A Remake We Didn’t Know We Needed

Aside from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Star Fox 64 was the most-played Nintendo 64 game by an 8 or 9-year-old me. I never owned it, but whenever my parents dragged me to Blockbuster to pick out a movie or two for us to watch over the weekend, I often re-rented Star Fox 64 if nothing else looked good.

The branching paths and rather steep difficulty for someone that age in this iconic rail-shooter meant I never grew bored trying to take down the evil Dr. Andross. I always had room to improve, and it seemed like there were new things to discover each time I played, making it a shame that none of the latter Star Fox releases ever lived up to the bar set by Fox’s second ever outing.

Still, I was skeptical when Nintendo announced a remake for Star Fox for the Switch 2 rather than a new title after Fox, Peppy, Falco, and Slippy hadn’t been seen for almost a decade, and I doubted if a nearly 30-year-old formula would hold up. Like many, I thought we were instead due for a new adventure, not a retread, no matter how much young me loved this game.

It only took a few hours back in the Lylat System to blast that skepticism away.

Star Fox had me do a U-turn for two reasons: the slick coat-of-paint energizes the feel, while the classic, straightforward gameplay and the new challenges added to the game make it far, far more engaging for someone who has cleared Sector Y, Katina, and seen the true ending on Venom 2 dozens of times.

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Star Fox (2026) brings a fantastic new coat of paint to this classic.

A More Colourful Cast

The core cast also gets fleshed out a little bit more with fully voice-acted and animated cutscenes between missions, cementing Fox and Falco’s rivalry even further and giving Peppy more fatherly energy. Fox himself is more cocksure than I remember him too, which I wasn’t sure of at first, but by the end of my third or fourth run through the campaign – which only takes an hour or so each time – I grew to appreciate this updated characterization as it fits the adventurous feel of the story well.

On the other hand, auxiliary characters like Bill and Kat still pop up now and again but aren’t expanded upon like the main cast. Other than some unlockable blurbs about them in the main menu, I would’ve loved to see more of Kat and Falco’s relationship or had Bill, Fox, and Slippy reminisce about their time in Corneria’s military academy.

This is also true of Star Wolf’s villainous rival team. This remake was a missed opportunity to give them more screen time, which would in turn make the final showdown against them near the end of each campaign run more dramatic and exciting.

They also got rid of the iconic “Cocky little freaks!” line that the Shogun Warrior shouts during his boss battle, which is an absolute travesty.

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The cast has been given more screen time in the remake, adding a lot more personality to the story.

A Blast Right From Nintendo 64’s Past

Anyway, other than a wealth of new cutscenes, reworked dialogue, pages upon pages of diary entries, and an absolutely amazing fully orchestrated soundtrack, the main campaign isn’t changed from the original. Visiting Corneria, Aquas, and Area 6 all these years later with new, gorgeous visuals that truly show what the Switch 2 can do is an absolute treat that I haven’t been able to put down, but still a retread.

As such, I’m disappointed there’s no extra levels expanding upon the universe or characters. After the rush of nostalgia wore off, I grew hungry for a proper sequel rather than this remake.

And if there is a Star Fox 128 on the horizon – with how much effort they put into redesigning the characters and introducing Star Fox in the Super Mario Galaxy movie, there has to be, right? – I hope it continues the on-rails style seen in this iteration.

For those that didn’t grow up with Star Fox 64, Fox and friends fly through each of the bite-sized levels on a set path, moving between the four corners of the screen while breaking and occasionally doing a somersault to avoid enemies that sneak up behind you – except when you enter All-Range Mode during specific boss fights and stages. During those, you’ll be able to freely move within a set arena.

Regardless of the mode you’re in, your Arwing – the name of the ship you pilot – can brake and boost as well, but by-and-large you’re mostly just aiming and avoiding enemy fire to the best of your ability through gorgeously rendered asteroid fields and toxic water worlds.

For better or worse, it maintains the classic, arcade-like gameplay of the original, especially with the brightly colored rings you fly through to power up your shields and specific ways to trigger alternate routes through the campaign.

However, this iteration of Star Fox gives you clues on how to head to Sector Y instead of Meteo, for example, where you’ll see different cutscenes and play through more difficult levels on your way to defeat Andross. More importantly, these routes add a ton of replayability to the short campaign.

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The moment-to-moment gameplay is faithful to the originals.

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This means the campaign doesn’t see any new stages added.

A True Challenge

But adding even more replayability in an Expert mode that unlocks once you achieve a medal on all 16 of the levels, which is easier said than done. Here, Fox’s Arwing will take more damage, lose a wing or two more readily, and face far more enemies, obstacles, and tougher bosses. There are medals to earn here too, and despite being an otherwise short game, I’ll be hunting them for weeks or even months to come.

I’ve actually not played a lot of the Expert campaign because I’ve been stuck in the new Challenge mode, which presents six challenges for each stage on both the Normal and Expert difficulties. Some of these are rough and require complete mastery of your Arwing and knowledge of said level to complete, like taking down the Granga Mech boss in Corneria in 10 seconds or reaching the boss in Area 6 on Expert without collecting any power-ups or heals.

For a Star Fox 64 fan such as myself, this is pure space crack. Some of the challenges are absolutely unfair – I’m looking at you, “Destroy all 3 arms before the Gorgon phases out” – but regardless add so much replayability and depth to a game that otherwise offers almost nothing in the way of truly new playable content.

This extra content is awesome when you consider Nintendo’s selling Star Fox at a lower price than most Switch 2 games, and I haven’t even got to the multiplayer modes yet.

Pew-Pewing With Friends!

There are two of them, including a novel but ultimately forgettable co-op function for the campaign where one player controls the Arwing and the other aims with a separate Joy-Con. Fun to play with my daughter when she’s a bit older maybe, but it’s nothing compared to the four-on-four objective-based dogfights that you can play both locally and online in Battle Mode.

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Some of the challenge and expert mode content is very tough.

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There’s a lot to love in Battle Mode.

To be honest, I completely ignored this mode at first and might not have touched it if not for the responsibility I have as a reviewer to play a game thoroughly. It’s a good thing I did. Instead of a simple deathmatch between two teams of four, Star Fox tasks you with completing objectives – escorting a cargo back to base, defeating non-player enemies, controlling a specific point – while also shooting down enemy ships and collecting power-ups in one of three large arenas.

With a wealth of multiplayer-exclusive power-ups, competent bots to play against, and options to toggle matches to your preference, Battle Mode adds a much-needed layer of ‘new’ to this Star Fox remake. While I need a bit more practice and maybe three-component friends to play with, matches against real players capture the feel of intense dogfighting that has sorely been missing from gaming in recent years – decades, even.

It’s unfortunate that with such a standout multiplayer mode that there aren’t any announced plans for more maps or some kind of ranked leaderboards to help a competitive scene to thrive. As it stands, I can see the community growing tired of the three maps rather quickly. In fact, I already had trouble finding full parties of players, leaving the campaign and challenge modes the true stars of the Star Fox show.