Archview #39: Star Fox 64 3D

 'Sallright. First 3DS review in mah blog!

 This game is not just a simple port of Star Fox 64, it's more of a remake than a port, however, while not much has changed since it's previous incarnation, it has a couple of new features and gimmicks that elevate it further than a port. You take the role of Fox McCloud, leader of the Star Fox team, and you are to take down the enemies who threaten the many planets of it's galaxy. In order to do so,  Fox takes to the skies in his Arwing, alongside his team mates.
 The game is very slim on story, evil scientist Andross threatens the world, killed Fox's dad, Fox must save the world and avenge his father, however, Star Fox comes from an earlier point in history, where games didn't try to be movies. Stories were but the side-dish, games lived and died by their gameplay, and here is where it shines. The game plays just like it did years ago and it's very entertaining, testament to just how good it was and is.

 Most stages have you going on a predetermined course, some having alternate roads, and you move around alongside your targeting reticule, while other times(Mostly during some bosses) you enter "all range mode", where fly around inside a small area. The Arwing can shoot lasers and a homing charge shot as well as a bomb that can be detonated at will. As for defense, it has the infamous barrel roll technique that deflects most enemy fire and sommersaults(And U-turns, but only usable on All-range areas). Each level has it's own boss, they usually are the "shoot it's weak point" variety and they are easy to figure out.
 There's not a whole lot of modes, there's the Main Game, which comes in three varieties: 3DS(easiest), 64(Normal) and Expert(Hard), Score Attack(You can pick any level and do a score run) and Battle Mode(Multiplayer mode, mildy entertaining and can be played with bots). It may not seem like much, but there are many stages, and you can't play them all on a single run. Accessing different stages is a matter of finding the secret routes, and there's 3 different branches you can take... however, stages may have alternate situations and dialogues depending if your wingmates are present or not, and which level you have previously played! Replayability, it has it.

 There's also a bunch of new features, besides the new difficulty settings, these are the revamped battle mode, which now has power ups, a new gimmichy gyro control setup(Optional, luckily, but the game will ask you if you want to switch to it EVERY SINGLE TIME you choose "3DS" difficulty) and, best of all, the fact that it saves your campaign mode status, so you can continue right where you left off. Also, you can now choose to replay the last stage, in case you didn't get the alternate route.
 Graphically, it's a decent looking game. Star Fox never had any complex shapes or anything, but it looks very crisp and clear. The water effects deserve praise, however, on some stages, sometimes it looks as if pieces come out of nowhere, so the short draw distance is a bit of a downer. The music is as great as it used to be, and the voice acting was completely redub... but it's not too good anyways.
 When it comes down to it, this version is not necesarily better than the N64 version, sure it's much prettier(Which technically does make it better), but not much else has changed... but when the base game is so good, it hardly matters.
 7 out of 10