WARNING! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE STAR FOX FRANCHISE! IF THAT BOTHERS YOU, NOW IS THE TIME TO CLOSE THE BROWSER AND RUN SCREAMING INTO THE HILLS!
The Story
Command takes place an unspecified period of time after Star Fox Assault (which is my favorite Star Fox game, but that's a topic for another review). At some point in here, Star Fox, the titular team of anthropomorphic animal mercenaries, has split up for a variety of loosely connected reasons that I can't be bothered to remember. Well, except for one particularly stupid reason: Fox booted his fox-lady-friend Krystal off the team in order to "keep her safe". Considering she's a trained combatant, a psychic, multilingual, and a far more competent pilot than fellow teammate Slippy Toad, this excuse is quite clearly a steaming load of excrement. Anyway, a new alien threat called the Anglars have begun trying to conquer the galaxy, and now, it's up to Fox to reunite his team and save the day. All in all, it's a fairly stock "bring the old crew back together for one last mission" plot: not exactly "bad", per se, but certainly nothing to write home about either.
The problem, however, comes from a different aspect of the story. One of the features advertised by Command was the existence of multiple endings. Based on which levels you completed in what order, the story could end up in any one of about a dozen endings. This would have been fine, but Command committed one of the worst possible sins a game with multiple endings can have. Rather than give you true control over your experience from the start, it forced you to follow a completely linear story route for your first playthrough, only giving you the option to take additional story paths once you beat the game for the first time. As a result, the multiple endings feel less like a fun new addition to the franchise, and more like a trick to get the player to repeat the same mediocre game a dozen times. And speaking of mediocrity...
The Gameplay
Hoo boy. This is why I consider this the worst game in the franchise. However, I do have to applaud Command for its creativity. In addition to the usual spaceship-shooter gameplay of the Star Fox series, Command decided to add some turn-based strategy elements. To sum up the gameplay basics as best I can, part of the gameplay takes place on a map screen. Each of your playable pilots can move a certain distance each turn, as can your enemies. Whenever one of your ships collides with an enemy or an enemy base, the gameplay changes to a typical Star Fox combat level where you must kill some number of a certain type of enemy before time runs out. If you run out of time or out of health, you lose a life. If you run out of lives, you lose the game. If the level lasts for a certain number of turns, you lose the game. If enemies destroy your flagship, the Great Fox (which you insist on taking into direct combat, in spite of the fact that its only defense is an extremely limited supply of missiles), you lose the game. The only way to beat a level is to destroy all of your enemies' bases, which are hidden haphazardly around the fog-covered map a la Battleship. Did I mention you are also constantly outnumbered?
For the first level or two, the game wavers between interesting and monotonous. However, that changes once you reach the boss battle against Star Fox's arch-rivals, Star Wolf. Normally, a fight with Star Wolf is the high point of any Star Fox game. In fact, the intense, fast-paced dogfight against three skilled opponents makes for a welcome change from the tedious gameplay thus far, and is actually quite fun and exciting. At least, it would be fun if the battles in this game WEREN'T ON A FREAKING TIME LIMIT! All of a sudden, your exciting chase through alien skies is cut short by an expiring timer, and you lose a life and get booted back to the map. Not frustrated enough yet? Well, don't worry! Due to the game mechanics, all three members of Star Wolf are completely healed every stinking time you lose, forcing you to start the fight all over again! Oh, and your computer opponents are fully aware of this fact, deliberately flying in patterns that force you to run out the timer trying to get a single clear shot at them! Wait, what's that? You finished the battle (presumably by spamming smart bombs, like I did)? Well, guess what? Now you get to go to a new level, where the enemies take out massive chunks of your health with each hit, have hilariously oversized health bars, and/or have to be killed even faster than before! This is the point where I turned off the game, screamed with primal rage, and cast the cartridge into the 12th circle of Hell (conveniently located under my sister's bed, so I didn't have to walk far).
The Graphics
Roughly on par with Star Fox 64, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
The Sound
I last played this a year or so ago, so I can't really remember.
The Heroes
On one hand, all the classic Star Fox heroes are here, and in top form. On the other hand, Nintendo added a female version of Slippy Toad, so I'd say it all evens out.
The Villains
People who have followed the recent Star Fox games know that arch-villain Andross was offed for good at the end of Star Fox Adventures (I warned you there would be spoilers). That's the unique thing about the Star Fox franchise opposed to other Nintendo franchises: rather than keep reusing the same villain over and over, they eventually just killed him off for good and brought in some new menaces. There are many pros and cons to this approach, but one of the biggest downsides is that each new villain has progressively bigger shoes to fill. In Assault, the new villains were a race of parasites called the Aparoids, and I have to say, I thought they were even better villains than Andross. (Let the hate mail commence!) Throughout the game, they attacked the Star Fox team not just physically, but also emotionally. Nothing destroys an army's will to fight quite like their own general attacking them against his will, all while begging his men to shoot him dead before he kills any of them. Needless to say, the Anglars had quite the opening act to live up to, and they disappointed to the best of their ability. Even ignoring their stereotypical "world conquest" scheme, uncreative design and name, and the way they all die when their immediate higher-ups are destroyed like the battle droids from Phantom Menace, their origin story strips away any dignity they once had. The Anglars are just ordinary fish, mutated into their current forms by contact with waste from Andross's experiments. That's right, you're fighting the factory runoff of a much better villain. To add insult to injury, in battle, the Anglars are almost indistinguishable from Andross's army; a far cry from the visually distinctive Aparoids.
The Conclusion
It's crap. What else do I need to say?
Seriously though, any good points in this game are immediately counteracted by its many flaws, and the characters have little personality compared to the previous games. If the character names and graphics were changed, you wouldn't be able to tell this was a Star Fox game. If you get the chance to buy this game, don't.
Well, that was a lot more typing than I'm used to doing in a short period of time. If you want to read more of my ramblings, I plan to update every Monday and Friday*.
- The Easily Distracted Geek
* Schedule subject to change based on short attention span and availability of video games.
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