Ten Years in the Making
The last Star Fox game was Star Fox Zero on the Wii U back in 2016. A game that was genuinely great but let down badly by a control scheme that divided players and held it back from the audience it deserved. Since then Nintendo skipped the entire original Switch generation without a single Star Fox release, leaving fans like me waiting and wondering if the Star Fox crew would ever return.
They have. And it was worth the wait. If you read my demo impressions a few weeks back you'll know I was already excited. Having now played the full game, that excitement has only grown.
Star Fox Switch 2 is not a new game. It's a complete remake of the Nintendo 64 classic Star Fox 64, known to us Europeans as Lylat Wars. And I mean that in the best possible way. This is a 1:1 recreation of the original with some carefully placed additions. New cutscenes, tweaked dialogue, subtle changes to the level design. But at its heart it's the game we fell in love with almost thirty years ago, rebuilt from the ground up with everything that's been learned since.
Visually Stunning From the First Frame
I want to get straight to it. This is the best looking game Nintendo has ever produced. I genuinely believe that.
Velan Studios have done a phenomenal job. They made the decision to keep the realistic design approach that was hinted at in the demo and across every level it pays off. When I first flew into Corneria I could have cried. It is graphically gorgeous. Every level that you remember from the original is recreated and elevated into something that feels like what you always imagined it looked like as a child playing it on the Nintendo 64.
Sector X is completely different to the original and honestly for the better. I always hated that level on the Nintendo 64. What Velan have built in its place is something far more interesting and visually spectacular. It's one of the biggest and most welcome surprises in the game.
The space levels deserve a mention too. Bolse, Area 6 and Sector Z all look stunning compared to their Nintendo 64 counterparts. Rather than feeling dark and empty, they've been given a real sense of life and a modern space presence that makes them feel genuinely alive. I really enjoyed facing the Armada in Area 6, watching out for ships attacking from every angle as I edged closer to Venom.
Solar is another standout. The hot planet looks even more vibrant and stunning than before and you can genuinely feel the heat radiating off the visuals. It's a level that could easily have felt flat and one note but instead it's one of the most striking in the game.
If I have one visual disappointment it's Titania. It felt noticeably darker than its Nintendo 64 counterpart and I was hoping to see more vibrancy and that classic desert planet feel. It's still a good looking level, just not quite up to the standard set by everything around it.
Level for level, this is a genuine visual achievement and one of the best looking games on Switch 2 full stop.
The Story and How It's Told
The whole thing has been designed to feel like a movie. The cutscenes connect the levels together beautifully, the route choices feel like genuine narrative decisions and everything flows with a cinematic quality the series has never had before. It is crisp, polished and impressive from start to finish.
The added cutscenes are one of the best decisions made in this remake. They add weight to the story, develop the characters and make the choices you face as a player feel meaningful. When you reach a fork in the route and have to decide which path to take, it carries real stakes in a way the original never quite managed.
On my first playthrough I took the easy route, wanting to recapture that feeling of playing Star Fox 64 for the first time almost thirty years ago. I have to say, it wasn't as easy as I expected, especially on normal difficulty which I chose to unlock the rewards.
The Titania level in the Landmaster gave me real problems. Navigating that tank has never been my strong point and the Switch 2 version reminded me of that quickly.
On my second playthrough I went for the hard route. Sector Y, which I always remember being brutally difficult, was surprisingly manageable this time. But Aquas soon put me in my place and by the time I reached Sector Z the hard route had fully lived up to its name. That difficulty is still there and I'm glad it is. The game challenges you without being unfair and there's genuine satisfaction in pushing through.
One small thing I noticed is that once you complete a level you can now see how to unlock the alternative routes, something the original never showed you. I understand why they've done it and it's a reasonable quality of life addition for newer players. Personally I'd rather work it out myself but it's a minor point.
The Music
Just as I mentioned in my demo impressions, the orchestral soundtrack is on another level. Everything sounds better, richer and more cinematic than before. The music builds during boss battles in a way that genuinely adds tension and the ending credits rendition was perfect. If you're a Star Fox fan the soundtrack alone will give you chills.
The Voice Acting
This is my one consistent criticism and I want to be fair about it. The voice acting isn't bad. But it doesn't hit as hard as the original.
The final boss in Macbeth has lost his Texan menacing accent and sounds instead quite whimsical. The Sector Y boss suffers similarly. The sharp, iconic delivery of the original has been softened in a way that I think was probably intentional. The game is aiming for a cinematic flow rather than memorable one liners, but the trade off isn't always worth it.
The most noticeable example for me was Star Wolf's introduction. "Can't let you do that Star Fox" is one of my favourite lines in gaming history. In the Switch 2 version it just doesn't land with the same menace. It's there, it's said, but the impact isn't what it was.
It's a minor frustration in an otherwise exceptional package. The voice acting is fine. It could just have been better.
Gameplay Mechanics
The core on-rails shooting feels smooth and dynamic from the very first level. What impressed me most is how differently each vehicle handles. The Arwing feels natural and responsive, which is probably why it remains my favourite, but the other vehicles bring genuine variety and challenge rather than just being reskinned versions of the same controls.
The Blue Marine handles noticeably more difficult in the water, which feels like a deliberate reflection of the underwater level design rather than a limitation. You end up relying far more on bombs than lasers while piloting it, which forces a different strategic mindset when dealing with enemies. The Landmaster demands something similar. You have to think carefully about staying grounded and using the boost feature to lift off when tackling certain enemies. Levels built around these vehicles become noticeably harder simply because you're learning a different set of rules to the Arwing.
Even the Arwing changes how you need to approach certain fights. In Zoness the boss has stronger armour and forces you to rely far more heavily on bombs than lasers. You end up combining the two, using lasers to pick up bomb pickups and bombs to actually damage the boss, which keeps you thinking on your feet rather than mindlessly firing.
Barrel rolls feel exactly as smooth and satisfying as you'd hope. The tutorial level does a great job of teaching the fundamentals early, and firing missiles and lasers has that arcade feel in the best possible way. The whole thing feels natural and genuinely fun to play from the first minute.
Sixteen Stages, Twenty Five Routes
There are 16 campaign stages and 25 different possible routes, with each full playthrough taking you through 7 missions. A single playthrough will take you somewhere between 2 and 3 hours depending on how many cutscenes you sit through, which fits the classic arcade rail shooter mould perfectly. This is where Star Fox is truly Star Fox for me. You start in the gorgeous Corneria, move on to the beautiful asteroid belt of Meteo, potentially unlock the warp to Katina and then find yourself facing a choice between Solar or Sector X depending on how that mission played out. Combined with the branching cutscenes mentioned earlier, that structure is what gives the game its replay value. Playing a stage once really doesn't do it justice, and on repeated playthroughs you notice things you missed the first time.
There's an added layer of challenge too around keeping your crew together. If a crew member gets shot down you lose them for the next level, which changes dialogue and sometimes the outcome of a mission. You can also gain additional crew members like Bill and Kat, who show up in their respective stages such as Katina and Zoness but also reappear later in the game. Kat in particular helps out during the Sector Z mission when the final missiles are bearing down on the Great Fox, and trying to survive that section with just a standard laser is genuinely tough.
That leads to another great mechanic. If you lose a life or take enough damage, you lose any upgraded lasers you've earned. The difference between the standard laser and the hyper laser is night and day, particularly on tougher stages like Venom 2 when you face the Star Wolf gang, who can also appear across several earlier stages depending on the route you take. It keeps you genuinely focused on staying alive and undamaged rather than treating your ship as disposable.
Boss Variety
The bosses vary considerably in design and difficulty throughout the game. Some, like the Mech in Sector Y and the boss in Area 6, were noticeably easier than I remembered even on the hard route. Others, like the bosses on Titania, Zoness and Solar, were far more difficult than I recalled. A lot of that comes down to the difficulty setting you choose and what upgrades you've managed to hold onto along the way.
What I really appreciate is that each boss has its own distinct mechanics, and there's a clear sense that the difficulty ramps up the closer you get to Venom. Bolse in particular felt considerably tougher than I remembered, and facing Star Wolf again while trying to destroy the central pillar to take out the satellite was a genuinely tense encounter.
That variation in level and boss design is what makes you want to go back and play through it again. Meeting Star Wolf for the first time and having to chase them down in all-range mode adds a completely different dimension to the game. All-range mode can be genuinely tricky compared to the on-rails sections, and the final confrontation with Andross in Venom 2 will test your confidence in manoeuvring if you're not used to it. It takes a little time to adjust, but once you get a feel for boosting and braking you soon feel comfortable navigating open space.
Performance
Running the game on both handheld and TV feels smooth throughout and I never noticed any dips in performance. I personally prefer playing on the TV as it feels more immersive and looks even better on a big screen, but handheld mode holds up just as well with no performance issues or slowdown.
Load times are fast and the game ran smoothly across every playthrough I did. Even in more intense levels like Area 6, where there are a lot of enemies firing at once, the game handled it comfortably. I played that particular level in handheld mode and didn't notice a single issue.
Final Verdict
Star Fox Switch 2 is the game the franchise has deserved for a long time. Velan Studios have treated the source material with genuine love and respect, rebuilding it into something that feels both faithful to the original and completely new at the same time.
The visuals are extraordinary. The music is brilliant. The cinematic presentation elevates the story in ways the original never could. And the core gameplay, whether you're weaving through the Arwing's on-rails sections, wrestling with the Landmaster on the ground or navigating the Blue Marine underwater, is as satisfying as it has ever been.
The voice acting could have been stronger and the option to see route unlocks removes some of the mystery that made the original special. But these are small complaints against an otherwise outstanding game.
For me this is a beautiful reimagining of the Nintendo 64 classic and everything I ever wanted as a Star Fox fan. I genuinely hope this is the start of more Star Fox games. It's an IP that deserves real attention and love from Nintendo and it's proof that this style of game, quick, replayable and endlessly fun to master, deserves a place back in the mainstream.
Ten years was a long time to wait. It was worth every one of them.
Score: 4.5/5