Star Fox Zero

Developed in cooperation between Nintendo and Platinum Games, Star Fox Zero is an on-rails action game that aims to bring something new to the genre with a unique control scheme. However, with a problematic tutorial and an uneven level design, the game fails to fulfill its potential.

The plot of Star Fox Zero is simple: the scientist Andross wants to take control of the galaxy using special portals, and it’s up to the squad led by Fox McCloud to avenge the death of his father, James McCloud, and defeat the simian villain. The story’s charm comes from the fact that characters are anthropomorphic animals who will often utter the classic quirky lines of the series (“Do a barrel roll”) while following a certain logic in their characterization: while the villain Andross is a monkey, Fox’s commander, General Pepper, is a dog, for example – animals considered rivals in Japanese culture.

Although the story is considerably irrelevant to the overall experience – the briefings that precede each mission last no more than twenty seconds, and rightly so –, there is still a visible character arc for Fox. Right at the first mission, for example, his companions constantly compare him to his father – who died a hero’s death in battle –, establishing the protagonist’s need to live up to his image. At the climax, then, Fox’s journey is completed when a certain figure recognizes his accomplishments.

The strength of this moment is reinforced by the choice to make the audio of the conversations come out only through the Wii U’s gamepad during battles. This is to simulate a radio, increasing immersion, but the thing is that the logic is subverted during that climactic moment, when a certain sentence is uttered and the sound comes out both from the TV and the gamepad: the breaking of the pattern reinforces the importance of the scene while also hinting at the strange nature of the character in question.

Nevertheless, Star Fox Zero is a game that values its gameplay much more than its story. During the stages, the protagonist’s ship, the Arwing, follows a predetermined path, but it’s possible to move around the screen to escape the enemy fire and better aim our shots.

What makes this simple on-rails experience more interesting in Star Fox is the scoring system, in which we receive bonus points for eliminating groups of enemies with a single charged shot. The challenge, then, comes from the formation and the speed of enemy ships and creatures, which encourages us to find the best moment to fire our charged shots: we are rewarded if we’re able to detect enemy patterns and wait for the precise moment when they’re grouped together to fire.

This classic structure is improved here thanks to the implementation of motion controls. While we move the ship with the left analog stick, we aim using the gamepad’s gyro sensor. This means that if in Star Fox 64, we could only aim in the direction the Arwing was facing, here we can fly and fire in opposite directions. Such freedom allows for more complex enemy patterns, since ships and robots can now appear at far-off points of the screen and we’re still able to shot them down quickly. In Star Fox Zero, the greater the freedom, the greater the difficulty.

It’s no wonder that movement restrictions are constantly being removed in the so-called “All Range-Mode”. In these parts of the game, we take full control of the Arwing in an enclosed space, no longer playing an on-rails shooter. In Star Fox Zero, these spaces are usually immense, with gigantic spaceships on the horizon shooting lasers that, even far away, can still hit us. The scope of these battles, in some stages, greatly surpasses that of the other Star Fox titles.

However, Star Fox Zero also comes with its infamous dual-screen control scheme: while the TV shows the game in its usual third-person perspective, the Wii U’s gamepad’s screen contains a first-person view from inside the Arwing’s cockpit. And here, the experience starts to suffer due to the wrong focus that is put on the controls.

First of all, the levels don’t require both screens most of the time. In fact, it’s not only possible to ignore the existence of the second screen during most of the game, but it’s actually better to do so: as the gamepad’s motion sensor is already fast enough to reach faraway enemy formations in time, the change in perspective is an unnecessary complication. It’s crucial to switch our attention between the screens only during certain boss fights, since the camera centers on the enemy and no longer on the Arwing’s field of view.

And even so, we don’t even have to keep looking up and down from the TV during these fights, as we can change the image on the TV to that showing on the gamepad with the touch of a button. This is where the other problems of this control system lie: changing screens, for example, is more practical than looking from one to the other, because this way we don’t lose a single second of control over the action. However, during the tutorial, the recommended option is to observe both screens at the same time.

And since both screens are available at all times, we’re pushed to try to use both of them during the levels, although we have nothing to gain by doing this. In other words, the problem with Star Fox Zero’s dual-screen system lies in the great focus that is given to it, when it could have been only a gimmick to use during boss fights and nowhere else.

To make matters worse, the game also has its stages structured in a way that regularly offers unique vehicles for us to pilot, and each one has its own control scheme. That is, we will still be trying to figure out how to handle both screens at the same time when Fox’s Arwing is suddenly switched to a bizarre robot chicken or a helicopter in a needless stealth level. The developers try to present new things at a brisk pace, which is great in other games, but here but the focus on the needless dual-screen scheme can make things confusing.

The quality of the stages is also uneven. Some certainly manage to impress us with a great variety of goals, while others with their art direction. In Sector Y, for example, we must prevent three missiles from reaching a portal while protecting a spacecraft from drone attacks – all the while trying to destroy whole groups of enemy ships with a single charged shot to achieve a good score. And in Fortuna, we’re surprised by the striking visuals, with giant snakes and birds flying over a terrain formed by vines and covered in mist.

But there are also some tedious levels in the game, such as Asteroid Field, where Fox must only break… asteroids, destroying a batch of drones at the end, and others which are artistically bland, such as the ice planet Fichina, whose battle occurs on an icy plain devoid of any notable landmark.

Also present in the game is a system of medals that encourages some exploration, rewarding the player who tests new ways to address certain challenges. Some medals are ingenious (one rewards us if we realize it’s possible to use an upgrade to skip half a stage), while others are just challenging (“do not take damage” kind of medals), but there are some that are simply counterintuitive (“let a certain enemy live, although there is absolutely nothing special about them to make you think that is even an option” kind of medals).

Another design problem is the absence of a map in the “All-Range Mode”. Since these parts have invisible barriers limiting the movement space, the absence of a sensor to indicate where they are can frustrate anyone who hits one of these invisible walls without any warning. In 2016, it’s also unforgivable the absence of an online leaderboard in a game designed around increasing, well, our own score, since such a feature could encourage the player to continue improving their own. But here we are in 2025, where the online infrastructure of the Wii U is no more, so there’s that.

Star Fox Zero is a perfectly competent on-rail shooter, offering some interesting stages and motion controls that allow for more intricate enemy patterns. However, it’s also an unnecessarily confusing experience until the player realizes its greatly advertised gimmick is mostly irrelevant.

May 12, 2025.

Review originally published in Portuguese on May 15, 2016.