Star Fox Adventure-- an adventure you won't forget...
Star Fox's legacy continues in Star Fox adventures released on the GCN in 2002. Many gamers and Star Fox fans were expecting another great release. After all, Adventures was released following Starfox 64, the best game in the series. Many were expecting another great installment to revive the series. However, what they got was a sad disappointment and a shadow of a true Star Fox game.
Fox is the main character, but the story doesn't start out about him or Star Fox! It deals with a mysterious vixen, battling a bunch of jellyfish with a staff! Sorry, no guns allowed here! Throughout the entire game Fox fights on foot in an "adventure" hence the name, with little or no Arwing action and with a stick no less! Can it get worse? Yes it can!! Peppy Hare has suddenly aged so dramatically he can no longer do anything but sit in his chair…Peppy has starred in about 2 games now and has aged, compared to Mario in 20+ games who hasn't aged a bit. Falco a main character in the series, indeed the favorite of many gamers has left the team. Slippy now stays on the Great Fox assisting Fox from afar. I think this was a terrible way to start the story on such a depressing note, and the weird mix of dinosaurs and sci-fi really didn't work out. Also setting foot on a hostile planet with no weapons doesn't make sense either. In fact the same could be said for the entire story, it just doesn't make any sense!
They tried they really did. The downfall? Adventures is incredibly story-driven meaning that most aspects of the game are twisted around the story, which is not so great when the story falls flat on it's face like it does here. Fox journeys throughout the planet battling dinosaurs with a staff, as I said before he had a gun, but he didn't bring it! Fox does pull of some nice looking moves with his staff but the combat is an exact copy from the Zelda series. However, Fox is less versatile than Link. Enemies are everywhere even in friendly regions, which is a big let down. Who wants to fight off a horde of Dinosaurs while shopping at the store? Yes, there is a store now, Fox buys things there, which may or may not help him. Here is a bit of good news: Fox still flies in the Arwing through some of the levels, however the Arwing now his limited capabilities as Fox couldn't afford to service it once in a while. This means that the Arwing lacks most functions, and has no lock-on, only a primitive laser! Interestingly Fox was able to afford cargo space in the bottom of it though! This game copied a Zelda-style adventure but lacked all the good things about one. Whatever happened to the rail-shooter you might ask, but when they had something that works, they decide to re-work it! A shame when Star Fox was really starting to make a name for itself.
Would you like to see these wonderful new environments come to life? At this point you might be tempted to say no, but overall the graphic quality wasn't bad. Everything was displayed in nice detail with varying shading and lighting effects. The objects that were being displayed however leave much to be desired. Temples, leaves, grass, rivers, and even the dinosaurs were very generic! Nothing was very artistically arranged to catch your eye, it was just thrown out there in a confusing fashion.
Fox does have a nice new look despite the other flaws, you can now see fuzz on his head and his tail wag when he walks. This made up for some errors, but ultimately the graphics are rather generic.
This adventure has some very nice music in it. What's the catch? The only good pieces of music were taken and re-mixed from Star Fox 64. Levels and caves on the actual planet when not flying an Arwing are very unnoticeable. Most are too subtle to make out when the music present. Storms and sudden changes in the environment sound very nice and realistic despite the other drawbacks. Dinosaurs also grunt and roar like actual dinosaurs may have which makes some sense unlike most other aspects of the game.
This was a sad turn for Fox and the series as a whole. Fans had come to respect and enjoy Star Fox as a superb series, and even took some of the famous quotes out of it. Adventures destroyed that reputation in one fell swoop, due to the re-working of the gameplay gamers no longer knew what to expect out of a Star Fox game and the series most, if not all, of it's good reputation. The game played decently as an adventure, but not as Star Fox. As most aspects of the game didn't make sense, it was as if Star Fox was just suddenly dropped in. The game did have some good points about it and thus the rating.