Strap yourselves in and get ready to fly across the Lylat System again. Star Fox is back in an Arwing to follow in his father’s footsteps and take out Andross in this somewhat re-imagining of Star Fox 64. Fox and the team also brought some extra vehicles on board. In addition to the Arwing and Landmaster, you’ll also be piloting new vehicles such as the Walker and Gyrowing that add a new dynamic and see you completing missions in different ways.
Star Fox Zero is the kind of game where you’re having fun… until you’re not. The unorthodox control scheme and lack of control customization can cause some serious frustration that go against all of your gamer instincts. There’s nothing wrong with a learning curve, but Star Fox Zero takes a completely counter-intuitive take on controls and fails to make a streamlined control scheme that gamers can pick up and play.
Star Fox Zero has a lot of great elements. Delightful visuals. Fun, colorful characters. Creative level designs. Arwing sections will have you zooming along taking out enemies and dodging attacks and environmental hazards. Other sections will have you buzzing around and make you stop and think for a moment as you figure out what you need to do in order to advance. Such as search for control panels with your Gyrowing, and use a tiny robot named Direct-i that’s tethered to your ship, to use the panels and activate a door or some mechanic. Or use it to carry an object, such as a bomb, and take out searchlights. The levels themselves were very well thought out.
If it were not for some major glaring issues that plague the entire adventure, this would have been an amazing installment. If you’re not already used to how most games of this kind control and you don’t mind motion controls, then these issues may not be issues for you at all. For those of us with the muscle memory of countless action and shooter games, this game will fight you every step of the way.
The developers tried to make something innovative and different. Just because you do things differently, doesn’t mean it’s good. Games continually use similar control schemes because they work and have become a standard that we all understand. Having an option to setup the controls the way we see fit would have removed the majority of malady from this title, but this is another standard that the developers disregarded.
Star Fox Zero really wants to force motion controls down your throat. You do have the option to turn them off for the Arwing… sort of… but you will still be forced to use them in many situations. This is especially vexing when traditional controls would have worked so well in these situations. So what’s so bad about motion controls? Aside from the fact that they’re delayed compared to an analog stick, they’re just plain uncomfortable to use.
This isn’t just a case of gyro controls being a daft distraction. So much about the control scheme goes against the grain of intuitive and sensible button allocation. For instance, when you’re piloting the Walker, you use the right analog stick up to boost, down to hover, and double-tap sideways to side jump—which by the way, if you’re used to tapping sideways to strafe for accurate movements, the side jump will be a constant annoyance. With the right stick doing all these things, your aiming is left completely up to gyro motion controls. There is absolutely no reason these functions could not have been moved to the face buttons, allowing aiming to be used with the stick. And let’s not forget that the Gyrowing’s up-down movement is the opposite to how you set your inversion setting. What the hell?
Sure, the current way it’s set up technically works, but in the same way cooking a steak with a Bic lighter works. You’ll get there, but it’s slow, tedious, and it’s going to taste like crap.
We’re not done yet. If only controls were the only thing wrong with this game. Firstly, it’s very cool that the first-person cockpit view is displayed on the Gamepad and third-person view is displayed on the television, or vice versa however you want it. This is great for both players who prefer a first-person or third-person view while they’re playing. What sucks is if you’re a third-person viewer, the camera will often shift during a battle for cinematic effect, leaving you disoriented and forcing you to look at your cockpit view and quickly adjust to it until the camera snaps back into place. Why? Why should anyone have to do this?
This will also happen sometimes to show you incoming enemies, automatically locking onto them for a while until the game decides to put your camera back. An arrow marker at the edge of the screen would have more than sufficed. Dislocating your sight is stupid and detrimental to your mission.
If you’re fortunate enough to prefer first-person view, then good for you because this won’t be an issue. And if you don’t mind or actually like motion controls, then you probably won’t have many issues playing this game in general. For just about everyone else that wants to be able to setup their controls to suit them, you will suffocate on all the garbage being forced down your throat. It’s too bad because it seems like there’s a really great game buried beneath all of this.
