Star Fox 64 is one of my all time favorite games, but I was very concerned about how it would be received among modern audiences.
When the remake was first announced, there was this mindset among fans that the game would be too outdated for modern players. The design and structure of the game was very much rooted in traditional arcade game design in which a relatively short game could be replayed over and over again. We saw with Star Fox Zero that a huge chunk of the youtubers and streamers refused to engage with the game outside of a single playthrough, which gave a lot of people the impression that this style of game had just completely fallen out of style. It was a major talking point among the community at the time that Star Fox desperately needed to grow and evolve past the Nintendo 64 formula.
So what happens? Nintendo remakes Star Fox 64 again, and it becomes the most successful entry in the franchise in years. As it turns out, the gaming community has no idea what they’re talking about because Star Fox on Switch 2, the exact game that everyone said that they did not want, has become massively successful and popular in spite of all the reservations people had about the game. As it turns out- the game is still an all time classic in spite of the narrative that it’s ‘too short.’ And we are beginning to see younger players who have never been exposed to the original release immediately become enamored with the world and characters.
This is really interesting to see, especially considering how Star Fox 64 3D initially received such a tepid response. It’s very easy to forget that gaming is still a relatively young hobby. We’re only just now seeing how changing trends and culture can lead to the traditional Star Fox formula being seen as stale and outdated- to becoming something cool and traditional, that people want to see more of. A core motivation behind Star Fox’s development in the 2000’s was Miyamoto’s belief that the rail shooting thing was a dying trend, and to a certain extent that was true. But now we’re seeing this kind of thing come back in vogue- and people find it cool and interesting, when they wouldn’t have in the 2000’s.
This is a common thing that people don’t seem to understand about gaming- that gaming culture and trends have changed a lot over the past ten years. Ten years ago Star Fox Zero was rejected for its structure and difficulty- and now Star Fox 2026 is embraced for doing a lot of the same things. The same could be true for something like Rhythm Heaven. Rhythm Heaven Fever was actually a bit of a failure in the U.S., and when the creator Tsunku was diagnosed with cancer it genuinely felt as if the series was finished. But then it made a pretty solid return to form with Groove, and I’m certain that we will continue to see more entries.
The idea that the gaming industry that everything would be an online shooter or an open world game has been proven wrong. We are seeing people getting tired of those genres and branching out into other stuff. And because Nintendo is the only company producing anything different, inevitably anyone serious about the hobby ends up on Nintendo consoles, playing Nintendo games.
It is especially interesting that this happened to Star Fox of all things. This has long been the most neglected and ignored in House Nintendo IP, and a lot of fans genuinely felt that the series would never make a proper return. It was a major talking point in the past decade that the IP was completely dead with no hope of recovery. And yet… it has returned.
There are a couple of things we need to extrapolate from this. Firstly, waiting a decade for a new release does not mean the IP is ‘dead.’ Games take so long to make now that the average AAA game takes at least six years to produce. Bigger projects like Grand Theft Auto VI take significantly longer than that. Secondly- it is becoming extremely common for major Nintendo hits like Tomodachi Life and Rhythm Heaven to go through brief periods of not getting releases due to issues outside the developers control. In Rhythm Heaven’s case, the creator got cancer, lost the use of his vocal chords, and had to fight to get this new one produced.
There are all sorts of reasons why games do and don’t get made, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that complaints about certain franchises not getting new releases (2D Mario, for example) ring kind of hollow. Has the average person played the entire backlog of 2D Mario games? Do they really need a brand new one right now? If Nintendo can’t innovate or do something fresh and exciting- why bother? It took us over ten years to get a new 2D Mario after New Super Mario Bros. U, and at the time fans seriously believed that Nintendo would never produce another one due to a lack of interest. But when Mario Wonder was announced and then released, a lot of the same people seriously tried to argue that Mario Wonder was a ‘disappointing’ release, and that they didn’t want another 2D Mario. Even though it had been over a decade since the last one.
It’s interesting because both New Super Mario Bros. U and Super Mario Bros. Wonder were HATED when they first came out due to being seen as cheap and lazy, but in actuality they have both gone on to become absolute classic. I consider both of them to be two of my favorite Mario games ever made, and it’s fairly obvious that these games have a lot of other fans as well. The idea that, long term, everyone is going to ‘hate’ these games for not being something else is simply not going to stick.
Star Fox 64 is a very good example of this happening with another brand. The game was an instant classic at launch and seen as one of the all time best on Nintendo 64, but over the years journos and shils have tried to downplay tis longterm relevancy and popularity. By the time 3D came out they were demanding something new, and when we finally got it with Zero and Guard they were soundly rejected. However- they became too complacent in their narrative that Star Fox had fallen off, and were completely unprepared for the one-two whammy of Fox McCloud appearing in the Super Mario Galaxy movie, only to get a remake of the beloved N64 classic on Switch 2 within a month. All of the complaints about this being ‘another’ remake have been silenced by the obvious fact that another new game is on the horizon. In essence, the carefully constructed narrative that has been building up for almost thirty years has completely collapsed among itself. What, are we going to see Emily Rogers come out of retirement and complain about Star Fox again? When Nintendeen tried it he got laughed out of the room.
The simple fact of the Star Fox remake is that kids who have NEVER played 64 before are getting into it. Nintendo has successfully sold the brand to a new generation of fans, after the most notorious dry spell in their entire history. This should be a terrifying concept for anyone in the industry. If Star Fox can come out of its decades long slump and become huge again- could other Nintendo IPs do the same? Xenoblade keeps doing better and better every time a new one gets produced. Games like Splatoon Raiders are shaping up to be major hits on Switch 2, and Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave very may well carry on the trend that Three Houses established and become the new best selling Fire Emblem title.
There’s no telling at this stage, but the idea that Nintendo games only sell because of brand recognition or because of nostalgia has to stop. Star Fox is doing well because it is a genuinely great game that people want to play. It doesn’t matter that people have never played or before, or perhaps haven’t played it in over twenty years. People are coming back to it because they want to play it, and the fact that a game this old can have this kind of effect on people goes to show you just how much of a grip these kinds of Nintendo games have over players.
It’s a vastly understated fact that Nintendo is dominating when it comes to the Remake game. When inferior companies like Disney produced their remakes, they just take Hermione and have her cosplay as Belle or some nonsense. What Nintendo does is far more clever: They get smaller developers to produce high quality remakes of beloved games, and then set them to work working on new projects. We’ve seen this happen already with Grezzo and Mercury Steam. Could Velan be next?
In conclusion, I think after this entire situation it’s safe to say there is no such thing as a ‘dead’ Nintendo IP. Even Game & Watch got limited re-releases a couple of years back. Can you name a single company in tech who can get away with selling a novelty product from the 80’s? I certainly can’t.
Star Fox never stopped being relevant or successful. He’s the fan favorite character in a billion dollar movie, and the franchise isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.