Do a Barrel Roll!
The Lylat System is in peril once again and it’s up to the Star Fox team to save it. You’ll be joined by the likes of Peppy Hare, Slippy Toad, and Falco Lombardi and this new adventure for the Wii U. I was able to give the new and improved Arwing a test-drive so lets get right into it! Nintendo letting pilots sit in an Arwing cockpit was a nice touch!
The directions are inverted so up is down and down is up. It took me quite a while to get used to that. After the demo, the attendant tells me you can change the controls to standard or inverted so good news for people who want up to actually mean up! Something as simple as flying through a gold or silver ring took so much more accuracy with the inverted controls.
The controls could have been tighter at times but that will come the more you become familiar with the game. You’ll also have the option to turn off the gyro sensor but it seems pointless for Star Fox because you use it to aim at times and to drive at times. If it works like Mario Kart 8 does where you don’t have to steer with the Game Pad, you might have something there.
You use the TV screen and the Game Pad while playing to give you two different viewpoints. Like I mentioned before you can use the Game Pad to aim and some of the time the game becomes a rail-shooter and the you use the Game Pad to aim and not get hit by enemy fire.
The Arwing can transformation and the demo allowed you to transform into the Walker Arwing. The Walker is like a mechanical chicken that can hover and run fast. There are different vehicles for Fox to pilot as well like the Landmaster Tank and the Gyrowing. In this era of gyro controls, why wouldn’t there be a Gyrowing?
I felt that the controls were overly complicated at times. What I mean by this is that the simplest task, like performing a somersault, wasn’t too easy to do. Games in the past had that done by pushing one to two buttons. The same could be said for Star Fox Zero but the button combinations just don’t feel natural. Maybe the lack of “C” buttons hurt the game but only time will tell on that theory. As long as you can change the inverted controls, everything will be fine!
The graphics on Star Fox Zero look fantastic. The minute I saw them in the Nintendo Digital Event in the morning, I knew the game was going to be something impressive. It looks like how a Star Fox game in HD should look! If the demo boss battle with Andross is any indication, then the rest should be bigger and better than that. You can also tell that hidden/secret level endings return but those have been Star Fox mainstays for years!
To recap, Star Fox Zero is the newest entry into the Star Fox franchise for the Wii U. It uses both the TV screen and the Game Pad to see the action going on. Through the use of different vehicles, there will be replay value since you can use them in different planets across the Lylat system. However, demo controls weren’t as tight as they could have been but I’m chalking that up to unfamiliarity.
Keep an eye out for Star Fox Zero this holiday season!
