Star Fox (Switch 2) Review

Star Fox is back! Ryan and James settle into their Arwings and fly in to discuss the triumphant return of the Star Fox squad with the 2026 Switch 2 Remake!

Games Discussed

Star Fox (2026), Persona 3: Reload, Mario Kart Wii

Links Mentioned

The Story Lost in Translation in Starfox 64’s Route 24 (aka. the Miyamoto Route)

Special Thanks To

• Cover Art - @Falah
• Logo - @Psyonyx
• Music - Robotic Park by Kyon

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Transcript

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Intro

Ryan 0:00

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of Co-op Campfire, where we're just two campers celebrating gaming. As always, I am Ryan, and as even always, sir, James. That was a great intro.

James 0:14

And since you kept my fumble in last week, we're keeping this one in this week. Future note to you, the editor.

Ryan 0:21

Fine, fine. We each get one.

James 0:33

Ryan, I cannot wait to talk about this topic.

Ryan 0:38

Oh my god! Yes, we have been playing the new Star Fox, and we've actually been playing it together, haven't we, James?

James 0:45

Yeah, I was trying to like, you know, to to success. We we we saw credits, we'll talk about it. It was a it was a different experience for sure, but uh had a great time. It was so

Persona 3: Reload

James 0:56

good.

Ryan 0:56

But first, we have just come off of uh early 4th of July break. Um, how did that go for you, buddy?

James 1:03

Uh it went pretty well. Really, I played a lot of Star Fox. I will get more into that later. I have not like 100% completed this game, but I did a lot. Otherwise, I started because I can never just finish one game or stick to something, or I live in RPG hell. This is the RPG book club hour, right?

Ryan 1:25

It's the slash, yeah. Slash RPG book club hour.

James 1:29

I started a Persona 3 reload the other day. For what it's worth, that was a Steam sale game that I have started. I'll take that with some amount of solace. Oh, hell yeah. I mean, the summer sales going on. It is always a stress to feel so accomplished in shopping in a steam sale and never getting to half of those games. Or when are you getting to them? Straight to the backlog. For clarity, I have not played a ton of Persona 3 yet, so it's hard to have like a full opinion on it. But Persona is a really unique RPG series, and I think that a lot of times I and I I can't speak a hundred percent for you, but I feel like what I've gathered from you, Ryan, is kind of that when games fall into that standardized turn-based structure, sometimes feeling kind of samey to play, or they drag on a little bit, that can be like a turn off for you of like sticking with it or even being interested in it. And you know what? Like, persona is turn-based. That is just a fact. But they do some really unique things with the structure that I like about it, where it's a linear progression, but it allows you to kind of play it how you want. And so in persona, you usually have a calendar year. You start like literally, it will tell you like in the top of the corner of the screen, always you will see what month and day it is. Each day, you kind of have the choice of like what do you want to do? By the end of the month, you need to complete the dungeon. You need to defeat the boss and clear the dungeon. You can kind of make like lore progress, like, oh hey, I've made it to the checkpoint. I may not finish it today, but I'll bounce back for another day or something. Every other day, that's when you do all of your side activities. You can do side quests, you can talk to whoever you want to talk to, your party, if you want to like level up, you know, your fire emblem like supports, you know, you kind of build up the relationships, you can go on dates or hang out with people, you can join clubs and the after school activities and stuff, you can take time to study or build up your stats. It's kind of a cool role-playing thing where you kind of just like make those choices and they all feel impactful. They're just a lot of little choices, and you can do them however you want. And then whenever you feel like it, you can take time to dungeon crawl. You can also try to do it right up front and just get it out of the way. So then you have the rest of the month to kind of pat out with whatever you want to do. And it's like every day you do something. Now, every day is not like the it does not equate to the same length. You could finish, like, let's just say I, you know, Monday, I'm at school, I answer a question in class, I run outside, I have like free roam control, I talk to this girl in my party. It's like, hey, let's go grab lunch together. And then I go back to the hideout or the the meeting spot and I go to bed. And that day was completed in like five minutes. But there could be days where maybe there's a side quest or a conversation that is like expanded, or maybe it includes a battle or something, or if I go dungeon crawling, that's when the game starts to feel more and more lengthy. And there are certain things that happen on certain days that are like planned events and cutscenes and all the story things that happen, but it's just a really interesting progression where it is very linear because you do go through every day in the calendar, basically for a year. There are some times where they skip where it's like, oh, we went on summer break or something, and they just kind of like cross the days off. But for the most part, you're playing every day and making all of the decisions you want to make. And I just kind of like that about Persona.

Completionist Mindset vs Embracing Non-100% Playthroughs

Ryan 5:11

And how long's like a playthrough? Because I've heard like 300, 400 hours. Okay, that that's that's extreme.

James 5:17

Uh, they're not great numbers given what maybe you want to hear.

Ryan 5:21

I just think in more terms of like, oh, what happens if I want to court this one person like for this playthrough and then replay the game? Like, what is now what numbers are we starting to look like? Completionist says just about 100 hours, yeah.

James 5:34

And that is something that has been discussed, right? So, like, what does a 100% playthrough mean to you in persona? My persona 4 playthrough was about 75 hours. First run, took my time, whatever. And that's the thing is you can't necessarily like if you're not skipping cutscenes and you're not playing on like the easiest difficulty, you can't really speed up the game too much because of that structure. There's only so much that you can actually skip or fast track. Think back for you, Ryan, playing Fire Emblem 7. If you wanted to, does 100% completion mean to you checking every single support conversation off the checklist? Period. I mean, honestly, yeah.

Ryan 6:19

Will I ever do that? Probably not. That's such a huge time investment to replay the entire game.

James 6:26

Especially with the earlier games, you can't even really save scum like in Awakening or some of the later games. You have five conversations for a character in a playthrough, and that's it. You can only A rank one person and get two with somebody else. So then you have to you're thinking about 40-50 some playthroughs to like check every single support conversation off that list. Yeah, that's crazy. Playing an 80-hour RPG where I get to romance one person and there's like 10 possible candidates. The only thing that's changing is one item that this person gives you after like Christmas or New Year's. They give you like a key item that does like that boosts some stat or something. You get your special scene with them, that's it. The rest of the story is pretty much unchanged. That is just the one part of the story that's different because you chose to romance somebody. If you wanted all of those little key items and you wanted to say, I have acquired all of those key items, then yeah, you're gonna have to replay the game like eight times. At that point, I would hope you play on the easiest difficulty imaginable and skip every cutscene and interaction you could possibly do.

Ryan 7:40

Or if you're just that kind of player, I mean, more power to you if you super, super love persona and you just want to experience the game over and over, and you're like, oh, I'm on my eighth playthrough, and I just live and die by this series. I I admire that. I just get bored of stuff.

James 7:56

What I love about RPGs, especially ones where choice is important or matters, is it makes it feel like my playthrough. I really like RPGs that reward you for your choice, games that let you romance a certain character or go to a specific ending. The boxes you can check in persona. If you really wanted to, there are guides that exist that tell you exactly how to optimize your playthrough every single step of the way so you don't miss anything. But I kind of like the messy first playthrough where it's just my personal experience. I made the choices I wanted to make. I romanced who I wanted to romance. I picked this ending, and that was like my experience with it. If I want to go back, great, I can and check all those boxes off. Or hey, I've played through two times and I just want to go on YouTube and check out what the cutscenes were. Like I have that option. And again, more power to the completionists. We like appreciate your dedication to seeing everything all the way through. But personally, I I'm like a main plus extras preferred because I want to get to the next experience. I want to see more stories, I want to play more games, I want to do more. I'm not saying that I wouldn't, but I think just now where I'm at and looking at my library and backlog, I'm like, I would rather take the extra 20 hours I would need to 100% persona and just put it in a different, a new game or something.

Ryan 9:23

It's hard to uh I think these kind of games are harder on gamers that strive to milk the experience and get that like quote unquote platinum 100% kind of completion for a game that's honestly not really designed for that. It's amazing that we even have games like that, you know, of just like I uh the Hollow Knight devs have gone on record saying like they're fine with you not seeing everything in a full playthrough. And I don't know if you missed this storyline, it's like, well, that's that's fine with us. Like, we're not gonna try to force you to go to this specific area and like trigger that questline marker so you can actually see it. It's like if you missed it, you missed it, and that was your playthrough. And there is, like you said, some kind of personal connection to that playthrough that's like unique to you, just like everyone's gaming journey is unique to them, and that's just a game that like really heavily leans into that. So I guess the takeaway is to accept it for what it is. And unless you really want to be a hardcore platinum gamer, then enjoy your next 160 hours milking the crap out of it.

James 10:28

When it comes time for the RPG book club sessions, the beginning of this podcast, when you're done with Final Fantasy 7, don't worry, Ryan. My arms are wide open. Come for more, come for more RPGs. I have plenty to talk about, I have plenty to sell to you.

Ryan 10:45

So nice. The door is always open. Thanks, buddy. Ryan, why are you walking away? What are you doing? Bye. No, getting another RPG. No.

James 10:57

Well,

Mario Kart Wii

James 10:58

what about you, bud? How was your uh for the July week?

Ryan 11:01

It was good. Saw some family, saw some fireworks, and it's always a nice thing. Uh my family, we just chill. Uh, it's honestly a very just like, hey, here's some chips, go watch TV, like, okay, dinner's this time. Like, we all just kind of hang out and chill. So I was counting on that for like, oh, now I can maybe dedicate an hour or two to playing some more Final Fantasy. And honestly, just couldn't find that time, which was fine. I just I would want to hang out and watch TV or like some movie or whatever, uh, Wimbledon is a is a big thing in my in-laws, uh, and they were watching that a lot. So just wanted to visit with them. But I did have like my Ayn Thor with me playing Mario Kart DS and Yoshi's Island and kind of exploring my like cartridge-based library that I've had in my game collection.

James 11:50

It was more like loose playtime, you know, with your new toy kind of giving it a few runs, just checking stuff out to check it out, not like intensive, dedicated buckle down for Final Fantasy, where like, oh, I'm just happy to play with this thing now.

Ryan 12:04

Exactly. Yeah, just like kind of quick experiences or experiences that I can kind of have on in the background while we're all just like kind of watching something. A moment did happen where we had my wife's siblings over and we busted out Mario Kart Wii. Whoa.

James 12:21

Yeah, that's a poll.

Ryan 12:23

It was so much fun. It it brought me back to like when you first got it, because we were trying to like load it on an old Wii U that was lying around, and like it didn't have the save file, so we had to start from ground zero, like trying to earn the grand prix. And dude, Mario Kart Wii is super really yeah. It's man, I remember grinding out DS and 8, obviously, and world recently, but Wii is like a whole nother ball game. I now totally understand why there's a still popular modding scene and like competitive scene for Mario Kart Wii specifically.

James 13:01

I remember there's some really great levels on Wii. I mean, like everybody talks about Coconut Mall. That's like one of the standouts. It's a pretty good level. There's a volcano level I remember being pretty intensive, too. It's Grumble Volcano.

Ryan 13:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we didn't even get that far, man. We were trying the first couple uh mushroom and banana cups for like an hour straight before we finally beat one. Who is your who is your racer? It was Peach on a bike. Oh, it was funny. There was also like a debate to use manual versus auto controls. So like there would be an attempt where, like, okay, one of my in-laws would uh be racing, but they would have had it on automatic, and then we pass it to me for like Wario's mines, and I'm like, what the hell is this? I can't control sucks. I can't do anything, and then I kept getting like knocked off, and it felt weird, and I was like, God damn. So we actually like split into groups of saying, okay, this is the manual run. You three players can switch off and try to win it, and then next run, it'll be the automatic run, and you two can just switch off.

James 14:04

I love that. That's so funny.

Ryan 14:06

It's it's just really funny how it developed, but we were all like into it. We were trying to get the Grand Prix, and it, you know, it was a nice memory. I think I'm gonna log that one for the books. It was just a nice, like, authentic. I just got my Nintendo Wii in 2007 kind of experience. It just brought me back. So that was a fun time.

James 14:26

That's really great. I love hearing about that because it's it's rare, and we talked about it, right? We had a whole episode on comfort games or kind of reliving or games that stick out to you in kind of like a personal way. Sometimes it's the ones you're not expecting or you don't think about or haven't thought about in a while, where it's like Mario Kart World is so good. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is like one of the best overall Mario Kart packages ever. Like, why would you play a different one? And you were over with your family, everybody was hanging out, you just had a special cool connection with playing Mario Kart Wii, kind of took you back, and like that's awesome.

Ryan 15:01

Yeah, man. I mean, we were so committed to playing that like one of them actually ran out to Walgreens to buy double-A batteries. Yes, we had to like compile all the Wii motes together. Oh, by the way, we played motion controls the entire time. The whole time, no wonder, yeah. That was exactly they kept going, how the hell did we beat this as kids? And I was like, Did you play motion controls as kids? They're like, Yeah, we exclusively did that. I could be wrong.

James 15:29

I need to fact check that, but it was like, oh well, to their credit, and I mean, like you and I were around, obviously, we grew up with the Wii, and that was like such a specific point in time where like it leaned so heavily into the gimmick, and it was fun. It was fun for the time it came out. Mario Kart Wii was bundled in with that steering wheel, and like I feel like genuinely the people I remember playing that game outside of my friend group used the shit out of that wheel, like exclusively. Really, they played with that wheel. I mean, that's just like that's what the Wii was all about, right? Maybe it's a little different because there is Switch Sports Resort is about to come out soon. They've already come out with a a functioning remake of like Switch or Wii Sports One kind of that game was so much more exciting at the time. And it's not anything like maybe ridiculously spectacular, right? It's kind of a tech demo, it's like five pretty loose mini games for baseball and tennis and stuff, but like Wii Sports was crazy, man. People like loved that so much. People would still play it today. People still do play it today for what it was and what it was selling you on that motion control and just how it was all integrated. So, like, yeah, I totally buy people seeing a new Mario Kart for this, the Wii Sports machine. And I can like, oh my gosh, like it's like I'm really driving. I got the wheel. It's like, sure, it's great.

Ryan 16:57

It's it's nice to hear that like people genuinely like wanted to use it because it always felt like the novelty was that like you could use it, but optimally, of course you wouldn't, you know. So it was it was just like really nice that like they were going for the wheels, and we were actually like it started to feel natural after a while, and it felt like we were actually like doing competitive moves and stuff. That is if we weren't uh doing manual or if we were doing automatic. Like, I was like, I can't do this.

James 17:27

My last thing it reminds me so much of like Mario Kart 8. Whenever you boot it up today, and you have to remember to turn off the auto steering, there's like that little like uh yes, there's that little like yellow marker when you go to your cart select. It's like, oh, don't forget you have this on, you have this on, and it's like almost forgotten.

Ryan 17:46

What a weird like enabled by default kind of setting. Yeah,

Star Fox 2026 Initial Impressions

Ryan 17:59

all right, campers, now the moment we have been waiting for Star Fox. Holy crap, it has come out. We have played it. James, I just want to get into this. As a veteran of the series and as a 2026 newcomer myself to the series, we got a lot of perspectives to talk about this game. What are your initial thoughts, man?

James 18:21

This is gonna be a hot take, and maybe I just start swinging right off the bat. But if I have to replay Star Fox 64, this kind of experience again, I think this like beats out the original game to me. Whoa, huge. 64 was like one of my childhood games, and I think they just absolutely hit it out of the park with this remake. It is so excellent from top to bottom, it feels so good to play. And I I can't wait to get into it. But that is kind of my impression is that I walked away loving this game, and like when I think back, we've had that talk, right? We you talked about this with Metroid Prime for like your comfort games. Your comfort game is the original, that's the one you grew up with, that's the one that's special to you, and you kind of had a good experience with the remaster, the graphics were a new way to experience it. But for me, this game feels so good to play that like if I wanted to just bust out Star Fox, I think I'm probably leaning towards this most of the time.

Ryan 19:23

Man, interesting. So you would never theoretically like play 64 again. No, I did well, so strong statement.

James 19:32

Star Fox is a unique game because it is short, it is a very quick experience, it's an arcade-like experience. So it kind of has like a little asterisk next to it where you can always justify a Star Fox run if you can squeeze an hour into your day. It's not too much of a commitment or dedication. That being said, I think the remake does a wonderful job of being its own thing and improving on a lot and taking its own direction with the tone and characters. Again, we'll get into that later. What I love about this remake is it is not trying to replace the original experience. That's the most valid thing a remake can do is stand on its own, honor the legacy. You can still play the old game today, and it is just as fun in its own way.

Ryan 20:20

I agree. It's what makes a fantastic remake in the sense of what a remake should do. I never got the feeling either that it was like, oh, here's the quality of life updates that you guys have been clamoring for. What are you talking about? Star Fox 64 controlled great. It introduced the Rumble pack, it was cool. It's still neat to bump up today. It's just that they had a chance to just make something amazing even better. And it doesn't invalidate anything. It's still Star Fox 64 true and true, it's just enhanced.

James 20:52

I mean, it says something that they didn't add any new levels. That might be a controversial thing, you know, for like looking at content for this game, but they like the original game is such a classic and is so well beloved and just an amazing game on its own. Every single level is basically the same, obviously, with other enhancements or things, but they took that campaign and just gave you a new way to play it. It is like the same levels, the same bosses, the most minute of tweaks to like maybe levels or boss patterns, but like you're basically playing that original game and it stood on its own because of that.

Gameplay Tweaks

James 21:29

I mean, you can speak to that more. How often did you feel like something was different gameplay-wise? You and I both talked about this, and the final Andross fight, it was just a little bit easier to maneuver in that fight. Uh it's so easy in that original game to get trapped up, and he has a move. So, for context, if you've not played, I guess, spoil spoiler alert for Star Fox 64 and the remake.

Ryan 21:53

Shit, we're jumping right to the final boss.

James 21:55

Yeah, so the so Andros, uh, the evil science. Of Venom. He just has a floating head and like two little floating arms. You defeat that form, and his true form is revealed on certain runs where he is just now like a floating brain, and he has like these little jets behind him for like propulsion, but then he has like these two eyeballs that kind of follow you around and zap you. If he catches up to you, you basically get caught in this attack where he just like grabs your ship and just completely mangles it, dismantles it, and like chews through your life. It's very hard to recover from. And it feels like you are working so hard because you have to shoot him from behind. Trying to get to that sweet spot where you're right behind him. He's not teleporting away, he's not going to get you caught up in this attack was like very difficult to do if you didn't know what to do. And I feel like in the remake, it was just easier to get behind him. And I don't know if that's partially the control or how the boss behaved. It felt like a better experience to fight that boss.

Ryan 22:57

I agree. Uh, especially after watching you struggle with that for like close to an hour. It was tough. That looked difficult. And when I got to that part in the remake, I was dreading it, and it felt significantly easier. It still took a little dedication if you're not familiar with like the strategies of what the original game taught you about like when you're in dog fights, when when somebody else barrel rolls or uh does a somersault, you have to do a somersault to stay behind him. When Andros is about to catch up with you, you you have to get that angle somehow to hit the back uh yellow node on the back of his brain somehow. But if you know that, yes, it does feel slightly easier in this one. That was probably like the more accessible, not quality of life, but just accessible way of approaching it for this remake for new players, especially.

James 23:50

I also felt like in the Star Wolf fights, your team was like slightly more capable. So this is like a mild criticism I have of even this game, because again, it's so similar, but of the original game, where sometimes I wish my teammates would just not be on the screen because you're trying to fight certain bosses and you're spraying and you're trying to get that like sweet spot for damage, and you just inadvertently start hitting your teammates because friendly fire is on. They're not contributing to helping you in the fight, they're just like flying around the boss, you know. Hey Einstein, I'm on your side.

Ryan 24:24

Or as the remake says, uh, hey genius, I'm on your side because who the hell was Einstein in the Lylat system?

James 24:30

Oh my gosh, yeah. So that still exists in the remake. There are still some fights where they just can't really contribute. You know, you you as Fox have to shoot a weak point, they're not even looking at whatever. But there were actually a couple of times when I was on Fichina, and I was just kind of surprised because I saw like a down fighter, like a down star for Star Wolf pilot, and I'm like, oh, they actually got him. Like they actually provided some fire to you, still have to do 98% of the work, but like on occasion, they were able to like take some shots and get him out. I'm like, heck yeah, go go get him. Yeah, your father would have hit that fighter down, but since you didn't, Peppy did. Oh my lord. I mean, I feel like in 64, and again, I haven't played it in a minute, probably a couple months or so. I don't feel like I ever had an experience where like anybody was significantly helpful in a in a boss scenario where like I saw it a couple times here.

Ryan 25:26

Same. I played through uh the the Venom 2 Star Wolf fight was like hard, but yeah, like they they actually do stuff now, and it's it's super helpful. I you were even telling me like you were trying to get the challenge medals that they introduced, and you had to restart because they kept shooting down Star Wolf before you could get to them.

James 25:45

Let's make a point. There's challenge mode, and then there's the expert medals, or I guess, or just I I don't even know if they're called expert medals, but they are the medals you can obtain by score in the campaign, and then there's the challenge mode, which I also have opinions on.

Ryan 26:01

So yeah, so challenge mode, we will get to that.

New Cutscenes

Ryan 26:04

But what was something added that you think added value to the game in itself?

James 26:09

We gotta talk about the cutscenes, dude. I think that's gotta be like number one best ad for me. Agreed, and some of that extra characterization, not only just in those little optional codex entries like in the menu, but I think just overall additional little spurts of dialogue and the cutscenes were just so good for me.

Ryan 26:30

Yes, that was impressive. How depending on the route you took, you actually got different versions of the same scenario. Did it kind of feel spliced together a little bit? Oh my god, yes, it literally felt stitched together from scene to scene within a cutscene. I mean, I've played through the game now at least like four or five times, and there was a distinct playthrough where we got to Macbeth after we failed the previous level, I think. It was from coming from the uh the pirate ship.

James 27:01

What was it? Oh, Zoness. Zoness, you got caught. You would not have shot down all of the searchlights. Which I will get to that. I got a bone to pick with that.

Ryan 27:10

Oh, okay. I'm gonna pin in that. We got from Zoness to Macbeth, and earlier that day, even you and me, we played through where we got to MacBeth, and Slippy was like, Oh, I got the landmaster, it's a new thing. And Falco chimed in and was like, I'm an ace pilot.

James 27:25

I don't go in the we don't do ground assault.

Ryan 27:28

Yeah. This time I got there and it was like totally different dialogue. Fox was like, huh, how are we gonna approach this? And Slippy's like, Ooh, I got a thing I've been working on. It's like a tank and it's got a blaster in hover mode, and it's also got seat warmers. It's called the Landmaster, and it just doesn't even go to Falco, it goes to Fox, and he's like, ah, Slippy, you think of everything. Let's go deploy. And the cutscene ends. Huh. It was like, that is so cool that like I now I have a motivation to get to this part of the story from multiple angles. And that was actually something they cut from Star Fox 64. Different briefings based off of what had happened before. So it's really cool that they got to implement that here.

James 28:13

They kind of fleshed it out and like honored that original intention that didn't make it in the first game. And it's really cool to see that. I think there's some argument that maybe you had like a little more imagination, you know, kind of building your playthrough in the original game, which is kind of fun, you know, depending on how your skill dictates the playthrough and you kind of approached the campaign as you go from level to level and the briefings kind of just hit you right before you hop in. It kind of gave the whole team dynamic a really good, it gave you a good sense of where everybody's head was at, because they, you know, General Pepper kind of gives you the briefings and he explores the options if you have multiple options to go to. And it's fun to see Slippy geek out about his new inventions, you know, talking about the Blue Marine, or oh, you know, I haven't put it through its paces yet, but I've got the perfect thing for this mission. And like you would assume that maybe Falco is not like he's usually opposed to not his personal want. Like, hey, if it's not something I want to do, then whatever, I don't want to do it. But even Pepper was like, I don't know, Fox, you know, it's not tested yet. He even said that everybody's got their own distinct personality and kind of opinions on the route, so it doesn't feel like you're just dictating by difficulty. Because in the original game, they made it very obvious that like red line means you're going on the hard route, or yellow line is the medium route, like the neutral route. And in this game, it just makes it feel like a story decision. They kind of play out the stakes or like why is this important to go here? I like the other little touches, you know, where we're being contracted by General Pepper, right? And we're trying to save the galaxy, but even he's being hush-hush on some of the details. Like, oh, I can't tell you why Fichina is important, but it's very critical that, like, you know, like it's just cool. It lets you kind of think about it in your own way. And I think that the personalities really shine in this game where in the original game it is very animated, it's a very different tone, and it's memorable, it's very iconic. There's some great reads, there's some really great lines. Uh, it's a classic for a reason in that respect as well.

Ryan 30:24

And there's kind of a sub-discussion of the tone between the English version and the Japanese version, too.

James 30:30

For sure. And I just think that this game does go for a different tone, especially with the cutscenes. Maybe muted is too strong. Like it's it's definitely toned down from the original game. It's not as loud or boisterous, perhaps, as like that original, some of those reads and some of the dialogue. It's a little more grounded, but I love that the personalities get brought so much up to the forefront. Falco is not just a dick to be a dick, he really starts to respect Fox as you go throughout the game. Fox earns his respect by his decision making and flying when you do some of those harder objectives and you meet him on his challenges. He like comes to respect that. And I like that about him, but he also has a soft side as well, and he starts to buy into the team aspect that he's not sold on at the beginning of the game. You get Peppy being a little frustrated at times because he's working with a bunch of kids. You look in the codex, and like Slippy and Fox are 18, Falco's 19, and he's 40, you know. So he has moments where like he can be a little agitated or frustrated, but that seems kind of natural for the environment that he's in, and he's always trying to hammer in like working as a team, the thing that didn't work out on the original Star Fox iteration, trying to capture that team essence and why it's so important. And Slippy's not just annoying like he was in '64. He's not the helpless, annoying guy in the original. The team sees him as valuable despite some of his flaws as a pilot. And even though Peppy's always trying to hammer it in, like, you gotta stay in formation, Slippy. You know, stay focused.

Ryan 32:15

He's just excited now. That's why. That kind of gives more meaning of like why he's kind of prone to getting shot down all the time. He's just so like, oh, look at that. Let's go to Meteo and like explore the science there, despite all the enemies that are there, you know?

James 32:28

Like, he's just an excited guy.

Favorite Cutscene Moments

James 32:30

I could go on and on about like every specific cutscene in this game. We could analyze all of them. I wanted to list out three things that stood out to me for the cutscenes. One of my favorite cutscenes in the game and missions for the dialogue aspect is Titania. So this is after Slippy gets smacked down from the robot and crash lands onto the planet, which you're forced to go to. Obviously, you just would to go save Slippy, but Fox snapping at General Pepper, suggesting that you have casualties in war and it's hard, but you gotta move on. One, why would you say that to Fox, who literally lost his father in war and got left behind? Like that's a personal dig. But you know, I think that's a great mission because that also shows Falco's vulnerable side because obviously he's like the hot shot pilot. I, you know, kind of really arrogant attitude, but he gets mad at you for accepting a Rob uh munitions drop. He's like, enough about the drops, Fox. We gotta go save Slippy. You know, like he cares, you know, he cares about he cares about everybody. He does have that side, but like that's late in the game after it's been progressively hammered in about the teamwork and stuff.

Ryan 33:48

Yeah, that was very surprising. I I love that moment too. That was actually like one of my first moments experiencing that little segment of Titania and seeing Slippy and everything, and they handled that just right. Fucks getting mad, and then Falco getting less and less cocky throughout the thing and like more serious. And it was like, Oh wow, who's this guy? Like, he's actually concerned about Slippy. And then back at the end, when you finally save him, he's just like, Well, Pepper tried to throw you away, but uh, but we didn't, you know.

James 34:21

I liked uh Falco, it was kind of a cute nod to assault, and you had mentioned this earlier in your branching dialogue playthroughs, but uh Falco being agitated at the thought of doing like we don't do ground assault, almost like a day get Star Fox assault when you did those ground missions, kind of in a fun, cute little fourth wall way. And uh just some fun details throughout some of the cutscenes, like Fox and Falco continuing their rivalry over chess in one of the cutscenes, and Fox immediately grabbing a drink from the fridge after the solar mission. Like, yeah, that's what you would do after roasting alive on the middle of a sun planet. So you wouldn't take Peppy's uh hot chili that was next to that.

Ryan 35:03

You would get a nice one.

James 35:04

No, no, no, no.

Ryan 35:05

Speaking of solar, back to like the decision making and it explaining it. Star Fox 64 was like, why the hell am I going to the sun? Why would I pick this route at all? Like canonically, this doesn't make any sense. Okay, cool. There's a monster there. Who'd made that? I don't fucking know. I could have it could have just been a biological thing there. But in the remake, they're actually like, Oh, we're actually picking up signs of something pretty concerning there. Like they call it out, and then they give you a reason of like, why the hell would I fly six inches from the sun?

James 35:36

Yeah, well, also, why is there signs of life on this planet? There should not be anything here, you know. Like, this is worth investigating, but also like even Pepper, I think, suggests like just don't worry about it, it's not worth it. But like, even Slippy's like, this is bad. This is something we should look at. So they give you, like you said, a nice purpose to like instead of just flying in the middle of the sun for no reason.

Ryan 36:00

And even the alternate route, you can go to Solar or Sector X, and if you go to Sector X, it's already destroyed. So even if you do go there, it's kind of like, oh, well, maybe we should have gone to Solar, because there's actually like a threat there that we now don't know about because we've committed to this other route, you know?

James 36:18

Yeah.

Ryan 36:18

So even in like the map design itself of these levels, it just reinforces like why there's validity to making certain decisions, which is just a little more lore to this game that we barely got drip-feeded dialogue to in the original.

James 36:33

My last thoughts on this, because again, you keep adding on to things of like, oh my gosh, that too, that too. I love that, like you said, it's it the cutscenes are a wonderful addition. It gives you just enough extra story, and not to even we have we didn't even talk about the intro, which literally, instead of doing the Star Wars text scroll kind of approach, you get to see the betrayal of Pigma and the destruction of that original Star Fox team. Talk about huge, yeah. And you get to see Fox's dad die, you know, protecting Peppy and telling him to get out. It really does set the stage and give you that extra little motivation for when you fight Star Wolf later. Like you got to see it happen and it sucked. So I really like that cut scene, but the cutscenes in general and some of this extra dialogue, this isn't like you're not spending hours of this game watching cutscenes. This isn't trying to pad anything out in some like extra way for no reason. You know, they feel fulfilling in just enough of a way where it's not adding too much, but it's just enough to give you a little bit more than the original did in like meaningful ways. When you had mentioned Sector X, they even added that. You know, I thought, like, I I don't usually take the warp in Sector X when I like replay Star Fox, I just don't go that route a lot. But going through the warp gates, you find out that like Andros had developed those to like how is he pushing to get closer and closer to corn area? Well, you go through the warp that he made, so it's kind of cool to like do the reverse and kind of get the jump on him and take the unexpected route where you go through like area six and stuff. So I love that. I just love all the extra little lore bits in this game, it's wonderful.

Ryan 38:13

It's really cool, even to my earlier point about like why you do Solar, that right there, what that actually ends up why you would want to do Sector X to find that warp. There's validity to going there too, even if it is a destroyed thing. It's just every decision is valid.

James 38:30

Yes. Also, it's part of the Miyamoto route. The true, I mean, he was thinking about the true lore considerations.

Ryan 38:37

So

Miyamoto Route Story Theory

Ryan 38:38

can I shout out something real quick?

James 38:40

Go ahead.

Ryan 38:41

This was a fascinating Reddit post by uh user CappnRob. It's called The Story Lost in Translation in Star Fox 64's Route 24, aka the Miyamoto Route. So for our campers, Route 24, as a reminder, is Corneria. You follow Falco through the oops and you defeat the crocodile like battleship.

James 39:06

That attack carrier kind of thing.

Ryan 39:08

Yes, the attack carrier. And in the remake, they validate that saying, like, oh, we got intel that there's gonna be a strike in sector Y. So then you go to Sector Y, and at this point, you had a good first mission, you know, Fox has already proven himself, and then the next challenge is oh, shoot a hundred fighters. You don't hit that because you then go to Katina. So at first you impressed Falco, you know, going back to that rivalry, but then you fail in Sector Y. So now it's like, ah, okay, well, I I had a mishap, it's fine. You go to Katina and you failed that, you let the base die. So you had a failure, but now you have a catastrophic failure where like actual people died. So very heavy. You don't know where Bill is, too. In the remake, Fox is very distraught about that in the cutscene. He's like, Have you heard from Bill? And they're like, Oh no, maybe maybe his transponders off. Like, maybe. So then that sends you to Sector X, where you find Bill in that warp route to the left, and you do the warps and you take the warp to sector Z. And CappnRob goes into this is an interesting distinction between the English and the Japanese version. In the English version, he's like, All right, like take care, Fox, you can do it. In the Japanese version, it goes, the rest is up to you. Avenge our friends.

James 40:29

Oh, that's what Bill says.

Ryan 40:31

That's what Bill says to you. Yeah, that's huge because like Fox, you know, you can argue he just like let all these people die. He let him down, but he's still got to face Andross, so he must be in a state. But then he gets these encouraging words from Bill of like, hey, no, you can still do this. Like, first of all, I'm okay. I forgive you for that. It wasn't totally your fault, but like go get him.

James 40:53

You gotta finish the fight, yeah.

Ryan 40:55

Yeah, and actually recognizing in dialogue for an N64 kids game, you know, that like people die, that's pretty heavy.

James 41:03

Even in the English translation, I mean, there are some pretty crazy lines that are said, especially by like Pigma. You know, I always think back to that line where he's like, Your daddy screamed real good when he died. I mean, like, this is a kid's game. We're flying or animals flying spaceships, and there's like some really deep, horrible digs, you know, like twists in the knife. So you go up to Sector Z.

Ryan 41:25

Yes, so now you're in Sector Z, and the theory is that like Fox is now in a state of like, all right, I've gotta do it. I've gotta lock in. And by the way, this is kind of like a story of like Fox becoming a leader. So this is like the turning point after the big fall of this story for this route. So you go to Sector Z, your first success after a while, you protect the great Fox from the from the missile attack. So now you sneak into area six, you blast that too, you're going in, and then you get to Venom 2 and you fight Star Wolf, you're just like win-win after win. You finally get the big comeback tour, and then you get the final, like true ending with Andross, and then like your father flying you out. And it's the theory is that like it's Miyamoto's favorite route because the gameplay itself tells this grand epic of a coming of age story of Fox becoming a leader, to the point where one of Falco's last line in both games is that like, hey, you did real good, boss, or like that's our leader. He finally acknowledges you for the leader that you have become, which is huge recognition from Falco.

James 42:33

I actually really like that. And I do think uh it's not something I don't normally think about. You know, I kind of just take the the mission briefings as is, and again, that original game didn't really have a lot of some of that extra dialogue to help flesh out like this narrative as it is woven, but I love the implication too. Like in this remake, they mention when you have two routes to go to Venom, you can go through Bolse, the satellite, and it's just its own little problem, but that should be like a pretty direct route to Venom, and you can approach it there. And then Fox even suggests himself, what if we take area six? And everyone's like, You're crazy. What are you talking about? This is like the most heavily fortified area, but Falco even recognizes and kind of appreciates that suggestion. Like, they won't know, they won't expect us. Nobody's gonna come through this way, and so that even helps reinforce not only does the remake give you the extra information of like how is Andros staging his invasion, how is he able, how why is Pepper sweating at sector Y in media? Like, how are they here? He's using this warp technology that Andros himself developed. And again, you take that Miyamoto path and you hit the lows, and you get to Sector X and take that warp. Now you know how he did it, and you do even get to see Fox, and that's hammered in the remake as well. Fox, especially, makes it Point in this remake that he does not want to see himself or be compared to his father. This is his team. He is going to earn it, not because he is James's son, because he is capable. And he's gonna honor his legacy in his own way. And it's really cool to see that evolve throughout the narrative. And they really help sell that.

Ryan 44:20

They really do, don't they? In Zoness, there's actually a perfect line that describes this. Is Peppy goes, You've got your father's instincts, Fox. And Fox turns around and goes, Some good they did him. That was like my whoa, what the heck? Fox, you got some bitterness there. Or like maybe that's like part of his grief. That just goes to show what you were just saying. It was like he's doing things his own way.

James 44:43

This is maybe like a little bounce off of the story and cutscene. I think it's so freaking funny. That is such an important and impactful part of his grief and his journey is like he does not want to be compared to his father. He does not want to live in his father's shadow, but he wants to become his own. And when you play the excerpt mode, he wears the same fucking sunglasses his dad wore the whole time. I'm like, what are you doing, man? Come look and pick a lade. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Ryan 45:14

I mean, these glasses are pretty cool though.

James 45:16

I mean, let's be real. So funny. I just I I I can't, I was I didn't even think about that until I I remember seeing a post and I was like, that is so funny. So funny. That's amazing. Before we move on to some of the other aspects of the game, I think this kind of goes in line with the cutscenes.

Voice Acting

James 45:34

How do you feel about the voice acting? This has been a pretty controversial topic.

Ryan 45:39

I like it. I I think the performances from everybody were pretty good. You were talking about like the tone shift that this game had versus 64. I think it fit that tone, like they were very much reinforcing it. You'll notice that like they kept a handful of lines that like we obviously would have wanted to keep in there, like do a barrel roll or can't let you do that, Star Fox. Like, he's not as pompous sounding this time. He's a little more like, Yeah, can't let you do that, Star Fox, versus can't let you do that, Star Fox.

James 46:10

I will say, for me, I loved the Star Fox cast of this game. I think they knocked it out of the park. Specifically, Hunter McCoy is Fox. It sounded like a perfect fit. Guy sounded amazing in his role. I love the cocky but confident attitude that he exudes voicing Fox. It just fits so natural for his character. I love some of the reads. One of my favorite lines that he says is when you're in Venom 2, Star Wolf is doing their introductions and he's like, Oh, I can smell Andross's boot down your neck or something. You know, like he just has like a crazy dig at them, and I'm like, Yeah, man. You know, uh get him. I really loved his delivery, and I also loved Andrew Russell as Falco. Falco in the original game, there's a reason he's loved as like a as just a character in the series, but he is just like actually a dick in the first game. He doesn't really have the development except for some of those like little last ending dialogue bits at the end of a last couple missions. Here, he just kind of kills it as like really quick to action, irritable, but confident, and just I don't know, it just sounded great. Again, the Star Fox crew was excellent. I didn't love some of the boss reads, but I feel like I'm almost nitpicking at this point, where like what I'm seeing on screen is like the grandest explosion I've ever seen in the destruction of some sort of armored vehicle, and it's just kind of like out with a whimper. In the original game, you had those like death screams are like you'll never defeat Andros, and you have like all the explosions and stuff. And I'm not saying that would have been like they needed that here, but it just sort of felt like they would say the same things, but it just kind of felt like a little muted, okay. We're just kind of fading out, and then here's the crazy cool explosion, you know. Like, I don't know, maybe like a death scream or something. I don't know how to explain it.

Ryan 48:09

I know because we were playing MacBeth together, and it was it was a little uh disappointing for you. One of your favorite lines of I can't stop, hit the brakes! Like it was a lot more toned down this time. I was reading comments today saying, like, in the original, he's screaming to death, and like in the new one, he's observing that he is about to crash.

James 48:31

Look at like what you were looking at on screen, and like I don't know, man. I guess everybody has their own way of going out, but and they kind of played to this in one of the routes. So, like in Sector Y, when you fight the mechs at the end, those little flying mechs that shoot at you, the boss is presented as the Shogun Warlord, and he kind of has that like honorable aspect to him, like, Oh, I will meet you in combat, Star Fox. And then when you kill him, you know, he's like, This is an honorable defeat. Yeah, I okay, sure. That's fair. That's like literally his character. That makes sense. Makes sense. But for some of the other ones, like the attack carrier boss or the Macbeth train pilot. I just but again, if I'm coming like all intents and purposes, like what did I dislike from the reads and the dialogue? I'm thinking maybe no more than what I can count on one hand, where everything else was excellent in its own way. At least they kept with that tone that we were talking about earlier.

Ryan 49:28

It was at least very consistent, you know, and we're just fans of the original, especially you're with Macbeth.

James 49:34

And another reason that this remake doesn't overwrite the original. If you want a hammier approach, a more animated dialogue and voice acting, you get that in '64. If you want something a little more grounded, but with a little more story and exposition and extra opportunities for character development, you get that in the remake. Two things that are both valuable.

Ryan 49:58

Yeah, exactly. And again, speaking of the dialogue, a handful of lines were kept, but most of the rest of the dialogue in the rest of the game is different. So you still get something different either way.

Favorite Levels

Ryan 50:11

So, James, what was your favorite level that you were excited to witness in the remake?

James 50:17

Are you talking about like what I was excited to play or like genuinely what are my favorite levels in the remake?

Ryan 50:24

I guess the latter. I mean, everything was just like a freaking HD coat of paint and color, and it looked, it was just a straight up upgrade. But what was like a level where you dipped in and you're like, oh my god, this looks amazing.

James 50:37

My favorite level in Star Fox 2026 is Aquas. Wow, the water level. Okay. I cannot tell you the glow up that this level had. I mean, the original game, it was like that was almost a level I avoided at all costs. The frame rate was super choppy. The Blue Marine felt really kind of clunky to control. It felt slow to do your rolls and shoot torpedoes. It was very dark, which was the gimmick. You know, you're underwater, you're going deep into the ocean, and you kind of have to shoot these torpedoes that give off a little bit of light to help you shoot and kind of maneuver around. Cool idea for a level, but I think it's just not executed to what it needs to in the 64 version. In the Switch 2 remake, my goodness, this level is gorgeous. The water is so vibrant and colorful at the beginning of the level. It naturally gets a little bit darker the more you go in, but it's not so dark that you literally cannot see anything or that it is like annoying to play through. The blue marine control is just a lot better. It just feels a lot more fluid, but it also has its own unique control from the Arwing. It's a little floatier, you kind of have a little bit of a trail off when you do your rolls. It feels like this level requires a lot of rolling and like kind of bobbing and weaving motion. You're always moving around, you're shooting torpedoes and your lasers. We haven't even gotten to this part of the presentation, Ryan. I love this game soundtrack so freaking much. When I tell you that when you get to like when Slippy's geeking out, like, oh my gosh, it's the last civilization of Aquas, and you start seeing those little pillars on the side, the chorus kicks in when the strings kick in, and it just I'm like, this is so freaking cool. This went from one of my most hated levels in the original to like it feels majestic, it feels like an experience. I love the boss fight and how much you have to be mobile. It doesn't feel like you can cheese him too easily. I just freaking love this level so much.

Ryan 52:47

What a wild turnaround for you. That's amazing.

James 52:51

From zero to hero.

Ryan 52:54

What was a level like gameplay-wise that you were excited to play again since they did the gameplay pretty much one-to-one?

James 53:01

I love Macbeth, you know that. I'm just a huge fan of that level. I think it's just a really unique change of pace where the world itself is maybe not as crazy. I think if you're asking me like what level I was excited to see the glow up for, Corneria is pretty great. Just seeing the destruction of the city and how vivid that looks and the remake and how much it really feels like an actual battle is being waged in this city. I like Corneria, it's a fun level, but I just love Macbeth. I love the pacing of that level. I love keeping up with the train. I love the presentation, like the explosions are so epic and so huge. So it really feels like you're actually damaging this train when you're shooting off parts of it. It feels a little more impactful than the original, and I just I love that level so much.

Ryan 53:53

Do you remember when my wife, me, and you were playing? And uh so in co-op mode, we'll get to the multiplayer in a sec, but they added co-op mode where one of you can gun and one of you can steer, and you were steering, and she was gunning, and she had that one bomb go off in front of the bridge that like it made like four cars blow up, and all of us were just like, Whoa! Like, oh, you gotta do that again. And every time we like went through that, we were like, Hey, you got you gotta hit that point again. Go, go shoot the bomb, hit the bomb.

James 54:24

So sick, so good. And I also wanted to add, I really liked Venom 2. Some of that extra dialogue and story buildup. I think that makes this Star Wolf fight more impactful to fight when Fox is able to talk back where he didn't really have a lot of dialogue in the original outside of very specific points. I love when you take down Pigma and he's like, That's what you deserve, traitor. It's like such a nice little pointed like, get him, got him, let's go. Wolf is like in shock. He's like, I can't believe it. And then Fox just goes, believe it. I have the better team. That's a moment where everything has come together, and it's like you have validated being able to say that because you have defeated them. That little extra story really pushed Venom too, which is not necessarily one of my favorite levels in the original because the fight is really difficult. I just felt like it was a better experience here.

Ryan 55:23

It's crazy. I think you know, we we talk about themes with like every episode we've been putting out. I I think the theme of this one is like validating your decisions. Whatever you do, every path feels valid, every piece of dialogue has meaning for being there now. They didn't have any technical limitations, like preventing Fox from talking back. Now you get to hear that like you did it, Fox. You avenged your dad. Like, that's huge.

James 55:48

What about you, bud? What levels stood out to you?

Ryan 55:51

Uh, I mean, you're talking about the music, buddy. Uh when Meteo hit, yeah. We talked about this of like nostalgia from like Star Fox Adventures. That's like the track that I am most familiar with with Star Fox, aside from the main theme, and it was majestic. And seeing that like turquoise, like space green. I don't know how to say it. It's like when you see that green, you're like, yes, that is very spacey, and it's like a galaxy in the distance. I can see why Slippy wanted to go there, it just looks science-y, yeah. You know, like like there's something crazy happening here. I think the warp. By the way, last time we talked about this, I was saying I never knew there was a warp there. I got to hit the warp for the first time in the Star Fox remake. Yes. And it is beautiful, really crazy. You had mentioned beforehand, like, oh, it's so easy on this level to get 250. And I was like, what are you talking about? I barely scratched like 170. But then I hit the warp and I was like, oh, 280, here we go. Like blowing up all the rocks.

James 56:52

Now we're cooking.

Ryan 56:53

It was just so cathartic. Falco's shoot, shoot everything. I am. Watch that score go up, baby. Yeah, let's go.

James 57:02

Yeah, Falco was even like, holy shit, look, that was crazy at the end. You talk about the music in that level, Ryan. I love the snare in that track where it feels like you're marching through this level and it gets progressively like it crescendos up as you get farther and farther through the asteroid field. I'm like, it just feels so epic. The soundtrack is so good, man.

Ryan 57:25

It's so good. And the team synergy was like, it's great. That's where they really start cementing their roles and like Slippy being excited for the science, and Peppy being like, nice job, you shoot like your father, and you know, everything. And Falco was still being competitive, like, yeah, now Fox, we're even. I shot that one, and Peppy's like, now it's not a competition, and he's like, Maybe not to you. Yeah, it's it's just great, everything flows so nice.

James 57:53

I I love that level, it's so fun. Love that, love that so much. Were there any other levels that maybe from the original were elevated to you or just you were excited to play more of in the remake? We've hit on Zoness a lot. Do you did you like that level in the original? That's the one where you got to shoot down all the search lights. I never played it in the original. Wow.

Ryan 58:13

So another new experience. That was me meeting Kat for the first time. Oh my gosh, that's so cool. Yeah. She needs to hit her fucking third shot, by the way. She goes, Hey, I'll take the one on the left. She hits two stop lights, and I'm like, All right, she's got that third. She's got that third. She okay, Slippy just triggered it.

James 58:32

We just failed. What the f cat? What the hell? I watched a streamer play through that literally exact same problem where it's like she said she was taking the left. It's like she misses that last shot.

Ryan 58:42

Not a good first impression, cat, but I I do love you still. It was cool to see her like, hey Falco, how's it going? And he's like, What are you doing here, cat?

James 58:51

And Lombirdy.

Ryan 58:53

Also, I think she kind of got some flack when her character design was first introduced. And I I think she looks good.

James 59:00

She's fine, at least in motion. There could be a conversation. If you went for the tone of Star Fox 64 in this remake, maybe it's a little bit more animated. Maybe the character designs are a little bit more cartoony or like anime-esque. These characters kind of look appropriately freaky in some of their designs, but like in a way that makes sense. Like they really grew on me when you when I got to see them play out through the whole game. And like, I just it feels right. I don't know. I can't picture playing this game with designs not the ones that were in the game. They just feel right for the game. I need to pull up your quote. You had an exact quote for this. Uh can't remember. Here we go. Do we do we have to talk about the the designs? I mean, do you like them? I got thoughts. I think they're freaky in a cool way.

Ryan 59:53

Like it feels I

Co-op Mode

Ryan 59:58

want to talk about one more section before we get into just gush mode about anything we haven't talked about yet. What do you think of the multiplayer?

James 1:00:08

Okay.

Ryan 1:00:09

All right. Campers just like he just like Jace just like smiles for a second. It's like, uh I have two.

James 1:00:19

So there's two camps for multiplayer, right? There's co-op and then there's multiplayer. So co-op, excellent. I think that's a really fun run to do that you should experience at least once. It is, it was really fun playing with you and your wife, Ryan, hopping in and out, alternating routes. Like your wife would hop in for a couple levels, you would come back for a level or two. We would alternate roles of like, okay, I'm flying this time, I'm shooting.

Ryan 1:00:47

Seamlessly, by the way, we you just turn your controller. You one of you uses mouse mode and the other has it controlled, and then you can just literally flip from your wherever you're at.

James 1:00:57

You can literally mid-level swap it if you wanted to. I think that's really cool. It was definitely harder because you have to coordinate a little bit of like, oh, I'm flying here, so I only have so much area to shoot, or like, what are we trying to do here? But it was just such a fun way to experience the game.

Ryan 1:01:15

Dude, talk about coordination and rewarding. Shooting down Wolf in co-op was so hype. Every single time we were just like, all right, click, click, click, click, click. Yeah, we got him. We got three more. Like, let's go.

James 1:01:28

It is cool for the whole playthrough, but it is extra validating and rewarding to like co-op take down Star Wolf each kill. Felt super rewarding and like hype moment that we got it lined up.

Ryan 1:01:42

Yes, it was amazing. One of the best co-op experiences, I think, I've had.

James 1:01:47

Truly. I would love to do another one. I one of the things I've wanted to do, this is not necessarily multiplayer specific, but like maybe it'd be fun to do like the full first person POV for that or something. Like, I'd love to do another run. It was a it was a lot of fun, you know. Let's try it. It was just like a cool extra challenge, but a cool way to experience the game. I loved that co-op implementation.

Ryan 1:02:10

It's just such a perfect medium for that. Like, you can do a co-op run, you could do a run in an hour, and now you're doing a co-op run in an hour and just having twice as much fun.

James 1:02:19

We we

USB Camera Feature

James 1:02:20

didn't even talk about the camera functionality. Maybe arguably the best feature. Amazing. Campers, the the feature we're discussing is this game has USB camera implementation. When you're in multiplayer, you can basically either have your portrait be a Star Fox character and it's just doing this crazy facial tracking, so you can move your head like Fox or say crazy things like, Oh, I got him, Fox, you know, as like any character you want. There's also a thing you can do where you can have your face, but just have like a goofy accessory, and watching that kind of like warp to your head as you move or back away is like really freaky, but it's so funny.

Ryan 1:03:07

It's not bad tracking, like you could do the James McCloud glasses, or you can be have like different ears of different animals. Um, you can have Bill's helmet, that was a fun one.

James 1:03:18

I remember a lot of times uh your wife would hop in for a level and she'd just have like Bill's helmet on and just laughing and just geeking out. It was so funny.

Ryan 1:03:28

It would like warp to her, too. Sometimes we'd be like both in frame, and all of a sudden it would just like zoom her in with Bill's helmet on. Like it was trying to figure out which one to lock in on.

James 1:03:39

And we had this was the first time I ever hit the game share button intentionally for the Switch 2.

Ryan 1:03:45

Same.

James 1:03:46

But it was fun, it was actually a pretty fun implementation of being able to see each other's screens and like at least like the portrait, you know, throughout our multiplayer games and seeing everybody's reactions and stuff. It was really fun. It was a great time. Yep.

Ryan 1:04:01

And

Competitive Multiplayer

Ryan 1:04:02

then we tried the competitive multiplayer. I think they did a good see the the hard part with it's hard to design around dog fighting. It's genuinely hard to design around because, like, you know, at the end of the day, if we really want to be critical, it feels like the pattern of fighting Star Wolf is when they do a somersault, you almost have to do a somersault or else they're going to get behind you. So once you learn that pattern, it is satisfying to like shoot them down. It's just you always have to be like on top of being behind somebody, and there's a certain way of fighting that you just kind of have to lock into. And just designing dog fighting to be fun in games is difficult for that reason. Like you either have to be behind them or you're trying to run away or something.

James 1:04:48

So, what I think here, Ryan, is I actually really like the direction they took for multiplayer because it is not just dog fighting. Exactly. The objectives, it's a score attack, right? Whichever team has the highest score will win the round. It's 4v4, Star Fox versus Star Wolf. And, you know, you can hit these little small enemies for small points easily. There's always some sort of objective to contribute to, even if you're not directly engaging in a 1v1 or god forbid, a 2v1 encounter with another part of the enemy squad, you can still contribute to the objective and earn points that way. And then obviously, you have the PvP aspect where you are literally fighting other characters flying around. And they introduced power-ups, which is kind of fun. You know, there's power-ups that are unique to this iteration of the game. You have things like smart bombs you can drop behind to damage opponents chasing you, like a hyper boost. There's this really crazy cheap laser that is almost just like a it's like the freaking Spartan laser in Halo, but it just lasts for eight seconds. You just get to just blast everybody that you can slowly move towards. I think this multiplayer is really smart. It's a really great idea. I have to be critical because it feels like a footnote. And it is so disappointing that there's only three maps. It's really addicting. You hop in and you just play a handful of rounds. It's really fun. It's really cool to kind of assume the role of one of the teams and have like a nice win or a comeback win. Or it's just, you know, it's a very dynamic multiplayer game. There's a lot going on. There's a lot of ways you can contribute. Even if you're losing the PvP fight, you could be winning the objective fight or doing other things to still keep you in the game. But God, you can only play those three maps so many times before it's like you just need something different. Even if there were different the same objectives, but like three more levels or something. You can unlock these little banners like title cards and character stamps and things. And it's like it starts getting to like play 200 multiplayer matches. And it's like I just get burnt out because there's only three levels. Bummer.

Ryan 1:07:09

And it's unfortunate it's not a Nintendo multiplayer focused game. So that will most likely be all the attention it's gonna get. You know, it's not arms, it's certainly no Splatoon. They already accomplished what they wanted to do with the remake campaign and the extra challenges. This did feel like a nice to have, and the effort is appreciated that it's there. Frankly, I had a blast playing with you. We played it for about 30 minutes, experienced all the modes, like I think just a single time, maybe a couple times, but it brought me back to like high school days of like hopping on COD and playing a few matches, and it was generally a fun time. And we might do it again. I I just don't I don't see us like being too super religious about it. It's kind of what I expected, actually.

James 1:07:54

It's just mixed for me because I think like I love the intent and the design of it. It I think it is like above my expectations of what I maybe expected it to be, of just how it's integrated and like the PvP PvE. I think it's really well designed, there's just not enough content, and that's the frustrating part to me.

Ryan 1:08:14

Yeah, it's it's tough, especially if you're like a super fan of Star Fox wanting that more. I'm afraid it's all we're gonna get, unfortunately. Well, on that note, I know it's like all right.

James 1:08:30

Well, enough and enough gloom, enough gloom about James's very specific multiplayer woes.

Challenge Mode

James 1:08:37

What else did you want to talk about with this game? I mean, there's a whole challenge mode. Did you did you get any of the medals in the campaign mode?

Ryan 1:08:45

Yeah, they added this challenge mode of hey, let's go back into corn area and do these six normal challenges that like you might not be able to get all of them on a single run, so then you'd have to replay it again. And now we have these elite level challenges. Uh, that was a nice addition. Oh, James is shaking his head. No.

James 1:09:04

Yes and no. Because I do like the challenge mode a lot for most of what I have played so far. I think that they really do a good job of like a new way to experience the levels that you haven't really played in a specific way yet.

Ryan 1:09:19

Yeah, I think the challenges added a uh it it added obviously was an incentive. Like they're designed to like, okay, replay the levels, but it's actually like very alluring to try to do it. At least the normal ones so far that I've tried, they they've seemed possible. It makes me want to go back and be like, hey, I'm gonna boot up Star Fox and see if I can knock out Meteo's challenges today. That is my game session intent, and just knowing that content's there after I've beaten the campaign for the eighth time is like that's nice. Remakes doing it again. So that's a nice segue. What is

Final Thoughts

Ryan 1:09:55

your final like big takeaway from Star Fox 26?

James 1:10:00

And uh, what's your verdict? I feel like remakes are a very tricky line to thread, and you had mentioned that earlier, where how do you honor the original experience, make it your own, but not feel like a replacement? And that's a that's a thing that a lot of remakes I think struggle with, where they either falter at some of the things they try to newly implement, or they try to overcorrect and then it becomes too much of a different experience, and it doesn't even feel like the original. And I think this is like the perfect needle thread. It's a wonderful game, it honors the original in every way it needed to, adds small little improvements, meaningful and impactful improvements that make it unique to itself. And my god, I mean, I genuinely think this might be one of the best looking Nintendo games, period. The environments are like out of this world, ridiculously good looking in this game, from the water effects to the heat on solar to the explosions to everything. It just is such a beautiful game. And I think that the orchestral soundtrack is like 11 out of 10. I love the update to the music that was done in this game. When I said my hot take was that like I just enjoyed this experience more, I will go back and play Star Fox 64. It was a childhood game for me. I love it. It is still fun to play to this day. It's an excellent and one of the N64's best games, in my opinion. I can still have that experience, but this experience just elevated everything in such a great way to me. They killed it.

Ryan 1:11:39

That's so great to hear from a veteran of the series that there's still value between both of the games for you. One being a comfort game and just being a good game, and now this like definitive way to experience Star Fox again in a new way.

James 1:11:53

And as someone who is newer to the series or hadn't played a lot of it back in the day.

Ryan 1:11:59

Well, first of all, I feel oddly nostalgic, even though I've just been introduced to Star Fox uh 64, like this year with our first episode talking about the Star Fox series.

James 1:12:12

You had mentioned a note, Ryan. You heard the title music and that like brought a tear to your eye. Like the title rendition of like the main menu music.

Ryan 1:12:21

Yeah. Like maybe being so fresh of a playthrough from like a month or two ago of playing 64 and just knowing that calm music, like the calm before the storm, if you will, or before the great adventure. It was just like the little exclamation mark of General Pepper being on the line in the menu, and just hearing that song was just like the vibe was just like, hey, we're we're ready for you. Go ahead and hit start, man. Enjoy the adventure. That was just like, oh, I I like saluted my TV. I was like, let's go, we're gonna go. It's so good. And then like you play through the whole thing and talk about music when you get to the spoiler alert, when you get to the very end, the true end, and James is uh your dad's like navigating you out. I think that change was amazing of just making that like so calm and this beautiful orchestral chorus, just ushering you out of the final chasm, and like it all led up to that final moment with zooming in on Fox's face and you just blasting out. I was just like, oh my god, this is such a moment, this is such a gaming moment right now.

James 1:13:32

I think that music choice was again for the story they were expanding on and kind of pointing to. That was the perfect closing of the book. Fox is locked in, all he can think about is like seeing his dad and kind of punctuating that final moment where he's not there, but he is. That moment was amazing, 100%.

Ryan 1:13:56

It was beautiful. Like, I agree with all of your review points. The only really other thing I can add is like everything they delivered on was just right. It's such a game that like the original had us wanting more, and this delivered just enough, just enough moorness to it with the cutscenes, especially. That has to have been the most valuable thing they added to just give it that little bit more of cement of what the story is and what it's about, and to like make it a little more clear. It's just fantastic.

Fan Mail

Ryan 1:14:42

All right, bud, it has been awesome gushing about Star Fox, and I can't wait to play more multiplayer sessions with you and see what other routes we unlock.

James 1:14:51

Right after this.

Ryan 1:14:52

Right, let's do it.

James 1:14:54

I'm booting it up right now. Let's rock and roll. Just please tell me you checked your G diffuser, please. There's something wrong with my G diffuser, and that's why it's always important for a systems check, Falco.

Ryan 1:15:06

I do love that new line, by the way. That was such a like slippy cementing his new personality.

James 1:15:11

Pushes up glasses, yeah.

Ryan 1:15:14

Before we go, we wanted to address some more fan mail that we received. This camper is a fan of the new Star Wars racing games coming out, and they say love those old Star Wars games as well. It was cool to see how they used video games to expand upon the Star Wars universe. Special shout out to Star Wars Battlefront, Bounty Hunter, and Racer Revenge. Hope to go head to head against you both and Ryan's sister when Star Wars Galactic Racer is released in October this year. Challenge accepted. Okay. Let's go. Yes. I I think I could speak for both of us when we're both gonna get that right.

James 1:15:57

Yeah, I loved I still think, you know, N64 racing games. I do think Star Wars Episode 1 was like third place for me below Mario Kart, and Diddy Kong Racing was far and away number one.

Ryan 1:16:10

Oh, it's to the moon.

James 1:16:12

But Star Wars Episode 1 was really, really good. That was a really good video game. And I totally did not play Racer Revenge, I believe that was on PS2, but I can't wait for Galactic Racer. That is one honestly pretty good year for Star Wars games. Uh, Zero Company comes out in August and then Galactic Racer just a couple just a couple months later.

Ryan 1:16:34

Yeah, it's gonna be really cool. Uh, they recently had a trailer talking more about like Sebulba being more of a presence there and getting the proper Pod Racer rep in there that we've all been waiting for, and the gameplay looks awesome.

James 1:16:48

That was such a dumb thing. Do you remember um on episode one racer, you could like double tap the engine and he would have the fire that he shot out as just like a random little thing. Like no other racer, yeah, no other racer has it, but he does have it, like just like he did in the movie. Yeah, I promise you.

Ryan 1:17:06

That's amazing. I see, I always play as uh bullseye, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then my most recent run, I just committed to Anakin the whole way and like upping his pod racer. The lore run. I feel like you have to kind of you kind of have to like commit to somebody and like who you upgrade, it felt like I might have to play it again, but dude, I would love to play as Sebulba now.

James 1:17:28

Damn, man. I I next time we gotta play Star Wars Episode 1 Racer, because now I'm just getting back. I used to, for some reason as a kid, I loved Gasgano. I don't know why if I liked him or just his pod racer. So like now I'm getting I'm thinking about this game. I'm thinking about all the racers. I'm like, I just gotta play this game with you, man.

Ryan 1:17:46

Let's do it. And let's get my sister involved and she can kick both of our asses.

James 1:17:50

Can't wait. Uh very humbling moment, I'm sure, will be awaiting me.

Outro

Ryan 1:17:55

Well, campers, as always, if you want to send us some fan mail, please feel free to click on the send us fan mail button in the show notes or uh write us a post on Blue Sky, and we would love to hear from you. Also, if you have any thoughts on Star Fox, we'd love to hear that as well. So thank you for joining us and see you at the next campfire. Y'all stay cozy.

James 1:18:19

Stay cozy!