I mean, technically Fox's character arc in this game is about proving himself as a leader, but the only person who actually questions his leadership is Falco. So the hard routes end up feeling like an odyssey to earn the praise of that blue bird lmao.
People have spent years debating why the series never took off like Nintendo's other major franchises. Why, despite Miyamoto's clear interest in supporting it, it never really found its footing after the N64 era.
Most of us tend to blame Krystal, and I get why. Adventures was the first failed attempt to push the franchise forward.
But if you ignore the fact that Krystal is more the face of that era than its defining element, I think there's another character who's far more responsible for the series' stagnation: Andross.
Andross isn't just Star Fox's main antagonist within the story—he's arguably its biggest obstacle outside of it as well.
He's the classic mad emperor trying to conquer the galaxy with a massive army, and Star Fox's job is to stop him. Unlike Krystal, Andross essentially defines the entire premise of the series, setting expectations that every Star Fox game is forced to follow.
>The villain has to be a galaxy-level threat commanding a huge military force.
>Corneria has to be on the brink of collapse to justify hiring Star Fox.
Those are incredibly restrictive conditions. If you ignore them, the game risks no longer feeling like Star Fox. But if you stick to them, it's almost impossible to build a broader, coherent narrative across multiple games.
Eventually it becomes ridiculous to have Andross keep coming back—or to keep introducing a brand-new "Andross equivalent" like the Aparoids or the Anglars that somehow pushes Corneria to the brink all over again.
You could argue that the franchise doesn't really need an overarching story, and that's fair. Plenty of Nintendo series don't.
But if you're going to keep retelling Lylat Wars, with or without Andross, then every new game needs new ways to play—new mechanics, new ideas, something that goes beyond the classic on-rails shooter. And that's an incredibly difficult challenge. More often than not, those experiments are going to miss the mark rather than succeed.
I mean, for one of Nintendo's major franchises, I'm honestly surprised Andross isn't more recognizable in popular culture. People who've never touched a Zelda or Mario game can still recognize Ganondorf and Bowser, or even King K. Rool and Ridley. But Andross? Not so much lmao
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