fox Guard as well, which, it turns out, is a fun game in its own right, too.

Star Fox Guard is… kind of a tower defense game in that you have a thing you need to protect against being destroyed by evil things, and you have other things that shoot stuff at the evil things in order to prevent them reaching your thing.

Where it differs from your usual tower defense affair is that you’re in direct control of all your towers. Twelve of them, in fact, scattered around maps of various layouts, and all of which have a camera attached to them. During a level, you’ll have to keep an eye on twelve screens at once (thirteen if you count the GamePad map) and switch focus to one at a time in order to shoot incoming enemies manually.

Another twist is that you don’t have to destroy all the enemies: the only enemies necessary to destroy to clear each level are the “Combat” variety, which will immediately destroy your core if they reach it. There’s a specific number of these you’ll need to defeat on each level, and once you reach it, the level is over immediately. All other enemies are “Chaos” enemies, which have various abilities that interfere with your cameras and towers, but which can’t destroy your core directly. Some blow up and knock out nearby cameras completely for a few seconds; others spew gas that ruins your visibility; others still replace your camera’s view with intermittent nonsense.

Unusually, there are also boss fights, in which you use your twelve cameras to take down a single large enemy, which may or may not have minions.

There’s also a levelling system, which unlocks new types of camera and weapon to use — including some that can lock on to multiple enemies or slow enemies down — and a selection of Extra missions that add additional objectives or mechanics to the mix. Then when you’re done with all that, you can create your own Squads of robots you’ve unlocked by progressing through the game and design your own fiendishly difficult waves of enemies for other players around the world to challenge, and you can challenge other players’ Squads too.

While simple in execution, Star Fox Guard has has a surprising amount of care and effort put into it, and I can see it being an entertaining little diversion.

Is it good, then?

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Star Fox Zero is the Star Fox game I’ve been waiting for since Lylat Wars. While it doesn’t do anything particularly interesting with the story — it’s a remake/reboot rather than a sequel — Star Fox has never been about narrative and characterisation. Instead, it’s about satisfying, spectacular, cinematic space combat, and in that regard, it well and truly delivers.

Not too hard?

No. If you think it is too hard, you have no business reviewing games.

Right then.

Okay.

Thank you.

You’re welcome.

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Barrel roll diagram by Zaereth – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.