6th March 2021, 4:39 PM
It's definitely an intersting historical footnote, but it's an inferior version of an underwhelming game. Is Star Fox Adventures terrible? No, but SJ I think I can answer your question about why it didn't all pull together.
One, the puzzles solved themselves. You walked up to an interaction point and the game just autoselected the thing you needed. Aside from a couple hidden switches, there really weren't many puzzles at all.
Two, the gameplay was all over the place. I'm not even talking about the arwing missions. I'm talking about large sections being dedicated to odd mechanics that felt like other genres of games.
Three, it was STILL unfinished, or at least the design felt like it was incomplete which would be even worse. This is the biggest one. Large chunks of the games show off locations or bosses or elements that never actually showed up in the game at all. Krystal, for example, was nothing more than a maiden in distress that was barely even mentioned much less played as once the game got underway. Whole dungeons were excised, and that last chance at a boss fight against the big bad you've been working to reach throughout the entire game just... got interrupted by sudden Andross. No final boss fight, here have a retread of a familiar battle from previous Star Fox games.
Four, the story made no sense. The whole world has an ancient religion worshipping ancient spirits only for you to find out that those spirits are Andross, who is decidedly NOT ancient. What, am I to believe that he somehow influenced the development of this planet's culture to the point massive temples were built, worshipped at, and then abandoned to decay, in the space of 2 years since Fox defeated him? It feels like the story is in conflict with itself. This element above all others can be blamed on the shift to being a Star Fox game. They'd have been better off not involving Andross at all of course, and I don't even mind that Fox McCloud is in it.
I feel like this is the sort of game that could stand for a full on remake from the ground up. I know that numerous interviews have had Rare employees state they didn't rush the game out the door and that it really was complete and that the acquisition by Microsoft didn't rush anything. I don't believe it. The results speak far louder than their denial, and what are they supposed to say? "Oh yes our bosses screwed you over, please hate us and our bosses." I wouldn't even expect them to be honest in those old interviews. It'd be like believing the employees of Silicon Knights BEFORE the collapse of the company. (ABF I still believe every word of the countless employees reporting how horribly mismanaged that company was.)
One, the puzzles solved themselves. You walked up to an interaction point and the game just autoselected the thing you needed. Aside from a couple hidden switches, there really weren't many puzzles at all.
Two, the gameplay was all over the place. I'm not even talking about the arwing missions. I'm talking about large sections being dedicated to odd mechanics that felt like other genres of games.
Three, it was STILL unfinished, or at least the design felt like it was incomplete which would be even worse. This is the biggest one. Large chunks of the games show off locations or bosses or elements that never actually showed up in the game at all. Krystal, for example, was nothing more than a maiden in distress that was barely even mentioned much less played as once the game got underway. Whole dungeons were excised, and that last chance at a boss fight against the big bad you've been working to reach throughout the entire game just... got interrupted by sudden Andross. No final boss fight, here have a retread of a familiar battle from previous Star Fox games.
Four, the story made no sense. The whole world has an ancient religion worshipping ancient spirits only for you to find out that those spirits are Andross, who is decidedly NOT ancient. What, am I to believe that he somehow influenced the development of this planet's culture to the point massive temples were built, worshipped at, and then abandoned to decay, in the space of 2 years since Fox defeated him? It feels like the story is in conflict with itself. This element above all others can be blamed on the shift to being a Star Fox game. They'd have been better off not involving Andross at all of course, and I don't even mind that Fox McCloud is in it.
I feel like this is the sort of game that could stand for a full on remake from the ground up. I know that numerous interviews have had Rare employees state they didn't rush the game out the door and that it really was complete and that the acquisition by Microsoft didn't rush anything. I don't believe it. The results speak far louder than their denial, and what are they supposed to say? "Oh yes our bosses screwed you over, please hate us and our bosses." I wouldn't even expect them to be honest in those old interviews. It'd be like believing the employees of Silicon Knights BEFORE the collapse of the company. (ABF I still believe every word of the countless employees reporting how horribly mismanaged that company was.)
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)