Touch the Stars: Star Fox Command Review

Back in 1993, Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to make Star Wars. Not an epic space opera per se but a game that replicated the furious, desperate space dogfights made famous by George Lucas in the 1970s. He got his chance in 1993 after Argonaut created the polygon rendering Super FX chip for the Super Nintendo and Star Fox was born. An on-rails shooter that boasted truly impressive polygonal graphics at the time, Star Fox was simple, addictive, and fun, everything a great Nintendo game should be. Over the past thirteen years though, Fox McCloud and team Star Fox have had a less than stellar track record. 1997's remake Star Fox 64 was good but not much of an advancement over the original's gameplay, 2002's Star Fox Adventures, built on Rare's abandoned Dinosaur Planet for the N64, was a hollow Zelda clone with franchise characters tacked on, and last year's Namco developed Star Fox Assault added ground based shooting but even its traditional on-rails flight levels felt loose and underdeveloped. Now, just over a year since Assault's release, comes Star Fox Command for the Nintendo DS and it is without argument the finest entry in the series since the original.

Command begins after the events in Assault. Team Star Fox has disbanded and now, with the new threat of the Anglar emerging from the wasteland planet Venom, the Lylat system is under siege without their heroes. Fox McCloud enters the fray solo and over the first voyage through the game's storyline, the team is re-assembled, the good guys save the day and all's well on Corneria. The action surrounding this story has its roots in the original but is a whole new take on Nintendo's brand of space combat.

Play in Command is broken into two sections, strategy and shooting. The player starts on an overhead map where they plot the course of up to four ships using the DS' touchscreen, attempting to keep enemies and missiles from reaching their mothership while capturing enemy bases. It's a simple and effective use of strategy gameplay that helps re-define the Star Fox style. When a player ship encounters an enemy or base, they enter a shooting stage where on-rails shooting is out and arena based levels are in. Fox's Arwing is now controlled solely with the stylus, using the touchscreen to both aim and steer while every other button on the DS fires the ship's lasers and for the most part the touch control is rock solid. The player gets precision shooting and quick maneuvering with u-turns and corkscrews taking just one tap on the sides of the bottom screen. The control falters due to oversensitivity, especially during boss fights when you occasionally find your ship barrel rolling uncontrollably into an asteroid. Also problematic are the missile chase stages. Holding the DS and the stylus steady while shooting and trying to follow the missile's slipstream is awkward and you may just find yourself losing these battles due to discomfort instead of skill.

But, after the first play through, Command reveals its true depth. Players are given a key to unlock alternate story paths, turning it into a choose-your-own-adventure type of affair that acts as more than just narrative window dressing. Each diverging path brings new selectable characters to every mission, all with their own unique ships and abilities. This variety, alongside the strategy and arena shooting stages, achieves for Command what each sequel since the original has failed to do: evolve the Star Fox game.

All that game is packaged nicely. The visuals are smooth and the new character designs are excellent, right in line with Miyamoto's originals. Hajime Wakai's cinematic score is a real highlight of the game's presentation besting his work in Star Fox 64. Multi-player options are pretty slim though with both local wireless and WiFi Connection play being little more than straight deathmatches. Command would have benefited from online story mode co-op but something needs to be saved for the next sequel.

What makes Command a success in the end is solid design. Command's director Dylan Cuthbert was one of the original designers of both Star Fox and the Super FX chip that gave polygons to a 2D generation. After almost a decade and a half, Cuthbert re-assessed what made the first game so enjoyable and re-imagined it to take advantage of a wholly new style of playing games. Star Fox Command is the best of both the new and the old school so pick up your stylus and strap into your Arwing. You won't regret it.