 |
|
 |
| |
Jarrod's Starfox Adventures Review
This game has GORGEOUS graphics. I can't make it much plainer than that.Right from the get-go the games intro movie (before the title screen) showcases many of the games various levels and creatures and it looks lovely. The much talked about Fur-Effects in this game are fantastic. Each character, most notably Krystal, Fox, and Peppy look outstanding.
The fur is just plain awesome. Great facial animation and fantastic real-time lighting are abundant too. The games worlds are also a marvel to look at. From moon craters, icy caverns, lava filled temples, grassy plains, to ocean shoresides, this game has vastly different levels that will suprise the player everytime with their beauty. The day to night changes are executed well and the most realistic water to ever be found in a video game can be found here. The reflections and shear beauty of itis amazing. This game looks DAMN good.
10.0
David Wise does a good job on the soundtrack but must of the games music sounds generic and just there to fit the atmosphere. Very few of the tracks, unlike most RARE games, are catchy but the ones that are are. Case and point, the Thorntail Hollow music featuring the tribal chanting. A marvelous peice of music if I do say so myself. The whole game features
an Africany tribal like soundtrack which sets the mood and primativeness of Dinosaur Planet well. Wise's remixes of some classic Star Fox tunes sound great as well such as the before mentioned intro movie's music. However, this music actually does sound better outside of the game than it does in the game for some reason. Im guessing that during the actual gameplay the music is either subdued by the sound effects or battle theme or it plays for too short of a time before switching to another peice of music. But for some reason it sounds better on a CD than in the game. On a personalnote, I just want to say that I never failed to smile when seeing and listening to the jingle that plays when Fox recives an item. It is great. As for the sound effects, they are great. The effects such as the staff hitting on wood, dinosaur yells, Arwing noise, footsteps all soundtop notch and the voice acting is good but not up to Bad Fur Day quality.Some dinosaurs feature British accents that may get annoying sometimes but other characters like Fox sound good; in my opinion much better than the Star Fox 64 voice actor. When the games various characters speak in their dinosaur language it can be hard believe that what is being said is actually what the subtitles are saying. This made up language is no Elvish or Hutteese but its not bad overall. You may even recognize someof the characters voices from Bad Fur Day as RARE obviously did both games.
8.0
Fox moves as any character in this particular type of game would and auto-jumps much like Zelda's Link. There is a button assigned to rolling and one you can assign any of the games various items or moves to. TheC-Stick can be used to scroll through the games items during gameplay toassign to either the Y button or to be used right there with the A button. However, because of the shear number of items and searching for them takes too long to find the right one it can get rather tedious. It would have been more advantagous for RARE to let the gamer have the option of assigning items from a menu on the pause screen. The camera control is limited but works okay. Fox's magical staff he obtains has its control problems though. When using the Fire attack of the staff it is taken to a first person-ish mode but the crossair auto-centers so its often difficult to aim where you want to. The game features a Zelda-ish Z targeting mode only its not activated by a button. It is automatic if your staff is out. When you approach an enemy you automatically engage in a battle. Rare actually puts the Gamecube's depth-blurring effect to good
use. When combat with an enemy starts the background is blurred out and then the foreground stands out like when switching focus on a camera lense. Its very neat and well executed. The combat however is not as deep or fun as in the Zelda games even though certain combos can be done with the staff. Prince Tricky, the Earthwalker Prince whom helps out Fox throughout most of the game is easily controlled and provides Fox with
help, such as digging for secrets, or burning through bushes and ice. One minor setback of mine is in the games one and only item shop. Each and every time you want to buy an item you must listen to the shopkeepers sales pitch before buying an item. This takes about 10 seconds or so and when you are buying multiple items it can get rather tedious unlike Zelda in which you can just choose your item and be gone with it. The Arwing levels seem to be based on the SNES version of Star Fox rather than the N64 as the moves learned in the N64 version are nowhere to be found (U-Turn, Sumersault, laser charge) but still provide a fun challenge while not breaking the flow of the regular gameplay. The ship controls work fine though and should be easy to handle. It also has quite a few
different gameplay modes to choose from including the already mentioned arwing levels, dinosaur riding, firing cannons, racing, and the Tests. Overall the controls get the job done.
7.5
You have heard me already compare this game to Zelda many times but I however find this game to not be the "Zelda Clone" that you many have already heard. Sure the game borrows elements from Zelda but what game now-a-days doesnt borrow something from another game? Star Fox Adventures plays very much like its own game and has alot of original ideas in it. The games plot involving Krazoa Spirits and Spellstones is what makes this its own game. Dinosaur Planet is in trouble and Fox and Co. recieve a distress signal from the planet and that gets the game going. On the planet he finds a magical staff, belonging to Krystal who has been captured, that gives him special abilities on his quest to help bring
back the planet back together and thwart the evil General Scales plans. General Scales obviously being the villian who has torn the planet apart by stealing the Spellstones. The story is farily good but is original. The games puzzles are real brain busters; much harder than your usual easy breezy Zelda puzzle. They really require you to stop and think, or most of them do anyway. Also of notice are the couple of sections of the game where strength is featured. In these bits you must rapidly press the A button to win a tug-o-war type game and it really has the gamer giving all there energy into beating them. You really have to give it your all to win these. Quite innovative. The games finale is quite nice as well and will most likely put a smile on your face. The difficulty of this game exceeds Zelda but is not overall too dificult though many of thegames sections will most definatley require repeated attempts.
9.0
Despite alot of setbacks and almost no replay value (once beaten the only way to play again is to start a brand new game) that are evident in this game it is a good Adventure. You would think with the games's lengthy delay that it would have come out better but it didn't. Want to blame somone? Blame Nintendo not RARE. I believe that RARE did the best they could. This game will last most gamers between 15 and 20 hours of gameplay and should provide you with either a nice rental or a great used game buy. It is a shame that this is how RARE left Nintendo but it was not a bad game. I just hope that somewhere along the line RARE uses this game engine again as it has the workings of something great. So in the
end this game, while somewhat dissapointing, did however provide me with what DKU games always have, a nice escape from reality. Do I reccomendit? You bet.
8.0
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
