And before anyone brings them up: Star Fox SNES and Star Fox Zero are indeed different enough in story and game design to be eligible here.
And I need to specify this because there’s gonna be people arguing semantics:
When I say “a version of Star Fox 64,” I’m exclusively referring to the N64, 3DS, and Switch 2 games. Those three titles are excluded. As for the others…
The original Star Fox on SNES and Star Fox Zero are different games that happen to have a similar story setup. The key differences are all new level designs, different approaches to the branching level structure, and notable story alterations such as Star Fox 1 not having James McCloud or the Star Wolf team, and Star Fox Zero introducing teleporting wormholes and a shady undercurrent to General Pepper’s actions for a bit of added drama. In short, they’re different enough to be considered eligible.
Chances are if you have a concrete answer, then you must have enjoyed at least some of their previous open world titles. The only one of those I have experience with is Starlink Battle for Atlas, and I played the shockingly good Switch version.
Super Mario Bros Wonder was the game that came out after a nearly decade long hiatus, with the last original 2D Mario game being New Super Mario Bros U in 2012. And when Wonder did come out, it was near universally praised for reinvigorated the 2D Mario series with a host of new ideas and surprises, while staying true to the gameplay fundamentals that have worked for such a long time now.
TLDR: It showed everyone that Nintendo hadn’t run out of new ideas for 2D Mario while still sticking with what came before. It stands up there with the classics on the NES and Super Nintendo in terms of passion and ambition.
In the former interview with Pure Nintendo, he said that there wasn’t a Star Fox for the Wii because Miyamoto and his team couldn’t come up with enough new ideas for it. And he simply wasn’t content with just releasing another Star Fox game with better graphics and sound. Those new ideas eventually moved over to the Wii U and its GamePad.
In the latter interview with the late Satoru Iwata, he explained that his team wanted to make a completely new Star Fox game for the 3DS. However it would’ve taken too long to complete, and the 3DS needed some system selling titles ASAP. And it was almost fate that Q-Games was freed up for another collaboration with Nintendo around then.
And there’s a very real chance that Persona 4 Revival will drop on Switch 2 sooner rather than later, like how we got Persona 3 Reload last year. It just doesn’t stop.
This is Amalia. She was concerned after playing the demo like many of yall were, and it appears her concerns were correct in the final game. But her bigger concern was just how heavily it borrows from the N64 game, to the point of being borderline plagiarism.
These were just some of the examples that I pulled up. And it ended up being a coincidence that the first half were Nintendo games while the second half were Rare games.
Spiritual successor to classic Star Fox from Giles Goddard, a programmer who worked on the original Star Fox and eventually stuck with Nintendo to program the famous interactive Mario 64 face.
So that means no Chun-Li, no Cammy, no Guile, no M. Bison, and no Akuma.
Characters shown here in order from left to right:
Rashid
Menat
R. Mika
Rose
Dan
Juri
Alex
C. Viper
Seth
Luke
As for me, my pick would be Rashid because I like the idea of an airbender being in the Smash roster. We have plenty of characters utilize fire, water, electricity and the like. But a character who commands the winds would be an interesting choice I feel. And also cuz Rashid’s theme from Street Fighter 5 is near universally considered one of the best themes in all of Street Fighter if not fighting games.
Images in order from left to right:
Star Fox 64 / 64 3D
Star Fox Assault / Star Fox Command / Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Star Fox Zero / Starlink Battle for Atlas / Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Star Fox 2026
Normal mode. Already game overed twice during the opening fight against Star Wolf. My first time fighting any of them in this game.
As for how my team looks going in: Peppy and Falco are dead since I went through Area 6 beforehand. Slippy’s still alive but he starts with less than half health, and I hardly saw him shooting anyone during my playthrough.
Charge shots don’t appear to be working? I hit them and they react like they’re taking damage, but their health doesn’t go down. Same with bombs. Is this new to this version?
Not only are they all pink, they’re also all from the best selling games in their respective franchises!
Star Fox 64 + 3D
Donkey Kong Country Returns + Tropical Freeze
Mario Kart 8 + Deluxe
So this way, we can eliminate any doubt from anyone who says “who?” to any of these characters. Cuz everyone who’s played these games knows who they are. Right?
As of now, I have played all of them except Mario Tennis Open. And the ones I enjoyed were Mario Golf World Tour, Mario Tennis Aces, and Mario Tennis Fever. I used to also enjoy Mario Sports Mix, but after revisiting it, not so much anymore.
Before I got it on the Virtual Console, this was the first version of Star Fox 64 that I properly finished. I played a fair amount of multiplayer with my brother back in 2012 or so, when I was still just in middle school and only knew about Star Fox from Smash. And this one was actually quite notable as it brought in tons of new and returning VAs for the cast. Most of all it brought back Mike West as the voice of Fox for the first time in over a decade, where he would continue to reprise his role all the way through the 2010s.
He directly said this in his Best Games of 2023 video, where Mario Wonder unsurprisingly showed up. He also made sure to say they were fun solid times beforehand, but still called them all “the same damn thing over and over.” And he still handily prefers Wonder over any of the other 2D Marios. Do you have a favorable opinion on the NSMB games, or do you think they’re better left forgotten?
So the Mario 40th anniversary emerald rush is happening and I saw on previous Reddit threads that they’re event exclusive cosmetic changes only. Has there been any development further? Did anyone manage to find a way to unlock these costumes permanently? Or are they still event exclusive? I at least got the Mario CD from trading a crapton of banana chips to Squawks.