The first thing you notice from the moment you begin is how Star Fox Command looks very much like a traditional Star Fox game. You’ve got the map of the Lylat solar system with the usual gang of Fox, Slippy, Falco, etc. all making an appearance. But following the trend of recent Star Fox games, Command again strays from its roots and is actually something quite different. The basics remain the same with you flying your ship, shooting enemies, firing bombs and barrel rolling to deflect enemy fire, but that’s where most of the similarities end. There's no ‘on rails’ gameplay here, and instead each level now resembles the ‘all range mode’ style that Lylat Wars flirted with on occasions throughout the N64 classic.
Before we go any further, let’s explain the strategy structure that has been introduced into the game. As you set off on each mission, you're presented with a map, mostly covered by fog. It’s then up to you to move each of your Arwings into strategic positions to intercept enemy battalions and hidden bases that could be a threat to the Great Fox mothership. Think of a free-moving, space-based Advance Wars and you’ve got a very rough idea. When moving your Arwings, you're given a limited amount of turns to defeat all the enemies, and a set amount of fuel to move your Arwings within these turns. Your limitations are increased further during the actual battles by an ever-ticking clock that counts down towards your death.
It's the Mothership beacon! Be prepared to do this about 134 times during the game.
Thankfully, there are a handful of time pick-ups throughout each area, and actually finishing a level offers a time reward also. Finishing a stage basically involves the same thing throughout the whole game - simply defeat a certain set of enemies and collect their ‘cores’. Sometimes, you’ll have to take down the enemy mothership (by guiding your ship through a set of square markers), and there’s the occasional boss thrown in, but not nearly enough to make up for the repetitive ‘seek and destroy’ missions. Plus, there’s no real sense of progression as you find yourself doing almost the same thing at the end of the game as you were at the start.
The free-roaming format isn’t the core problem with Star Fox Command, however - it’s the lack of creativity shown within the missions that lets the game down. If you think back to the ‘all range mode’ levels in Lylat Wars - the ‘Independence Day’ battle of Katina, preventing the bomb going off on Fortuna and destroying the shield towers of Bolse – why wasn’t anything like this in Command? Instead, the game makes no attempt at trying to hide the fact you’re just hunting targets again and again. While the game offers multiple paths and different endings (nine in total), things that are normally seen as something to encourage multiple play-throughs, where is the motivation to see them all when the battles essentially remain the same? To top it all off, the game is almost devoid of any real challenge, so there’s no escaping how disappointingly shallow it all feels - not even the excellent combo system that made Lylat Wars such an almost endless experience could have saved it.
Despite the complaints, Star Fox Command does actually get a few things right. The controls are hard to fault, with precise touchscreen movement and aiming, plus the ability to fire with any of the buttons on the DS makes it far more comfortable than, say, Metroid Prime: Hunters ever was. You simply press an icon for flips and loops, rolls are easily performed using a circle action with stylus while boosting/braking is done via a double tap on the top/bottom half of the screen. The subtle differences between characters is a nice addition too, not only offering a little variety to proceedings, but also a touch of strategy. With each character having different weapon and health attributes, it can be wise to send your more powerful guys for base assaults, and save your more agile Arwings for dogfighting.
The strategy sections are a first for the Star Fox series.
The multiplayer options in Star Fox Command are nothing to get excited about, but there’s been enough work put into this aspect of the game to have produced something actually worth your time. Through either local play or via a Wifi connection, you must battle over huge expanses littered with power-ups (that can boost your weapon’s firepower, recover your shields, and even turn you invisible for a short period of time) against three other players, with the sole intention of shooting down the most opponents and collecting their cores. The fact that you have to get the core to get the point opens up a a lot of stealing opportunities, making for a fast and frantic game. Just be sure to play against as many friends as possible as, just like Mario Kart DS and Metroid, quitters will soon ruin your enjoyment, especially as the game will end for everyone even if just one person quits.
Graphically, the game is reasonably impressive given the limited 3D power of the DS. The environments are somewhat overly barren, but they do have brief moments of beauty, while the ship and enemy models are well-constructed and textured with detail. It’s also worth nothing that the framerate remains commendably smooth throughout. The soundtrack is solid and fits within the Star Fox style, but never threatens to match anything from Lylat Wars or Starwing when it comes to providing you with timeless tunes.
Overall, it’s hard to say that Star Fox Command isn’t a big disappointment. From the shallow mission structure to the abysmal story (yes, we know the story isn’t what Star Fox is about but with so much emphasis on it this time around it shouldn’t be this teeth-grindingly bad), there’s very little to praise. It controls well, the strategic elements are an interesting addition, and the game is enjoyable when taken as a simple ‘shoot everything as quick as possible’ kind of game, but yet again the latest Star Fox game has fallen well short of the high standards set by Starwing and Lylat Wars.
Some of you reading may feel this whole review has simply been about wanting Command to be a direct follow-up to those games, and while that is partly true, if you ignored the Star Fox name on the box and took the game as a nameless shooter, it is still far from being a great game. It’s commendable that they’ve tried something different, but ‘different’ doesn’t automatically mean ‘better’. And in this game, ‘different’ actually means ‘worse’.
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