Barbelith Underground > Games & Gameplay > Lylat Wars / Starfox 64

Does anyone know why there's a lack of rumble support in the VC version? I found myself wondering if it might be able to be restored with a patch...

I don't think we're going to get anything patched on the Wii, especially not Virtual Console games. If we were, the first thing I'd want is 60Hz options in everything. Fucking Nintendo Europe, moan, gripe, groan.

Lack of rumble is probably because the Classic Controller doesn't have rumble functionality and none of the games are recommended for play with the Cube pad.

On that, the controls here don't translate very well, which is a shame. The N64 controller remains unique and it's surprising just how clumsy its games feel when you try and play them with anything else. This game, in particular, really needs the distinct trigger button and four C buttons - a shoulder and second analogue stick are poor replacements in this case (the second analogue stick also made the Cube ports of the two N64 Zelda games annoyingly fiddly).

There was one major problem with the game when it originally came out and it's one that remains on the Wii - I didn't expect them to have bothered fixing it, but it would have been nice if they'd made the effort. There's no level select. It means that if you want to try and get a medal on a later level, you have to play through all of the ones leading up to it before you get the opportunity, then you've got to complete the task that game, otherwise you're going to be going through the entire process again. It's an even bigger issue when you're trying to obtain medals on levels on the hard route, because some of the requirements for sticking to that route are quite strict and messing them up means having to start over again, again.

It's a strange thing for Nintendo to have overlooked, because it's a really basic bit of common sense - if you've developed a game that presents the player with a seperate score attack on each level, allowing the player immediate access to each level (once they've been unlocked in the first place, natch) is essential. It's what prevented me from bothering to 100% first time around.

Other than that, though, it's a magnificent game. I don't think it's dated brilliantly - I'm quite surprised by how sluggish the movement feels, how slow the progress through each level - but it's still more than playable. Packed with secrets - opening up and staying on the hard route through is a proper challenge and guaranteed to take a decent length of time (you've not seen the proper ending or real final boss unless you've done this, Suedey, and they're well worth the effort).

It's the score attack that makes it stand out - I don't know if it's something you'd expect from a major Nintendo franchise, but there's a subtle, secret scoring method hidden just underneath the surface. The bomb shot - accessed by holding down the fire button - has a blast radius. Anything that's destroyed by falling into this area nets you one point for the kill, plus another point for being killed indirectly. You can see this happening most clearly when there are waves of enemies that appear in threes - destroy the one in the middle (one point) and the two either side of it will also be taken out (two points for two more kills, plus two more for the fact that they're indirect kills).

But it also means that you can sneak in some extra points. Single enemy on ths screen? Fire a bomb shot at the ground or wall next to it and take it out with the area of effect - instead of just the one point, you've got two. It means that you're always trying to get your aim just off-centre, just to the side/above/below every enemy that appears.

And that's why the game's still loved by dedicated gamers - because of that hidden depth. You keep coming back in order to try and squeeze a couple more points out of a level. It's just a pity that the lack of level select eventually leaves you feeling disillusioned with the challenge - takes a while before that happens, mind.

Oh. There's one other fault with it. I kind of expected this to be the case. The free-movement levels - the ones where movement isn't forced , isn't on rails, but where you can fly around with in a three-dimensional space as you wish - have aged badly. They look dull (the number of craft on the screen isn't as astonishing as it once was, the level of detail in the environments is pathetically poor), they wear thin quickly (it's nearly impossible to tell friend from foe, there's bugger-all variety in them and they take forever) and they're pretty dull from the off (on-rails movement allows for developers to pace levels perfectly, which is something that can never be done when you give the player complete freedom of movement).

Thankfully, there are relatively few of them.

Lylat Wars / Starfox 64 - Won't You Save The Galaxy With Me?