How to *Fix* Star Fox.

Ah. 

Star Fox, Star Fox, Star Fox...

Where do I even begin with this incredibly addictive, charming, yet inconsistent, hot mess of a franchise?

You all know the story, Shigeru Miyamoto, Takaya Imamura, Dylan Cuthbert, Giles Goddard and many other talented folks at Nintendo and Arganaut teamed up to make one of the biggest leaps in gaming of all time, as well as beginning a brand new core franchise for Nintendo. 

Star Fox Zero hit the soon to be dead Wii U system in 2016, the cancelled Star Fox 2 hit Nintendo's SNES classic in 2017, and outside of a few guest appearances in Starlink and Smash Bros., it's been lights out for the Star Fox team since then. 

Seven years is a very long time. Since then, Nintendo has been on top of the world, with the Switch becoming a monumental success the world hasn't seen since the days of the DS, Super Nintendo World having since opened and becoming a major worldwide tourist attraction, and of course, the release of the Super Mario Bros. Movie, going on to smash numerous animation, film and video game movie records, as well becoming the most profitable film of 2023, it's safe to say Nintendo have absolutely hit peak cultural awareness.  

It's funny, that Star Fox has been nowhere to be seen since then.

What has been going wrong with this franchise?What does Nintendo have to do to get this franchise back on track? That's what I'm here to figure out. 

Let's handle the core problems first:

A Severe Lack Of Focus: 

This is most certainly one of the biggest problems with the franchise currently. Nintendo has often been accused of not knowing what the hell to do with the franchise, and I think that is pretty valid. Instead of making a third person shooter inspired by Star Fox 64's multiplayer mode, as was planned soon after 64's release in 1997, Miyamoto decided to pivot completely and transform Rare's Dinosaur Planet into Star Fox Adventures, a game that had very little connection to Star Fox before then, was a huge mistake, and I say this as someone who quite enjoys SF Adventures.

Command being an RTS game while having tacked on touch screen gimmicks with a branching story was also not the way to go with Star Fox. It came off as super gimmicky while losing the core appeal of what made Star Fox so cool in the first place. Having to complete the game NINE TIMES to obtain endings that probably aren't ever gonna be canon to the series was a mistake and just served to show how Nintendo lost the fuckin plot there. Literally. 

Star Fox Zero was a well documented example of Nintendo desperately trying to find a way to justify the Wii U gamepad. This is clearly evident by the fact that the gyrometer controls WEREN'T OPTIONAL. They were forced upon you, whether you liked it or not, and that was a big, big problem with many people, including myself. 

One of the biggest issues here is that Nintendo always feels the need to add an unnecessary gimmick to Star Fox in order to make it sell better, and that is absolutely the wrong approach. 

Third person shooters have come a loooooooong way since 2005's Assault and games with space combat have also changed a lot. Games such as EA's Star Wars Battlefront reboot, Star Wars Squadrons, No Man's Sky and 2016's Ratchet and Clank have all shown how this kind of thing can be done right, and then some. Numerous examples have been laid out. It's just up to Nintendo to pull off the execution. 

The simplest way to sum all this up is to basically say, STOP TRYING TO SELL STAR FOX WITH GIMMICKS. It can still feature the core tenants of the original games while the having worldwide appeal that made the series a hit in the first place.  

Here are some suggestions that'll keep the series relevant and fresh in people's minds. 

Character Designs: 

I'm sure most people get the geist of this, but one of the best things about Star Fox are it's charming, memorable universallly appealing character designs.

They've gotten numerous changes and redesigns over the years:

Some of them have been cartoony and others have been more realistic. 

My suggestion is to stick with Ultimate's design of Fox and crew.

THIS is how he should look. He's got enough cartoony features to look appealing for kids and he's got all of the necessary things to look badass. 

The realistic fur is just enough without looking too realistic, the design of the fabric is excellent and the boots are probably my favorite of his designs. He's got human features and animal features, it's just the right amount to be appealing to everyone. Fox has that same amount of cool as Sonic does. 

This is good. 

This is pretty much perfect. 

More Playable Characters: 

This has been a big returning request from Star Fox Devotees for a long time. Star Fox 2, Star Fox 64, Assault and Command all let you take full control of characters other than Fox, and it's something that I feel needs to come back. It was extremely cool and interesting in command where you were able to see the differing perspectives and viewpoints of the conflict. Do more things like that, broaden the universe of the franchise. Give each character and their ships unique abilities to set them all apart. Star Fox 2 already did this. Command did this. F-Zero does this very well, I see no reason why Star Fox can't as well. The franchise is named after the TEAM, not the main character. 

Ditch Andross:

When it comes to Nintendo villains, they have some of the best, most memorable, impactful villains in the business. From Bowser, Ganon, Ridley, Marx, Fawful, King K Rool, to the newest baddies to join the rogues gallery, those being Splatoon 's DJ Octavio, Metroid's Raven Beak and Pokemon's Volo, they know how to nail their villains. One, I can confidently say isn't apart of said group is Andross, the eponymous villain of the the franchise. He's a nothingburger of a character. We know very little about him, his motivations, what he actually wants outside of something as boring as galactic domination. He's an absolute piece of wood. His "personalty" is that he's your garden variety mad scientist and literally nothing more. My suggestion is to ditch him and go with an entirely new villain. The aparoids were the villains of Star Fox Assault, and they done wonderfully. Try another villainous group, entity or something. Be done with Andross. 

Krystal:

Bring her back. It's time. Her return is long due. 

It's that simple. You don't have to do any of the melodramatic crap from Command. Avoid it like the plague. She's already been established in Assault as the team's telepath. There's very little you have to change or adjust to fit her in the with the rest of the team. She feels like a natural inclusion as is. I'm not even a Krystal enthusiast, I just feel she's been long neglected and I think it's finally time to bring her back into the fold. She has an extremely dedicated fanbase, so much so that her Adventures voice actress has become a big name within the fan community. That shows the impact this character has had on people. 

I realized how long this is getting so I'll stop here for tonight. Continued and finished in part two!