Star Fox 64 was one of if not the best space shooters that was released for the Nintendo 64. The game was amazing and is still seen as the best in the Star Fox franchise. Nintendo would update the game with some fancy new graphics and features and release it on the Nintendo 3DS.
Story & Presentation
Star Fox 64 3DS for what is kind of an on rails shooter does have a pretty strong story. The story centers around the villain Andros who is just flat out crazy and he wants to destroy the Lylat System. You play the role of Fox McCloud the son of a fighter pilot that Andross killed, and it’s down to you and your team to put a stop to him. The story despite featuring anamorphic characters is really well told. The game has some pretty fun voice acting that sometimes can get on your nerves, but in a good way. In all this is just a really fun sci-fi story that serves as a good reason to be doing what you are doing in the game.
This game looks amazing. They did more than just give the Nintendo 64 version a fresh lick of paint they pretty much re-made everything in the game, and the end result is just amazing. Each of the levels that the game has will blow your mind and the game also moves at an incredible pace and the frame rate holds up the entire time.
Now I will admit that for me the majority of Nintendo 3DS games are better when you play them with the 3D turned off. But if you want a game that is better with the 3D on then Star Fox 64 is that game. Do not get me wrong you can play this in 2D and the game looks amazing, but the 3D here does actually add a great deal to the way the game looks. The outer space sections in particular look incredibly with the 3D turned on to the max. I also found that this is one of the few games that did not give me sore eyes after I had been playing for an hour or so.
Gameplay
The core game play of Star Fox 64 3D is very tight. You have amazingly precise control over your Arwing. You zoom around the levels shooting down the enemy, but you also need to keep an eye on where you are flying so that you do not crash into anything. The game is so fast that you would think you would be slamming into things all the time, but thanks to the amazing controls you only slam into things if you mess up. As well as flying certain parts of the game also let you get behind the wheel of a tank. This is pretty cool and does a good job in keeping the game fresh. The game can be beaten in a hour, but there is a great deal of replay value. There are multiple paths you can take to get to the last level and there is also hidden levels for you to find as well.
Now I said the controls are tight, but this is only if you use the standard controls of the circle pad to control your vehicle. You see Star Fox 64 3D also lets you control the game by using the motion controls. This really does not work it makes it hard to control and if you have the 3D on, moving your 3DS around makes it hard to see what is happening.
The game has two main game modes. One lets you play through the game the same way as it was on the Nintendo 64 (with the much better graphics of course) this is a great throwback to the Nintendo 64 and it is great. The game also has a new 3DS mode. This mode is kind of the same, but Nintendo have fine tuned it and made some small changes here and there and you can also save your game so you do not have to beat it all in one setting. As well as the single player modes Star Fox 64 3DS also has a really fun multi player mode that lets you battle it out with 3 other players. What is fun here is that each players face is over their vehicle.
Final Thoughts
Star Fox 64 3DS is a great shooter. While the single player story mode can be beating really quickly it does have a great deal of replay value and there is of course the multi player to keep you busy as well. If you want a game that makes the best use of the 3D abilities of the 3DS then this is a great game to do that.
