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Reviews » Star Fox Command [DS]

Ever since Star Fox was first released over a decade ago, the series it spawned has maintained a high and consistent level of quality... as long as you’re in an Arwing. Star Fox Command is the latest in this series, and despite some fundamental changes to the game’s mechanics and the structure of levels, it fails to disappoint. I feel this is largely due to the fact that, as stated above, you stay in an Arwing for the duration of the game, and all elements of the plot (which has become increasingly bizarre with each new installment ever since the whole Dinosaur Planet debacle) are completely skipable.

[It should be noted that what I actually read of the plot was so awful that early on I decided it would probably be in my best interests to skip nearly all plot-related segments of the game. I didn’t miss much. It was better this way. Thus, I will not discuss the plot in this review, to save you the pain. Just know that it’s bad, but can be completely and safely ignored and skipped]

Star Fox Command is the first handheld game in the series, and because it’s not just handheld but handheld on the DS, there were some rather significant changes made to how it plays. To some extent, the controls work significantly like those in Metroid Prime Hunters, but better. In the standard configuration, all action takes place on the top screen with a very minimalistic HUD. The viewpoint is pretty much exactly like every other Star Fox game ever, the camera sits behind your Arwing while you fly around and shoot stuff. The touchscreen is largely occupied by a 2D radar of the map you’re on, showing your Arwing, enemies, power-ups and cores. To actually control your ship, you drag your stylus around the bottom screen. All flight controls are handled down there. Aiming is straightforward with dragging, if you tap the top of the touchscreen you’ll boost, if you tap the bottom you’ll brake, and if you scratch back and forth rapidly you’ll DO A BARREL ROLL. Off to the sides of the radar are your loop controls, with buttons for Star Fox’s traditional U-turn and Back-flip loop moves.

Combat is largely like it’s always been, but now it’s more streamlined. During combat, all buttons on the DS (save for select and start) will shoot - all of them - even the directional pad. While it may seem restrictive, I’ve found it really opens up the control system. Back in Metroid Prime Hunters, all your buttons were used, and you were forced to either tap to attack or use L to shoot, which got painful after a bit. With this, I can use L, I can use any of the dpad directions, I can do whatever I want, and I know it’ll fire because everything is fire.

Apart from standard laser fire, you have two other primary attacks: there’s a charged lock-on shot and there are bombs. The charged shot works more or less how it always has, but different ships can now lock on to single ships multiple times, or multiple ships multiple times. Bombs have been completely overhauled, and are now controlled by dragging the bomb icon from the side of the radar to a point on the map. This can end up being unbelievably cheap, since many levels can be completed instantly with a single well-placed bomb, and you can drop bombs effectively anywhere on the map, no matter where you physically are.

Traditional power-ups are back from previous Star Fox games as well. Each level has assorted rings scattered throughout it, which you can fly through to be rewarded with a gold ring to recharge your shields, a bomb power-up, or a time power-up (which I’ll discuss at length in a moment). These power-ups can also each show up randomly after defeating an enemy. Some power-ups like laser upgrades have been limited to the multiplayer game, in favor of making all ships each unique in some way. Other mechanics are more or less unchanged, like rolling. You do it in a new way, but it’s still used for deflecting shots and kamikaze attacks.

The singleplayer game got nearly as much of an overhaul as the control scheme. People looking for an on-rails space shooter won’t find one, but they’ll still find a game that is still recognizable as Star Fox, unlike Star Fox Adventures. Previous Star Fox games effectively boil down to a line of on-rails space shooting, which generally end with a boss of some type. All games, even going back to the original Star Fox, had multiple paths to take through them, determined either by how you performed in the level or a choice made afterwards. Starting with Star Fox 64, they added “Free-Range” mode, which let you fight in an arena environment. Good news: Star Fox Command has all of these things. Except on-rails sections.

When you start the singleplayer game of Star Fox Command, you quickly find that things have changed dramatically. Levels start with a short discussion on the bridge of the Great Fox between the assorted characters and pilots, and then the actual level starts. And you get a map. Levels in Star Fox Command now feature turn-based strategy elements between live combat. This is somewhat reminiscent of how Star Fox 2 was going to work, before it was cancelled. Basically, on these maps you have your ship(s), friendly bases, enemy clusters, enemy bases and missiles. When you start a turn, you have to draw your flight plans for your ships by clicking and dragging them around the map, either flying to intercept enemy fighters and cruise missiles, or going to attack enemy bases. When you intercept something, a battle is queued up. Since you can have up to four ships being sent around the map, and each pilot can queue up any number of engagements, you can have a TON of stuff to do once you finish the movement phase.

Unfortunately, once you get to the combat phase, it turns out that whoops, there’s only really three kinds of missions. There are “Kill a bunch of enemies” missions where you have to kill specific enemies around the map and collect the “cores” they carry, “Kill a bunch of enemies and then take out the mothership” missions where you do exactly that, and “Shoot down a Missile” missions where you also do exactly that. Sure, there’s some variety, but it only ever comes from what kind of enemies you’re fighting, what the setting is, and what ship you’re flying. Luckily, these three variables result in just enough variety that it doesn’t always feel like exactly the same levels over and over again. Except for the actual killing-the-mothership part, which is exactly the same every time.

One thing to be concerned with during the combat phase is the aspect of time. Missions all now have a running clock. This, combined with the limited turns available to complete a mission creates a sense of urgency. Otherwise, you could just leisurely cruise around and take forever. There are ways to fix that, though. Every time you deflect a shot with a barrel roll you get a few seconds added to the clock. As you fly around, you might get a time power-up that adds 25 seconds to the clock. Furthermore, while you’re flying around the non-combat map, you might find a time bonus out there that adds another 25 seconds to the clock. You also get a minor bonus based on kills when you complete a combat phase. Once you learn to adequately abuse rolls and make a point to hit all the rings in a level, time stops becoming an issue until you hit an extended 1 on 1 dogfight session. If time runs out during a mission, you lose a life and have to start over with 60 seconds on the clock.

Once you complete a combat phase, you’ll send cores back to the Great Fox (which count towards completion of the overall mission), and if you took out a mothership you’ll get some extra turns. Once you finish all of that turn’s outstanding combat engagements, all your ships will be refueled and the next turn will start. If for some chance one of those engagements was a failure, that ship will stop for a turn and you’ll lose a life. If you had a second ship in close proximity, they might be able to finish the task before the turn ends, but that’s usually not likely, since you should generally be off trying to cover as much ground as possible. Failing is especially bad if you let a missile slip past you.

Missiles are shot by certain enemy bases during the course of a mission. They aim towards the Great Fox, and unless they are intercepted they’ll take out the ship and you’ll fail the overall mission. This is an even larger problem because missiles cover a lot of ground between turns, and have the ability to fly over otherwise impassable terrain. So sometimes if you have enough ships to go around, keeping someone back near the Great Fox for defense is a good idea.

Once you successfully liberate all the bases and shoot down all your enemies, you might be presented with a short boss fight, much like those found in previous games. Then your stats for the mission will be tallied up, and you’ll get another little cut scene and a choice of new plans. Generally options like “fly to this planet” or “go chase after that character” or what have you. These choices end up being the deciding factor in what levels you get to see, what characters you get to fight as, and what ending you end up getting.

Let’s go back a bit and talk about all that variety. Let me say that there really is a ton of variety in the game. Here are the numbers: 14 different playable pilots, 15 unique ships (not even counting upgrades that Fox might get through different levels), 9 different planetary settings, 33 unique scenarios, 9 different endings to 9 different pathways to take through the game. Unfortunately, some of these ships might only be available on one specific level that’s only available on one path, and the paths aren’t the easiest things to sort out. It’s incredibly easy to get excited, forget where you are, and suddenly it’s four levels later and you’re getting an ending that makes no sense whatsoever. The ship variety is really what makes the game interesting. Some ships are severely underpowered, or have a weird mix of power, like Slippy’s ship, which is slow, has no boosting power, has no charge abilities but hey, it unloads hot burning plasma death at high speed by default. Or Panther’s ship, which has an atrocious reload time but kills everything in one shot.

Multiplayer has some more standard power-ups, plus things like cloaking. Scoring is done by killing opponents and then collecting their cores. It supports four players over Nintendo WFC, and six via local single-cart download & play. Ship variety is thrown out altogether in an attempt to make things fair. Not a very gripping mode. Sure, it’s a neat quick time-waster, but due to limited turning speeds, dog-fighting can be incredibly frustrating. It’s frustrating enough in singleplayer, and in singleplayer you don’t have lag to deal with.

It’s hard to not compare Star Fox Command to its many predecessors. It’s a fun game, and it doesn’t fall into the same pitfalls of the past (which all involve getting out of a ship), and it manages to bring back some of the more interesting features of the one shelved installment, and it does have actual innovation and a clean straightforward control scheme, but they took out rail shooting. Why they did this, I have no idea. Sure, it’s something you can overcome, but if they had more mission variety and some missions on rails, that would have been all it would have taken to change the game from “A Good Star Fox Game” to “Arguably the Best Star Fox Game”.

Screenshots © Nintendo

Star Fox Command - DS

Presentation

Somewhere between the graphics of Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Assault lays Star Fox Command. I would have liked a slightly more varied assortment of settings, but it wasn’t horrible.

Gameplay

Freeform Space-ish Action-y shooter, just like the rest of the Star Fox series. A bit easier than I would have wanted, but at least it does somewhat ramp up in difficulty as you go on.

Replayability

The first ending barely scratches the surface of the content available in the game. You might not want to go through to find and beat all 9 endings, but even if you fight through a couple, that’s post-game content. Plus there’s multiplayer.

Value

It’s still a new game, sitting at MSRP $34.99. This is still a bit high considering the total amount of content to play through. Find it used and you’ve got a clear steal.

Overall

A very worthy 5th game in one of the better game series around. Unfortunately, it falls just short of greatness in just about every category. Still a good game, but just not a great ”Must-Buy-At-Any-Price” game.