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It goes without saying that Nintendo fans adore the Star Fox series. The problem comes down to one, simple game design quirk that Nintendo has become obsessed with incorporating into each new sequel: gimmicks. Star Fox Command insisted on stylus controls. Star Fox: Assault introduced on-foot ground missions. Star Fox Zero incorporated the GamePad and motion controls. With maybe the exception of Assault, whose gimmick at least felt thematically appropriate and in the same spirit as the rest of the gameplay, these entries in the franchise opted to give fans less of what they loved, not more.
Nintendo has become infamous of late for seemingly overthinking sequels to its games, with Star Fox among them. While the company gets it right more often than not, there have been misfires over the years, and Star Fox has been on the receiving end of this more than once. Enter designer Giles Goddard, who worked on the original Star Fox for SNES. Speaking to GameXplain, he said the following about the series (scroll to 31:40 to hear his remarks):
Here’s a quote of what Goddard said:
It would be interesting to do a Star Fox, I think. But not how the other ones were done. I think I would just dial it back a lot and not put in gimmicks like the stuff that Zero had. And maybe not even put in the free-roaming aspects and stuff like that I would just… pull it back into what made Star Fox the original fun. I would just make one based on that. I don’t know how popular it would be, but we could always try.
Goddard elaborated a bit more, offering what he’d like to do with a potential new game (this time scroll to 32:00):
If we did do it, it would have to be a new… either an extremely stylized retro look or very updated and modern looking. But I wouldn’t try to replicate the polygons from the FX Chip… I don’t see the point. We’ve got over that, we’ve fixed that problem, you don’t want to go back to it again. You always want to be doing something new, not going backwards.
An interesting take, for sure. While there are doubtlessly many fans who wouldn’t object to the look and feel of the SNES or even N64 entries of Star Fox, at this point those same people would likely love to simply see more of the series. Especially in a straightforward way. Hopefully Nintendo has its listening ears on for this. It’s been too long since the launch of Star Fox Zero back in 2016. When Fox and company make their return, hopefully it looks a lot more like Star Fox 64 than Platinum’s flawed experiment.
Source: GameXplain YouTube Channel—Talking Star Fox With One of the OG Devs: Giles Goddard! (+1080 to Carve, Zelda Beta & Mario 64)
