Everyone Hates 'Star Fox Zero' Right Now, But Is It a Cult Hit in the Making?

Earlier this week, Nintendo released Star Fox Zero, one of its most eagerly awaited games this year. With rumors of its next console around the corner, it's perhaps one of the last big games for the Wii U.

Overall, critics haven't been kind to it. Star Fox Zero currently has a Metacritic score of 71, with the majority of favorable reviews coming from smaller publications and foreign press. Bigger sites like Giant Bomb, Wired, and GamesRadar slammed it. Polygon didn't even publish a scored review, saying it didn't have the patience to play it to completion.

Nintendo usually doesn't fumble like this, at least not with its beloved franchises, so what happened?

Motherboard contributor and one of my favorite writers on Japanese games Heidi Kemps and I discussed Nintendo's latest dud over email.

From: Emanuel Maiberg

To: Heidi Kemps

April 21 12:11 PM

Hey Heidi!

So what surprised me most about playing Star Fox Zero is that I apparently care about Star Fox. It's nostalgia I didn't even know I had in me. As soon as I started playing it, saw that Arwing ship, those furry characters, and started shooting fools out of the sky, I remembered just how much I loved Star Fox 64. I played that game for hours, finding all the different paths through the Lylat system. It was super fun.

Despite several games bearing its name over the years, Star Fox Zero is the most Star Fox 64-like Star Fox game we've seen in decades, but people are pissed about it. I think I understand where most of them are coming from. Do you?

From: Heidi Kemps

To: Emanuel Maiberg

April 21 1:45 PM

Yo, Emanuel!

Yeah, I totally get the nostalgia vibe. Games like Star Fox simply aren't a common sight in today's marketplace. The flying shooter, be it on-rails or more free-roaming, isn't much of a thing anymore. And that's a real shame. I absolutely love these kinds of games, as they're all about thrill-of-the-moment action and replaying to improve your skills to the point where you can ace even the hardest levels stylishly.

I feel like the big issue with Star Fox Zero that everyone's harping on is the controls, and honestly—I don't get the hate. I feel like it's a gut reaction to having to re-learn something. "If it works this way, why learn to do it differently?"

I'm not saying that everything in Star Fox Zero's control scheme works perfectly, but I feel like the hatred is severely overblown. Then again, maybe I just adjust better because of my love for arcade games, where there were all kinds of unique and weird control schemes—trackballs, spinning dials, flight yokes, dance pads, even custom-made dual-stick robot cockpits.

The thing about Star Fox is that it's traditionally been a technological showcase. The original SNES game showed off the Super FX chip's polygon-processing prowess in an era when Nintendo was feeling the pressure of competition. Star Fox 64 aptly demonstrated what the Nintendo 64's then-novel analog control and graphical power could create. It was also one of the first home games to really incorporate force feedback via the controller's rumble pack. Nintendo felt all of these things were very important, so they made the game a tentpole of the N64's marketing push. That resulted in one of the most amazing '90s promotional videos ever:

The Star Fox games weren't just stellar games in their own right, they were weapons in the ongoing console war. Whenever you got into an argument at school about console superiority, you could deploy Star Fox as a definitive answer of Why My Console Is Better. That's part of the reason why the older games have such a strong place in peoples' memories.

From: Emanuel Maiberg

To: Heidi Kemps

April 21 1:58 PM

Yeah, the controls are definitely the part of the game that almost every reviewer is dunking on. I had trouble with them as well. The Wii U gamepad is a weird thing. It's super wide, it has a big touch screen in the middle, a speaker (which you HAVE to leave cranked up for Star Fox Zero if you don't want to miss out on crucial mission info), and motion sensing much like the Wii remote. The problem is not so much the motion sensing. I think it's easy and fun to aim like that. It worked beautifully for Splatoon and I think it works here too. The problem is more that I have to keep looking down at the gamepad, which has a first-person, cockpit view that allows for fine aiming. This is annoying to me because I have a nice TV and I want to look at it when I'm playing Star Fox Zero, which looks really nice! The gamepad screen, by comparison, feels cramped and dim. I'm also not sure what the benefit of looking at the TV is, or when I should look at it. Like, if it's easier to aim on the gamepad, why not just keep my eyes locked to that screen the entire time?

What am I—and many others—not "getting" here do you think? How are you playing the game. I want to love it. Help me.

From: Heidi Kemps

To: Emanuel Maiberg

April 21 2:35 PM

I can understand people being frustrated at first. There's also the fact that Star Fox Zero won't shower you in points and accolades from the get-go: you have to work to get better, which means if you're already struggling a little with the controls, the game's somewhat harsh grading makes you feel even worse.

Here's the thing about the gamepad: I find that you need that cockpit view a lot less than the game suggests. Some enemies, like the boss of the very first level, benefit greatly from the cockpit view. Sometimes you HAVE to use it, like when you're sending out your robot buddy to do some hacking, but that's not super common. Most of the time, it's not necessary. It's up to you to figure out when to use it. If you're having problems hitting stuff on the big screen, well, maybe it's a good idea to glance at the small screen for a moment or two to line up that exact shot. But if you're trying to play the whole game looking back and forth between the two screens constantly, that probably isn't going to work out so well. Use the cockpit view only when you feel like it would help you, and you'll have a much better time.

The thing I'm a bit more iffy about is the use of the right analog stick for things like rolling and U-turning. It's a bit finicky, especially since you have to move it in tandem with the left stick. I'd really have preferred those motions assigned to button combinations.

Star Fox Zero isn't a Final Fantasy XIII, "the game gets good after 25 hours, I swear!" situation. You put some effort in, and you get rewarded with a good game. Well, mostly. There are some parts that I feel really drag things down.

From: Emanuel Maiberg

To: Heidi Kemps

April 21 2:48 PM

Okay, well, I'm definitely going to keep playing it. Unlike some reviewers who completely wrote it off, I love a lot of things about it, and if you think the controls will click eventually, I'll keep trying.

I want to ask you about the development and business aspect of this game. It wasn't until I booted the game that I realized it was developed by Platinum, which is easily one of the best action game developers in the world today. Bayonetta, Vanquish, Metal Gear Rising: Revengence—they're all kick ass games about kicking ass. I see how Star Fox Zero manages some of that, but the president of the studio Tatsumi Minami stepped down right around when the game launched. Do you think there's a chance that's in response to the reviews? Is that something Japanese game developers even do? Are we to worry about Platinum's future now?

Also, the impression I got from Nintendo's marketing is that Shigeru Miyamoto was very much involved with development. Do you think that was just empty marketing, or can we pin some of these controller frustrations to him trying to justify the Wii U gimmick he helped design?

From: Heidi Kemps

To: Emanuel Maiberg

April 21 4:07 PM

That's hard to say. We're not privy to the internal goings-on of many of these companies. Minami allegedly stepped down around March, and sometimes these things aren't well publicized until after the fact. He could have left for a variety of reasons. Japanese companies rarely discuss publicly why people leave. There was a rumor circulating that Nintendo had basically taken over the last portion of development from Platinum, as well. But when I interviewed developers from both Nintendo and Platinum for at E3 2015, everything seemed pretty peachy between the two.

I don't think there's a reason to worry about Platinum, though. It has a nice, comfy contract with Microsoft for Scalebound and seems to be BFFs with Activision. It's working with Square-Enix on NieR Automata, too, which has a chance of being the best thing ever.

Regarding Miyamoto… well, honestly, I think he has his fingers in a little bit of everything at Nintendo as a producer. He's a famous face and he's kinda-sorta involved with all that Nintendo does to some degree. Just how much he was involved with this or that is up for debate. Again, we don't know unless the dev team explicitly talks about it. Unfortunately, since Nintendo president Satoru Iwata passed, we haven't been getting a lot of those great "Iwata Asks" style interviews that go into that sort of thing.

From: Emanuel Maiberg

To: Heidi Kemps

April 21 4:20 PM

Okay, last question for you. I don't remember how Bayonetta and Vanquish were received when they released, but clearly those games have gained more respect over the years. They're both kind of quirky conceptually, very difficult to master, and put a lot people off after a first impression. Do you think that Star Fox Zero is a cult hit in the making, and if so, what is it about these Platinum games that's hard to take in at first, but praised as genius later? I used to think that it was just a matter of difficulty, but I feel like that argument doesn't hold water anymore because everyone loves Dark Souls now, which is very difficult, and every game wants to be Dark Souls.

From: Heidi Kemps

To: Emanuel Maiberg

April 21 4:54 PM

Well, it's a little early to say Star Fox Zero won't be a hit, isn't it? Reviews aren't always an indicator of sales. However, Platinum does have a bit of a legacy of making games that fly under the radar and/or are critically panned at first, but are hailed as masterpieces as time passes. That reputation goes as far back as the Clover Studios (Capcom's studio where many of the Platinum developers come from) days with God Hand. These are games made by and for people who have a strong gaming background, who want to invest time in learning and exploring a game's mechanics in order to get the most out of it. The process of learning—be it a control scheme or learning how to play a particular stage perfectly—is part of what feeds into that satisfaction. Difficulty and mechanics are two different things, and Platinum games really put the emphasis on mastering the mechanics to a degree that, I'd argue, even Dark Souls doesn't quite emphasize.

From: Emanuel Maiberg

To: Heidi Kemps

April 22 11:51

I forgot about God Hand! Yes, another great game that wasn't appreciated at launch. If you're not familiar with it, I highly recommend watching Tim Rodgers' video review/jazz poetry reading about God Hand.

I hope that Star Fox Zero will similarly find its die hard fans over time, and that they in turn will convince me of its genius.