Star Fox on Switch 2, Reviewed: Nintendo's Remake Nostalgia Works. Is It a Trend?

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Nintendo's remake also raises the question, with Ocarina of Time next on deck: Is this the future of how we'll endlessly revisit all our games?

Scott Stein Editor at Large

I started with CNET reviewing laptops in 2009. Now I explore wearable tech, VR/AR, tablets, gaming and future/emerging trends in our changing world. Other obsessions include magic, immersive theater, puzzles, board games, cooking, improv and the New York Jets. My background includes an MFA in theater which I apply to thinking about immersive experiences of the future.

Expertise VR and AR | Gaming | Metaverse technologies | Wearable tech | Tablets Credentials

Nearly 20 years writing about tech, and over a decade reviewing wearable tech, VR, and AR products and apps

4 min read

Games come out, and time goes by. Movies age. Books age. We all age.

But Star Fox is back on the Nintendo Switch 2, and it's a loving remake. Definitely not a new Star Fox, though. The $50 game is a gorgeous graphic overhaul, with new cutscenes, new challenge modes, new multiplayer modes… and the same beat-for-beat level design as 1997's Star Fox 64, included for "free" with the subscription-based Nintendo 64 Classics app on the Switch already.

After playing it for an hour or two a few weeks ago, I've been playing even more at home, and on the go, on the Switch 2. I love it, and it's the perfect way to play Star Fox, but also, you've likely played this game before. Just not as nicely as this version.

Star Fox 64 on Nintendo 64 only came out four years after the original flat-polygon Super NES Star Fox, which feels amazing now. The graphics leap between those two games feels like 10 years or more have passed.

It's been another 19 years since Star Fox 64, and no surprise, the graphics in this new version make Star Fox 64 look primitive. But there's still a lot of charm in that old game. I do prefer the new Star Fox, simply because, to me, this game was always about kinetic movie-like space battling. On the Switch 2, this game shines and looks better than any Switch 2 game that I've played before. It's also wonderfully responsive.

A new cockpit first-person mode can be swapped into at any time by laying one of the Joy-Con controllers down flat into mouse mode. Control schemes shift a bit, and now aiming is mouse-based. It's almost like playing a whole new game, but I still prefer the original third-person, behind-the-ship controls. Co-op games can let one person steer and the other shoot, a clever idea.

I got an extra kick of playing Star Fox on the Viture Beast display glasses connected to a Switch 2 battery dock, and it put me into an almost VR-like state of mind as I hovered my massive virtual displays in front of me and piloted my Arwing fighter. Next to Donkey Kong Bananza and Kirby Air Riders, Star Fox is the most visceral and kinetic game in Nintendo's Switch 2 library.

Challenge modes give a little extra replay to this Star Fox, with achievements for hitting specific tasks on the challenge mode checklist. There are ramped-up difficulty settings for this mode, too. Star Fox is also a branching-path game, so there are ways to explore new planets to a degree. Still, all the levels are on-rails, just like before. There's a limit to your freedom. Star Fox is, at heart, an arcade-type experience. Each level doesn't take that long to play through.

What I haven't played at home yet is the multiplayer mode, something I tried at a Nintendo demo event. It was a blast, and having a connected USB camera enables AR-like overlays of character face filters that move in video chat as you play, which feels exactly like how pop-up comms with your Star Fox copilots already feel in the solo campaign mode. The free-movement chaos of multiplayer is going to be the meat that keeps me interested in this one long after I wear out the campaign and challenge modes.

I'd have loved more levels here, new worlds, more Star Fox. Would that have been too much to ask? I guess so. It's a shame that Star Fox isn't a real sequel, but I'd love to think that, perhaps, that could still come depending on how well this one does.

It also makes me wonder if remakes are Nintendo's new strategy. A remake of the N64 Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is next on deck this fall. Again, it's a game that you can already play on the N64 app, a game that doesn't "need" a new version. Metroid Prime Remastered returned a few years ago. Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening appeared before that.

Or, as games age over time and we lose ways to play them, maybe remasters and remakes are the future for everything. Remakes lose the history of what the original game actually felt like, and it's a slippery slope for how games should be preserved and remembered. In the case of Star Fox, though, it's a fantastic match and a perfect upgrade, even if $50 is a steep cost for nostalgia.

If you want a cheaper ride, there's a free demo you can check out on the eShop, too.

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SCOTT STEIN

Editor at Large

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