

You may fly in a straight line for most of the game, but your Arwing does give you some freedom.įor example, you can briefly boost and brake. The fact that you may also need to unlock a hidden route each time only adds to your frustration. Before you can make another attempt, you have to play through the four preceding missions all over again. Obtaining medals in later missions can feel very annoying, because you can’t choose to play an individual mission.įor example, say you fail to get a medal on the fifth mission. Get a medal on every stage, and you’ll unlock expert mode – it’s harder, but you can earn even more points. Score enough points in a mission and you’ll earn a medal. Tougher missions are usually more rewarding, but come with greater risks too. The path you take through the game affects your ability to score more points overall. It encourages you to look for enemy patterns, rather than simply gun down enemies the moment they appear.

It’s a neat gameplay mechanic that adds a surprising amount of depth to the game. Doing so successfully rewards you with an extra point for each additional enemy you hit. This means you can take out multiple enemies in a single hit if they’re close enough together. You can do this, but you’d be missing the point.īy holding down the A button, your Arwing can fire a charged homing shot that has blast radius on impact. Star Fox 64 isn’t a mindless shoot ‘em up where you endlessly mash the A button to fire. Of course, the reason why you can’t is because it’d defeat the purpose of having to unlock hidden routes.

It’s also a shame that you can’t choose to play individual missions. After all, the game uses an internal chip to save high scores – so why not use it for progress too? It seems odd that Star Fox 64 doesn’t have a save feature. Nevertheless, having the option to take a break would’ve been nice. Now it only takes around 30 to 40 minutes to complete the game. You have to play from start to finish in one sitting. Unfortunately, you can’t save your progress at any point during a playthrough and come back to it later. Some missions change quite drastically, so it’s both exciting and rewarding when you do finally uncover a mission’s secret. But that’s fine, because it adds to Star Fox 64’s replay value. Instead, you can alter your path by discovering hidden routes within stages or achieving certain score thresholds.įinding these alternative routes is rarely straightforward. What’s more, you can’t just choose which route to take. As a result, you only do seven missions per playthrough. There are 16 different missions in Star Fox 64, but these are split across multiple paths. As a result, Star Fox 64 feel more immersive than many N64 games from the same period. The story is told through in-game cutscenes and voiced dialogue.

You spend most of the game travelling along a fixed path, shooting down as much as you can. In your Arwing starfighter, you must battle your way across planets and space to reach Andross’ lair and defeat him. The evil Andross has invaded the Lylat system, and it’s up to Fox and friends to stop him. Star Fox 64 puts you into the cockpit as Fox McCloud, a daring mercenary with a strong sense of justice.
