Star Fox is obviously a well-loved game. You only need to look at how often Nintendo has returned to it since the original 1993 Super Nintendo title. Since then, we’ve had reboots, reimaginings, and remakes over a variety of Nintendo platforms. Star Fox (2026) for the Nintendo Switch 2 is the latest in a long line, serving as a remake of the beloved Star Fox 64 (also known as Lylat Wars in some regions). Is the Lylat System still worth saving? We decided to take on the battle with Dr Andross and find out.
For Profit and Revenge
Star Fox opens with a brief look at the past, when General Pepper of the Cornerian Defense Force sends James McCloud and his mercenary team to investigate Venom, the inhospitable planet where the mad scientist Dr. Andross was banished. This ends in tragedy when their teammate and engineer, Pigma, betrays them. James is shot down while protecting Peppy, ordering him to escape and asking him to keep an eye on James’ son, Fox.
Skipping ahead, Fox McCloud is now in charge of his own mercenary unit: Peppy acts as a mentor figure, Falco is an overconfident but skilled pilot, and Slippy is a somewhat bumbling flyer but talented engineer. Dr. Andross’ forces are on the move, and General Pepper makes the call to the Star Fox team to help save the Lylat system, one planet at a time. And if they pull it off, they can name their price. With that kind of motivation, they soon take off on a series of missions, with the planet Venom as their final destination.
The game gives direction and information to support the missions through cutscenes as you progress. While there isn’t much of a plot, which isn’t unusual for this type of game, I did like how Star Fox (2026) handled it. There are multiple paths to Venom depending on your actions, and the cutscenes vary based on this. For instance, do you support the forces on Katina or investigate Aquas? If you clear certain conditions in Sector Y, the forces that were there can move on to Katina, freeing you up for the Aquas mission if you decide to head that way. As a bonus, there is also an extended ‘True Ending’ to unlock, should you meet the requirements.
I should also mention that the characters themselves are great. There are plenty of fun lines in battle should you save someone (or accidentally shoot them), and while the runtime is short, their personalities are strong and shine through, with the team playing off each other well in the cutscenes. This is supported by some great voice acting that I felt fit the style of game well (having played on English, one of several language options).
Taking the Arwing for a Spin
Most stages take the form of piloting the Arwing, a combat spaceship, through a variety of levels with enemies both flying and landbound, alongside a number of environmental obstacles. You’ll find yourself blowing enemies into bits with your laser and bombs, quickly grabbing power-ups and recovery items which tend to appear after taking down enemies, and using special maneuvers to avoid getting shot down by incoming fire.
If you’ve been on the Internet for a while, you’ve probably heard the “do a barrel roll!” meme, which originates from Star Fox 64. More than a meme though, the barren roll (which is technically an aileron roll, despite what the game’s UI and dialogue calls it) is a valid move to spin and reflect laser fire when overwhelmed. Somersaults allow you to pick up items when they’re vertically stacked. Adjusting your speed lets you boost past a falling pillar quickly or slow down to move through an opening-and-closing door. These are just some examples of how these moves can be used during most standard missions.
While the core gameplay sounds relatively simple, it works really well, with the Arwing having tight, responsive controls that feel great to use. It’s also backed up by a number of systems that make gameplay incredibly fun.
Some missions have you take different vehicles for a spin instead, specifically the Landmaster and the Blue-Marine. These were fun enough, each providing a different feel than the Arwing stages by working on land and underwater, respectively, but I think Slippy should’ve gone back to the drawing board with them. The Landmaster has weak weaponry and a brief hover move, and I just didn’t find it as enjoyable as the Arwing (though it did amuse me that I could still barrel roll on land), while the Blue-Marine was quite slow, even if it comes with unlimited torpedoes. With that said, I still feel positive on these levels on the whole, as they bring something significantly different to the game and work as a break from flying.
Stages typically end with a boss fight, all of which are quite varied and enjoyable too. Each has a different way to take it down, attack patterns to learn to dodge, and often multiple phases to handle.
As a brief aside, I should also note that the Nintendo Switch 2 mouse controls are supported in Star Fox. I can’t say I was a fan of how they felt. Perhaps I’d get more used to it, but the controls feel overly sensitive. The layout of the buttons for various functions feels somewhat awkward to use too, unlike the standard control mode. This is particularly the case due to having to use the rather small analog stick and buttons on the Joy-Con while simultaneously sliding the controller around to aim. It doesn’t help that this uses the first-person cockpit view, which, while a novelty, isn’t a way I’d want to play the entire game.
Do a Somersault!
Star Fox is a rather short game, at least if you only consider completing the campaign once. I’d made my run from Corneria to Venom and unlocked the true ending within a couple of hours. But that’s not really the intended experience.
As mentioned previously, there are multiple paths to Venom. This means that replaying can be a different experience each time to a point. I made my first run without ever touching the alternate vehicles. Maybe on one path, you’ll go to an M-class star where the shields are constantly being worn down by the heat. On another, you’ll be navigating through space debris. There are quite a few different missions in Star Fox, where you might be escorting your mobile base and blowing missiles out of the sky, or a ‘stealth’ mission, where you don’t exactly have to be stealthy, but you need to destroy search lights before you reach them. You can even dogfight with another mercenary team in all-range mode levels, where you can fly freely around an area.
It’s also worth noting that you and your wingmen accumulate damage as you go. While your own ship can be repaired by items mid-level, your teammates are repaired via a bonus at the end of a level, which changes based on your total hits. This can affect your playthrough quite a bit. If you don’t respond to their cries for help during a mission quickly, you might find yourself taking on that other mercenary team while being down a member or two if your crewmates happen to go down right before that level. Not that they do a huge amount to help fight beyond acting as targets to draw enemy fire, admittedly, which is a weakness of those dogfighting stages against enemy mercenary teams and goes against the narrative that the character commentary sometimes pushes about being a team. Even so, it may force you to play aggressively and take down as many enemies as you can to ramp up that repair bonus if you notice one of the crew is getting close to being shot down.
As well as completing the campaign, you can take on a number of other tasks. Unlocking the campaigns’ Expert mode for a more challenging replay is just one of these. Each level has associated challenges accessed through a specific challenge mode, such as defeating Pigma before any of his teammates, destroying 50 proximity mines within a certain stage, or defeating an enemy while performing a somersault. There are also medals in campaign mode for hitting certain scores.
The campaign and challenges can both be completed in co-op, so it might be fun to replay with a friend, too, or to get that bit of assistance for some of the more difficult challenges or requirements. I don’t mind admitting that unlocking Area 6 by perfectly completing Sector Z took me a few tries at first.
There is a battle mode as well, if you want to battle bots over control points/resources or fight online. This allows the use of the Switch 2 camera and what are essentially Star Fox VTuber avatars, which is quite funny. You can unlock more of these as you complete requirements. Sadly, battle mode only includes a few levels to play on, which will likely reduce the longevity of online play.
In the end, it’s still not an excessively long game. But there is plenty to do here.
Beautiful Stars of the Lylat System
As much as I like the visuals of Star Fox 64 through my nostalgia-tinted glasses, Star Fox (2026) is unsurprisingly a massive upgrade from the almost 30-year-old game. The characters have an incredible amount of detail, which is particularly noticeable with the fur and feathers. The ships all retain their iconic look, but they’re upgraded for 2026 with plenty of modern touches. The environments look amazing as you fly through too, even if sometimes it feels like there’s too much on screen to keep track of it all.
You can take a close-up look at many of these in the Holoviewer, an in-game encyclopedia, which contains views of the models and some unlockable information on characters and locations. It’s always nice to have these things.
Verdict
Star Fox (2026) absolutely proves that the Lylat System is still worth saving, whether you’re completely new to the franchise or revisiting it after one of its many past iterations. It pairs incredibly fun flight gameplay with modern visuals to create a more than worthwhile experience.
While each individual run is short, the branching paths and other differences between each campaign provide plenty of replayability and ensure that the path to Venom feels different each time. On top of that, it comes packed with additional challenges and modes to play.
It isn’t entirely flawless, of course. Teammates that act more like flying targets at times and how the alternate vehicles feel to control are downsides. But they remain fairly minor issues in the grand scheme of things.
STAR FOX (2026) IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
If you are looking for another Nintendo game, check out our review of Pokémon Pokopia.
Many thanks go to Nintendo for a Nintendo Switch 2 review code for Star Fox (2026).
A gamer since the days of Amstrad and DOS and someone who has dabbled in a variety of professions. He enjoys a wide variety of genres, but has been focusing on visual novels and virtual reality in recent years. Head Editor of NookGaming. Follow him and the website on @NookSite.
