A remade version of the Nintendo 64 game, StarFox 64, this version of StarFox follows that game beat for beat.  If you’ve played that game to death, as I have, you know what to expect.  If you haven’t, well here’s what it is.  It’s an on rails spaceship shooter that has you going from planet to planet defeating the boss at the end of the level.  The levels are different and each has a different task for you to achieve in addition to you beating the boss for you to move on.  Depending if you complete this mission, you’ll be able to branch the paths to see an extended portion of the story.  If not, you will get an ending, but not the full one.  With you are your wingmen: Peppy Hare, Falco Lombardi, and Slippy Toad.  They will help you along the way but it’s mostly you saving their butts from getting shot down, which is also part of the task you need to complete in order to move on to the different paths.  There is a multiplayer mode as well as challenge modes and co-op but I was just really going into it for the game to see if anything was different.  The cutscenes are all new but, to me, not welcome.

Visuals:

I will concede that the visuals, for the most part, are absolutely gorgeous.  The environments and the enemies are all looking the best they’ve ever looked with a fluid framerate to boot.  The areas in the previous game which were dark as fuck are now beautifully illuminated and your shots now give off the correct amount of luminosity to a scene.  The cinematics are also nicely done as I couldn’t really tell if something was prerendered or not.  My knock is just how the characters look.  The charm of them has all but vanished and now you’re left with “realistic” looking animals flying ships.  You get over it and I’m looking at it with nostalgia, but I think they all just look like jerks.  Speaking of which…

Audio:

I never knew that Fox McCloud and his cronies were such jerks.  All they’re wanting to talk about is getting paid and basically holding General Pepper at ransom in order to save the system.  I could understand from Falco, but Fox, my man, when did you become such a prick?  The voice acting is good but not my taste.  It’s just for a different generation.  The music is all there but has been redone without the limited space of an N64 cart so everything sounds very cinematic.  I really just can’t get over the characters.  

Completion:

I FINISHED THIS GAME!  Like the original, the game is short.  Short short.  I finished it in one sitting and it took me about an hour as well.  I knew what I was getting into and I’m not regretting it at all.  It is a nice definitive way to play StarFox 64 again and again, which I might.  I just really don’t like what they did to the character’s character and the cutscenes, while cool, I don’t need to see again.  I would recommend it but keep in mind that it’s nothing new. 

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You continue the story of Samus Aran as she travels from world to world in search of what is messing up planets and causing their civilizations to collapse.  To be honest, I couldn’t really tell you the overall story of the game since it’s been a fuck long time since 3 and even that the story was rather sparse.  Either way, you control Samus in the Prime’s signature first person perspective with you scanning the world and fighting enemies utilizing your bag of tricks you build upon as you explore the world.  The added “bonus” to this game is you’ll have a motorcycle for you to traverse a VERY barren desert to get from zone to zone.  Get used to it as you’ll spend the majority of the game here fighting the same 3 types of enemies over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Visuals:

Prime 4’s visuals are kind of a mixed bag.  When the game starts everything seems pretty sharp and so unique.  The game’s opening hits off with a bang and even the first level hits very familiar territory with the lush greenery.  The second level opens strong but then turns into just you going from small corridor to small corridor.  This happens again and again as you go through other levels looking for the next objective.  You are then forced to spend your time in the aforementioned desert which is as visually uninteresting as it sounds.  No civilizations.  No cool life.  No cool enemies.  Nothing.  Just little green blocks for you to smash into and do nothing.  If I were to grade Prime 4 on an average, this desert would bring the game well below a passing grade.

Audio:

It’s the same with the audio.  It starts strong but by the end you just want nothing more than to shut up everything.  The beauty of Metroid games was the isolation you felt as Samus as she was on a moody world exploring and coming to grips with the world.  Now…you got annoying ass sidekicks chiming in every couple of minutes telling you where to go.  It makes Samus look like an idiot.  They also try to either be funny, religious, or tough and it all comes off terrible.  The music is the same.  You don’t get beautiful music or familiar melodies.  Instead you just get what seems like the same 5 second loop on repeat for each level.  The desert, again, just has the most bland background music/noise ever and you have to endure that for hours.

Completion:

Fuck this game.  Waited forever long for this game only to get this mess.  It starts off so good but when you look at the whole you realize what a mess this was.  Gone are the open areas for you to explore and, instead, you’re met with a corridor shooter with every level looking the same.  Even the abilities you get along the way have no meaning since you really don’t even use them.  I need to rant.

I couldn’t finish this game because, at the end, you’re tasked with collecting the pointless Green Crystals that you ignore throughout the world [because they don’t do anything that you know of] with you having to fill up a tank in order for you to start the final run.  What the fuck.  In one portion of the game I was combing the desert looking for someone for, what seemed like, an hour.  During this time I was collecting the crystals, because why not, only to have to go back to an arbitrary bank in a portion of a level they constantly make you go to in which you see the same two enemies only to deposit said crystals and getting a quarter of the way to what I needed.  Fuck that.  I ain’t spending my time, at the end of the game I was already kind of done with, collecting stupid ass crystals, listening to annoying dumb chatter, listening to dull ass music, on a boring as fuck motorcycle, in a boring ass fucking environment, fighting the same dull 2 enemies, then having to go back to the same fucking bank, through which I have to endure lame loading screens, run past the same two enemies I don’t want to fight, endure more tired chatter, just to maybe see if I have the required crystals needed to start the end game.  If not, do that in reverse and rinse and repeat.  Fuck that.  Fuck this game.  I’m done with Metroid Prime.

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