Star Fox: Assault

With the success of Star Fox Adventures (Adventures), Nintendo greenlit a sequel, Star Fox: Assault (Assault), this time developed by Namco rather than Rare, with the latter having been purchased by Microsoft. After I had originally played Adventures, I admittedly didn’t have much interest in the other Star Fox games, until I learned that Assault was a sequel and even contained elements from Adventures beyond Krystal becoming a mainstay, which led me to explore the franchise further and eventually receive Assault as a gift. Like the previous game, Assault was also developed for the GameCube, however I could not get my GameCube to properly read the disc, so I ended up playing it through the backwards-compatible Wii. After finally getting to play it, I found it an interesting follow-up to Adventures due to its different gameplay approach, and I also liked getting to see its characters and setting again, however briefly.

Although Andross has been defeated, some stragglers continue the fight in his name under the command of Andrew Oikonny, with Star Fox sent to stop him. Though Star Fox is successful, a new threat is quickly discovered known as the Aparoids, one of which they manage to defeat. Star Fox are quickly called to take on another Aparoid sighting, during which they try and recover its Core Memory intact for study, only for it to be stolen by Pigma, who seeks to use the Core Memory for his own ends.

 

Team Star Fox take on a new threat.
(From left: Slippy Toad, Fox McCloud, Falco Lombardi, Krystal)

The campaign for this game is far shorter than Adventures, but is still fairly engaging. The Aparoids felt like a natural step up from Andross, while fortunately not committing a bait-and-switch like Adventures did with General Scales, making the final battle feel more climactic.

Unlike Adventures, which was structured more like a continuous RPG campaign, the campaign for Assault is split up into multiple short Missions that allow the game to be more easily played in defined chunks. Completing Missions also unlocks new arenas for the game’s VS Mode and rewards you with medals (Bronze, Silver, Gold) depending on your chosen difficulty level, along with other bonuses depending on any collectibles you find in the surprisingly sizeable maps as well as how many of your teammates make it to the end without retiring. While I admit to playing the game on Easy, thus awarding me Bronze medals, I will note that the main incentive for getting Silver medals is to unlock the ability to play the classic Namco game Xevious.

Whereas Adventures took place largely on the ground and the preceding Star Fox game took place largely in the air, Assault attempts a middle-ground approach and presents a mixture of both. A few of the game’s Missions take place exclusively in the Arwing, which follow familiar Star Fox gameplay and have a mix of on-rails and open design. Likewise, a good number of Missions revisit the ground-based gameplay of Adventures, structuring it more like a third-person shooter and most also giving the option of the Landmaster and Arwing vehicles. There are three different control options to choose from, however I should note that this option only applies while you’re grounded and immediately swaps to default controls while piloting the Arwing, which can easily lead to wrist pain since you cannot hold the fire button. Because of the possibility of this, I chose the ground control scheme that allows using the right shoulder button to fire, with the trade-off being that it awkwardly ties jump to Y, which with the GameCube controller’s layout is equivalent to Triangle on a DualShock. With this control scheme, you otherwise use the A button to swap between weapons picked up from the area and defeated enemies, with different enemies being vulnerable to different weapon types to prevent relying entirely on the default Blaster, though the otherwise very handy Sniper Rifle will not fire unless you zoom in on your target. Picking up weapons you already have grants you additional ammo for that weapon, plus health pickups are applied automatically, even if you have full health. I should also note that, while the Landmaster controls pretty decently and can even levitate temporarily, moving from side-to-side is a bit slow and awkward.

 

At some points, you also shoot down enemies while riding someone else's ship.

As mentioned earlier, the game also comes with a VS Mode, in which local players can face off in the various arenas unlocked though the main campaign. However, I am not able to really comment on this mode since, of the four GameCube controllers that I received second-hand, three of them have issues that make them less ideal to use than the one I used for my playthrough, with no option to use bots for a solo round.

While not quite as robust as Adventures in regards to some visual effects, the visuals for Assault still largely improve on said game and hold up pretty well, with returning locations feeling consistent with previous games. That said, the Aparoid locations feel like more of a maze while grounded due to the more alien layout and some somewhat repetitive architecture. The facial animations are also a little more limited compared to Adventures, only being more expressive when needed, but there is the nice added detail of some of the canine characters occasionally twitching their ears during cutscenes.

Like Adventures, Assault also has some good music and sound design, some of which stuck with me between play sessions. Another thing not exclusive to this game is the changing of the voice cast between entries, resulting in some characters sounding different than they did in Adventures, though the new voices do a good job in their respective roles. In particular, while Steve Malpass’ take on Fox McCloud in the previous entry wasn’t bad, I felt that Jim Walker’s performance in this game was a much better fit for the character.

Much like Star Fox Adventures, Star Fox: Assault is an underrated entry in the series, boasting some interesting ideas and great gameplay variety while still staying true to the world of Star Fox. While I would recommend this game, second-hand copies can unfortunately go for pretty expensive prices due to being stuck on the GameCube, with no modern ports or even digital availability at the time of this writing.