This game is sooo close to being the best game in the series. If it had the branching path’s and/or more missions, more stuff to do in Single Player after beating the game, more objective variety in on-foot missions, and better sound design (in terms of sound effects), this could have been undisputed. But even without all that, this is one of my top 5 favorite games of all time.
Double the number of missions, incorporate co op like they wanted to do then yeah. Branching paths is hard thing to try to have with a story like assault. 64 story is so simple that it can pull it off easily.
Everytime I see an overwhelmingly positive take on this game it is a vindicating feeling. It feels like a culmination of everything that came before it. Assault really is a true and faithful follow up to StarFox 64 (while still giving fans of Adventures a bone too). It is everything a good sequel should be. It takes motifs of what came before, turns them on their head, redefines them and or expands on them. I think the only other game in this series that does this well is StarFox 2 and even then, Assault has more thru-line from 64 than 2 has with SF1.
I couldn’t agree more! This game really is the ultimate culmination of everything that came before in both gameplay and narrative and it really is a shame how often it is forgotten. Star Fox 2 is also based. Thanks for watching!
@starfox300 it really didn't. Sure it's dated. But it was far from bad. Matter of fact I to this day crave people that will sit down and play the VS with me
I'm hoping that someday, we get a true sequel to Assault. The game was fantastic and one of the gems of my GCN collection. I'm sick of Nintendo constantly rebooting the series. Just ignore Command and keep going after Assault. Bring back Krystal while you're at it! She was a great addition to the team, and I think her and Fox compliment each other very well.
7:55 only logical assumption I can come up with is General Pepper didn't need Fox until Andrew got too powerful in Assault. It's kinda like asking why doesn't the police station ask the military for help at a bank robbery
This was the game that got me in to Star Fox. The soundtrack blew me away and the gameplay was a lot of fun. I hope this game gets a remaster like Metroid Prime did.
I never understood the hate for Star Fox Assault; loved playing it not only single player (the Arwing sections were as they should, and I found the TPS sections actually cool) but also SO MUCH TIME in multiplayer, often the on-foot maps just to grab that stupidly powerful Bazooka and shoot my brothers in the face lmao Also people really swore off on Star Fox Zero when they should be aware that it is a miracle SF fans even got a new game in first place. Just ask the people waiting for anything new after Kid Icarus Uprising, F-Zero GX, and DEFINITELY ask any Metroid fans how it felt like before Samus Returns and Dread happened at all. If anything, the most hope for Star Fox is a port of Zero on the Switch with new controls, but if that is not what Nintendo's looking forward to do (which Platinum Games themselves seem to confirm)...then they better get comfortable to leave poor Fox in his coffin for another decade... (Oh and Ex-Zodiac too; basically an indie game made to be like Star Fox 64. It is the closest thing people will have to a new Star Fox game...and a "dream" one for that matter since it is all building on top of the favorite child that is SF64's gameplay)
It really is a shame how poor Star Fox Zero did financially. I personally really enjoyed the controls and thought they were immersive but also understand why so many people could never get accustomed to it. I won't ever get over it just reusing 64's plot though, huge missed potential there and just makes the whole product feel like it's "been there, done that." They should've just continued from Assaults plot with either a game that takes place in between assault and command or just make command non-canon because literally why did anyone think that game having 10 vastly different endings would be a good idea. I know this response has been all over the place lol but I really do think the initial dismissal of assault back in the day was simply because Fox was out of the arwing again, so people associated that with adventures and wrote it off. Thanks for watching!
Nice to see a retrospective on the 2nd-best Star Fox game ever made! I think this game could've used more levels. I would've loved to see some underwater and hyperdrive stages in SF Assault, like what we got on the N64. I felt like SF64 had more level variety, although SF Assault had more gameplay variety with the on-foot Halo stages. With that said, this game ages better than SF SNES, and this is coming from someone who played SF SNES first. That game was impressive for its time, but those frame-rate problems were why I prefer SF64 and SF Assault. Whenever I hear a SF fan rant about how Nintendo needs to make a proper follow-up to SF64, I always think, "well, buddy, did you buy SF Assault...?".
3:10 of all the Star Fox analysis videos I've seen you're probably the first person to say it and this is what I've been telling people. Star Fox 64 is a blessing but also a big curse. Many people refuse to get over it and every Star Fox game after has been crapped on bcuz it's not exactly like it. Bruh I literally seen a video of someone complaining about Star Fox Assault bcuz he didn't like how long the conversations were and how they sounded. He said he wish it was like the 64 where the dialogue was short and sounded like an old radio frequency 😐. Star Fox needs better fans
@@Jashinist-follower it's a good game but definitely not the best game. Star Fox Assault, Star Fox Adventures, Star Fox 64, Star Fox Command in that order are the best
@@Jashinist-follower I got Star Fox (possibly Metroid) as the best Nintendo franchise. It has deep and dark lore, good characters, love interest, new villains, new game mechanics, new designs, voice acting and new environments. Very very underrated franchise. 100% better than Mario, Zelda, Kirby, Donkey Kong etc. Those games are carried by nostalgia 💯
Assault will always be my favorite in the series; lot of good memories with the multiplayer and friends. Just like you said, I hope a sequel keeps this formula instead; Refine the ground mechanics, keep the darker story elements (admit it, it's a zombie setting), and give us Online Multiplayer. That will be a hit.
i feel like the big question is, where do you go after fighting the hive mind? I think a new starfox game should probably expound upon earlier story points because that's where the most potential for an emotionally driven story probably lies. Try to tie things together in a way that makes the aparoids seem like an important overarching side mission everyone was forced to go on, so basically now we're getting back to whatever everyone's lives were about before the aparoids appeared as a starting story point. As someone who doesn't know too much starfox lore outside of assault, i think wolf could either become the main villain, or what vegeta is to goku in some ways. Cause i think one of the hard parts would be coming up with a new villain, without seeming forced. I think the idea of the aparoids in particular was seriously skirting this line, they could have been very extremely boring and uninteresting but were somehow handled well and made for a pretty beautiful looking enemy too...*coughs* Starfox Assault is peak starfox to my mind, if the series is continued, it should take most of its ques from Assault. namely in lore progression, character design, and characterization. It just needs to find a way to flow and progress naturally...
As spiteful as this may sound, I feel like the people who are mentally stuck in the belief that Star Fox should be an on-rails only franchise until the end of time are the core reason this franchise went under in the first place.
What I feel is that Nintendo beign Nitendo, thought like this "We made a new starfox game on the wiiu and it flopped meaning people doesn't like the franchise" not realizing the dead horse that was the wiiu and the awful design choices of that game
Idk why people always struggle with the controls when the game has a dual stick control set up in the game. Just select control setup 2 on startup and the game plays like any other shooter on the market
Great video essay! I loved Star Fox Assault too growing up, and I'm glad to see it appreciated. I love your video-essay-esque style, by the way. You tell a story well and a lot of your jokes land well. I was kind of suprised to see the low view count.
as someone who actually prefers the original SNES star fox to star fox 64 (i still like both games fine - i just don't like how nintendo cartooned everything up with SF64 and made the atmosphere a lot more, i dunno, goofy, than the first game) star fox assault honestly always felt like more of a worthy sequel to the original star fox than star fox 64 did to me. i like that it sticks closer to the original arwing design too, which i always thought was a lot cooler looking than SF64's design. and i like how assault carries more of the original game's sense of depth and gravitas that wasn't quite as deep or serious in SF64. maybe the real problem with the star fox franchise is that it took argonaut software and namco - not nintendo - to make the most truly groundbreaking and interesting games in the franchise, whereas nintendo themselves have just made pretty-good - to - ok games in the franchise. 🤷♂
You know now that I think about it I think your right on that. I mean during development they used a snes style arwing miniatures before using the assault designs
Back in the day (late 2006) I joined the fan website Starfox-online and alongsode others posted videos of me attrmting new world records for all missions. I got 2nd on Fichina and Aparoid Homeworld, 3rd (iirc) on Sauria. Largest stablished Combo on Fichina and Aparoid Homeworld. A grim remark, but the current modern conflict has proven how ground forces (not vehicles) can crush air forces of the "2nd" army of the world.
I've only played Assault once in my adult life, compared to literal thousands of hours in SF64, so my perspective is obviously biased, but I think most defenders of Assault (or other Star Fox follow-ups) kind of miss the point of the criticism. To me, Assault suffers from what I've come to call Banjo-Tooie Syndrome. Banjo Kazooie was very polished in multiple ways. It had large, intricate, and interesting levels, but not so large as to be overwhelming. There were clear formulas to each level, so you knew what to expect: 10 Jiggies, 100 Notes, 2 Honeycomb Pieces, and an occasional Mumbo Jumbo you needed to find tokens for. Banjo-Tooie, on the other hand, took the scale of the world and dialed it up to 11. Bigger worlds, more collectibles, more boss-fights, tons of interconnectivity between levels. All things that *sound* like they would make the game better, but paradoxically made it less fun to many people, myself included. In BK, I could trust that most things in a level could be completed before leaving for the next one. But in Tooie, I always felt like I had to skip half the level on the first pass because I needed a late-game ability, or an obscure secret tunnel from who-knows which other level. It was overwhelming to the point of being un-fun. In BK, I never wanted to put down the controller until I had collected every Jiggy and every Note. In Tooie, I just wanted the game to be over, because there was too much to backtrack for. To be clear, I'm not saying Banjo-Tooie was a bad game, but in it's ambition, it lost sight of the polish and charm that made the original so great. So it alienated a large portion of it's fans, while non-fans had no reason to play it. To me, Assault does the same thing. Everything about SF64 is very polished. It's cinematic, engaging, replayable, and challenging. The pace never slows too much. The controls are intuitive and clean. The physics are solid and dynamic. The scoring system is straightforward but deep. There is a low skill-floor - so it's beginner friendly - with an impossibly high skill-ceiling for those who want to push for the best scores. Assault, just like Tooie, increases the cinematics, scope, and variety, which are all good things. It just doesn't do any of them particularly well. The grounded sections have clunky controls and unclear objectives, which kill the pace of any playthrough. The scoring system uses arbitrary multipliers, which makes it harder to understand and less fun to optimize. The short draw-distance makes it annoying and impractical to hunt down enemies in All-range mode. Even the Arwing's physics feel sluggish. 64's Arwing had forward momentum and it took time to turn the aiming reticle, as if it were a real starfighter. In Assault, it's more like they took a slow-moving camera, added a free-aiming reticle that moves anywhere at any speed, then slapped a ship on top to make it look better. I know these are all nit-picky, small details, but that's kind of the point. They are small things that a lot of people, critics included, have trouble articulating or even understanding. But they add so much to the game in ways that scope and ambition can't. And for the die-hard 64 fans, playing something like Assault can be incredibly frustrating, because it doesn't have any of the small things that made them fall in love with the first game. Most critics have trouble articulating it, so the frustration often manifests in scapegoats like "Fox shouldn't leave the ship", but the real problem lies in *how* those sections were implemented. Again, Star Fox Assult is not a bad game. I would even call it a good game. But it doesn't have the key details that made Star Fox 64 a masterpiece. Trying new things with a sequel is admirable. But that ambition will always fall short if it's at the expense of polish and attention to detail.
Pretty sure this was the first game I played on my GameCube and I had a blast playing it through. Glad to see others had enjoyed the game as much as I did.
11:01 The snowy planet was always supposed to be Fichina. Despite being called Fortuna in 64, that was just a flub on the localization's part, though the 3DS version fixed it.
@@JonathanAllen191 switch is in its half life says nintendo why not throw a star fox on it and make it a grand adventure like assault bigger better....well we can dream right?
You know, maybe since starfox couldn’t cut it as a consistent game series, maybe it could be revived as a tv show? Idk, since Nintendo bought a movie studio
I'm glad there's someone out there who enjoyed Zero and Adventures! I feel like the course correction to make Zero more like 64 was informed by SF643Ds good sales, but it's all moot now. Anyway, Assault was a great game, and your enthusiasm comes through in both the main retrospective and the goofy skits. I really like your style of video and will be watching many more.
Which is/was actually the opposite of logical. The fact that a port of the original Star Fox 64 was so readily available on the 3DS just made it that much more insane to do another hard reboot with the next game.
I very much enjoyed watching this, please don't get me wrong, but I feel the title is a little misleading... I was expecting you to talk about Nintendo addressing their reasons of why they want fans to forget about this game, or at least address your conspiracy theories thinking that Nintendo wants the game to be forgotten about. But it's just a video of you explaining the game itself from Start to finish and expressing your opinion about it here and there, and no mention of Nintendo themselves and their thoughts. So the answer to "why" was never really answered... Still, this was an enjoyable video none the less
"Do they not have any ground forces" I mean, not really. They've been in long and expensive a multi-year long war around the Lylat system, Corneria basically got assimilated by the Borg and also they only forces that were able to make it Aparoid home world were the small armada that was able to use the jump gate. The fleet fighting Oikanny at the begging of the game was bigger than what they had left at the end of the game. (Which means they're stuck there... right? How do they get back, is it going to take years?, great fox was destroyed, there is no gate and the Arwing isn't really capable of long distance interstellar travel, I think, they never really made the capabilities of travel very clear) The Lylat system and Corneria are so messed up at the end, honestly Command shouldn't be possible. They should be spending the next few decades rebuilding.
I’d assume two way else why send the last of their surviving forces on an already suicidal mission… and then leave them stuck in seemingly another part of the galaxy? In truth, questions like these make me wish Nintendo took lore and story more seriously in their games.
I'm towards the end of the video and there's nothing I really gotta criticize. Finally found a Star Fox fan who can logically criticize the game without completely 💩ing on it as a whole. If more Star Fox "fans" were open minded to change and actually read the comics I think games like Adventures and Assault would be more welcomed with open arms
Star Fox Assault the best Star Fox Game Yo the Multiplayer would be awesome with online and all Star Wolf members playable There is a lot of potential and a lot of stuff you can see that if they had more time they would of added more missions to the single player like how there is no mission on Titania Desert, Zoness Sea Base or the Great Fox map on Single Player even though there is multiplayer maps of them. There is obviously a lot of content they just never got enough time to get around to making.
I'm so glad this one finally gets the love it deserves, sure it was not flawless, sure 64 is amazing, but 64 shouldn't all the franchise could ever be XD
I loved Adventures because I was better at it than at 64 (yes, I am a Zelda loser lol), and I loved Assault because THE MUSIC IS SO DAMN EPIC (I love classical music in general). Command I never even played because something of its vibes kept me off buying it, and only years later did I hear that it is apparently the GZSZ of Star Fox (literally. WHY.) I have bought Zero and also Starlink Battle for Atlas (which on the Switch has the exclusive Star Fox addon to the campaign) but I haven't gotten around to play these yet... Finally someone who agrees that Assault WASN'T actually that bad (remember how people booed it out when they showed Fox outside the cockpit at that E3? And then the sales weren't too good either... No wonder Nintendo never went anywhere with it after that entry.)
I just wish this series didn't do what the Sonic series does, where it lays the groundwork for some really cool stuff and then immediately throws it away and reinvents the wheel instead of building on that foundation. Assault is, by the way, my favorite game in the series too. It has some flaws, but they're mostly about balancing gameplay types throughout the levels. But man, the taste we got of changing between vehicles mid-mission to keep track of different objectives was so good, and I wish it'd get perfected. I don't expect it to though; this game unfortunately didn't sell very well, and that's all that really matters to companies in the end.
I don't care what anyone says, this is one of the best game to play on the Gamecube and one of the most mature stories told during it's time. It's a shame that more people didn't like this game. Also the multiplayer was amazing
I feel like we need a sequel to this game or a remake but include better/modernised controls as well as a couple of extra railshooter levels to balance out the on-foot gameplay
The only game I found a pain was Zero, and I so wanted to enjoy it too but I just could not work with those controls. Still would love it to be put on Switch with a redone control set up.
Those Aperiods nears near the end before the queen fight can be killed. you just have to literally keep blasting em... with blue Hyper lasers :/ and then like also to explain wolf and team leaving their ships. I think they have an emergency transporter on their Wolfens Very much the Federation Fighters in star trek. TNG. DS9 Voy.
These reviews make me feel so old lol. When you mentioned being a kid during the 64/gamecube era.. I remember nes being new, but when we got the snes, we had to have star fox! For the time, it was badass, and getting to see it brand new was mind blowing.
I think it is such a crime that Miyamoto basically tosses Star Fox aside because he "doesn't have any new ideas or experiences to give for the series" but has allowed Mario to rehash the same plot for decades. Especially when you consider that Nintendo has NEVER thought to expand upon Assault's kick ass multiplayer. Like, for how large and detailed the maps were back then, its crazy that they never did an HD Star Fox game with online multiplayer. Like, imagine 8 vs. 8 aerial and on-foot dog fights featuring the extended Star Fox cast. If Splatoon can be Nintendo's wacky approach to an online shooter, why not use Star Fox as the more conventional answer with an actual TDM mode? Just spit ballin' here.
I'm a hard-core Star Fox fan, & my number one favorite game in the series is Assault. I've never played 64 (I don't have a 64 & I didn't grow up with one, I have a Gamecube, & I would play 64 3D later down the road) Although Assault is not perfect, it is what I'd like Star Fox to be modeled off of in the future.
I am one of those StarFox fans that like Assult and Advantures... Sue me. I also wish we had a kind of a rpg StarFox game with the ability to play as Wolf or Leon or Panther... Would be cool, but Nintendo has a different buisness model.
starfox fans: we want a new starfox game! nintendo: okay, cool! here's starfox assault! fans: EW GROSS THATS NOT WHAT WE WANT! we need space combat! nintendo: okay, here's starfox assault. it has a lot of space combat, but also has on-foot missions to keep things from getting boring. fans: OH MY GOD NO. We want SPACE COMBAT. nintendo: okay... here's a remake of starfox 64. fans: We said a NEW starfox game! nintendo: *facepalm* FINE! HERE'S A NEW ONE. STARFOX ZERO. fans: this is the same thing as starfox 64! why did you even make this!? nintendo: that's it. we're done. no more starfox.
Star Fox 64 will always be my favorite, but Star Fox Assault will always be a close second for me just because of the story, soundtrack and stakes alone. Assault is such a great and fun game, I wish Star Fox would make a great comeback, where Fox himself is now like James Mccloud, and his son is the new main character with a brand new threat to the galaxy. The Switch is one of Nintendo’s popular consoles at the moment, they could surely come up with a great Star Fox game if they wanted to, it would surely sell.
Maybe I missed it, but I feel like you never answered the question as to why Nintendo wants us to forget Assault? But the vibe I get is that it was so different from 64 gameplay-wise and they never revisited the formula since, opting for arwing-only games since then (albeit with some lame gimmicks)
On the part of the cornerian navy, it might be a translation error. I think the Cornerian navy would retreat if there only had 20% of the fleet left in order to atleast try to hold and defend what they have left back home. General Pepper is out of commission and an experienced Admiral or Colonel is needed to take his place to keep stability.
Honestly the next Star Fox game I want to see is a remake of Star Fox 2 in the style of StarLink: Battle for Atlas... Star Fox Battle For Lylat anyone?
3:20 idk what else u have to offer in the video but I have to disagree with this statement of calling it a Zelda clone. If u analyze every 3D action and adventure game u see they're all like this. And I think it's highly unfair to constantly compare Fox to Zelda wen we literally have games like DK being EXACTLY LIKE Mario, same with Kirby to a degree
Star Fox 64 is still just overall the better game. -Sound Effects are better, & have more impact -Game was more Balanced (No Easy/Med/Hard modes, just branching paths) -Vehicles are faster (Flying in Assault & Zero has gotten slower & slower) -Land Master segments are on rails, like they should be -Alternate Mission Outcomes (Completed vs Accomplished) -Mission's are short & sweet, Assaults are too long & drawn out (25mins for half a mission is insane) While I still enjoy Assault, playing it gets boring a lot quicker than it does for Starfox 64 & the 3DS version lets you save between missions which all around makes it even better. Even though Assault has an orchestrated OST it mostly never hit the mark like SF64's OST did in a lot of ways. The one good thing Assault did have was great graphics but it was mostly spectacle over substance. I always felt largely disappointed after playing the game on easy & never felt the need or want to play it again after one go through. Even to this day, I've only beaten the game once because it's just not that great of an experience to play. Yet, I've beaten Starfox 64 over a dozen times because it is just _that_ good. Maybe too good, because as you said they set the bar too high, but that's not really a bad thing. The thing is they don't want to try to surpass it & they very easily could if they would just stop with the gimmicky BS. They made Zero fail on purpose because they made it not a video game, but a glorified tech demo & they should never have done that in the first place.
Too many A presses. I'm a fan of how Star Fox Zero plays funny enough. 64 is great. This one seemed slower and maybe I'm just a noob, but idk, plays different, the core gameplay just didn't mesh w me, but I'm trying to see if it will grow on me, and coming here to get some fair takes and perspectives to make that possible. I make decent scores. It's just, slow, and the mashing wears me out when 64 and zero both do 3 shots per press and this one doesn't. Am I missing something? Bombing everything isn't fun, even if you're not locking on, it's kinda lame.
This game was my childhood and I hoped there would be a revival someday. Hell I've had an idea for a game that heavily leans into music. Have the stage react and move along with each level, a lot like Just Shapes and Beats but in 3D
It's great to hear about the 2nd of 2 Star Fox games I grew up playing, 64 being the first, getting the recognition it deserves. I actually still have the Player's Choice copy with me to this day. The only GameCube game I have, used to have Pokemon Colosseum, which also happened to be the one I got with the GameCube I got for Christmas.
