Starfox Character Discussion

[CrypticQuery]

Oh coarse. But I honestly think, if done right, Marcus could be an interesting character.

 

Potentially, but is there necessarily a need for him at all?  The inclusion of offspring characters almost always provides questions regarding aging of the main characters, namely if they do age at all.  The complexities of two sets of characters; younger versus older, will undoubtedly be problematic considering the series can't even get the current set right. 

[Ala1n-J]

Oh coarse. But I honestly think, if done right, Marcus could be an interesting character.

 

The thing is, as Crazyfooinc mentionned, the original cast has big problems of characterization and storyline, they need to be dealt with in priority. Adding new characters affiliated somehow to the main cast while not fixing these problems will only add fuel to the fire (and no, that wasn't supposed to be linked with Crazyfooinc's gif!). Better fix the original team and their universe before expanding it.

EDIT : Damnit! I've been ninja'd!

Edited April 28, 2013 by Ala1n-J

[Drasiana]

Please, try to relax. You seem agitated. I don't mean to bother you.

 

I'm not agitated, I put emphasis in my posts so it's very clear to people what I'm trying to say in case they, y'know, don't get it. The only thing that mildly agitates me is how horribly-written the game is, though I've gotta say after reading your post I'm not really becoming too fond of the way you keep using "examples" from games you haven't played or apparently have little memory of playing (eg. Krystal had nothing to do with the boss gauges) and trying to discount the ones that are actually there (FBF, Krystal's nonexistent role in Assault's story) in order to skew your point.

 

Ala1n-J basically covered everything, but I have a few more points:

 

No one is "ignoring" the fact that third-party volleyball is a contributor to the way the writing sucks, but again, contribution isn't an excuse. If you're writing for games one of your top skills should most definitely be the ability to handle other people's worlds and characters tactfully, much like a TV writer, and absolutely none of the game developers seem to have really understood this. It's failure on behalf of the writers themselves and failure on behalf of the developers for not making sure they had someone that knew what they were doing in that position. Then you get the fandom trying to explain away the writing inconsistencies as "oh, well, time has passed, so obviously this and this happened during the timeframe to make this happen--" when it really is just as simple as bad writing and headcanon shouldn't be responsible for allowing your story to make sense.

 

Secondly, I'd like to step back for a moment and say how you dislike Krystal in Adventures because she's a damsel, yet your favourite moment in Assault was the honeymoon scene. Do you not see that both of these events serve the same function? From the end of the Adventures prologue onward, Krystal serves no purpose but to be a prize that Fox wins over, in every single subsequent game. The English dub of Assault actually makes a point of making Krystal appear more helpless though that speaks to the dubiousness of the localization team more than the original writers. Also consider how condescending this is to the female audience: Falco smashes up some robots, Slippy helps figure out how to destroy the Aparoid Queen, Wolf swoops in to save Fox, Peppy saves General Pepper and sacrifices the Great Fox, and Krystal gets the promise of maybe being Fox's wife eventually. Gross.

 

And "Falco's scene doesn't have any impact"? Are you kidding? He saved Fox from being brutally murdered by rogue sentries. That's far more "impact" than making a joke about how Fox and Krystal are going to eventually bone.

 

The fact of it is, Krystal is useless. Her powers do nothing in the gameplay or story. She completely gives up on her backstory a good .2 seconds after it's even stated. Her entire being revolves around what Fox wants or does and due to her nonsensical backstory and powers she doesn't really fit into the world to begin with. She is there for Fox/the player to ogle and consider a prize for saving the day and serves no overall narrative or gameplay function. You can still like her, for whatever reason, but she is not a good character.

 

 

 

I don't really consider characters to be very important in things. My interests in games are the story first

 

How do you think the story is supposed to work without working characters?!

 

Then you go on to say that everything doesn't need to have a point and oh my god dude if you honestly don't understand that your story has to fucking make sense then I really don't know what to tell you.

 

 

 

Marcus

 

raidersmeltingface.gif

[Talyl Landmaster]

The thing is, as Crazyfooinc mentionned, the original cast has big problems of characterization and storyline, they need to be dealt with in priority. Adding new characters affiliated somehow to the main cast while not fixing these problems will only add fuel to the fire (and no, that wasn't supposed to be linked with Crazyfooinc's gif!). Better fix the original team and their universe before expanding it.

EDIT : Damnit! I've been ninja'd!

I get it, and I totally agree with you. I just thought that if they were to tackle that subject at hand, it would be neat to throw something new on the table when it comes to father/son relationships in story arcs and development. Not that they have and are not going to have original content in something like Star Fox. But, you know, I'm only dreaming. XD

[CrypticQuery]

raidersmeltingface.gif

 

Got you covered ;

 

[TrishaCat]

 

I'm not agitated, I put emphasis in my posts so it's very clear to people what I'm trying to say in case they, y'know, don't get it. The only thing that mildly agitates me is how horribly-written the game is, though I've gotta say after reading your post I'm not really becoming too fond of the way you keep using "examples" from games you haven't played or apparently have little memory of playing (eg. Krystal had nothing to do with the boss gauges) and trying to discount the ones that are actually there (FBF, Krystal's nonexistent role in Assault's story) in order to skew your point.

 

Ala1n-J basically covered everything, but I have a few more points:

 

No one is "ignoring" the fact that third-party volleyball is a contributor to the way the writing sucks, but again, contribution isn't an excuse. If you're writing for games one of your top skills should most definitely be the ability to handle other people's worlds and characters tactfully, much like a TV writer, and absolutely none of the game developers seem to have really understood this. It's failure on behalf of the writers themselves and failure on behalf of the developers for not making sure they had someone that knew what they were doing in that position. Then you get the fandom trying to explain away the writing inconsistencies as "oh, well, time has passed, so obviously this and this happened during the timeframe to make this happen--" when it really is just as simple as bad writing and headcanon shouldn't be responsible for allowing your story to make sense.

 

Secondly, I'd like to step back for a moment and say how you dislike Krystal in Adventures because she's a damsel, yet your favourite moment in Assault was the honeymoon scene. Do you not see that both of these events serve the same function? From the end of the Adventures prologue onward, Krystal serves no purpose but to be a prize that Fox wins over, in every single subsequent game. The English dub of Assault actually makes a point of making Krystal appear more helpless though that speaks to the dubiousness of the localization team more than the original writers. Also consider how condescending this is to the female audience: Falco smashes up some robots, Slippy helps figure out how to destroy the Aparoid Queen, Wolf swoops in to save Fox, Peppy saves General Pepper and sacrifices the Great Fox, and Krystal gets the promise of maybe being Fox's wife eventually. Gross.

 

And "Falco's scene doesn't have any impact"? Are you kidding? He saved Fox from being brutally murdered by rogue sentries. That's far more "impact" than making a joke about how Fox and Krystal are going to eventually bone.

 

The fact of it is, Krystal is useless. Her powers do nothing in the gameplay or story. She completely gives up on her backstory a good .2 seconds after it's even stated. Her entire being revolves around what Fox wants or does and due to her nonsensical backstory and powers she doesn't really fit into the world to begin with. She is there for Fox/the player to ogle and consider a prize for saving the day and serves no overall narrative or gameplay function. You can still like her, for whatever reason, but she is not a good character.

 

 

 

 

How do you think the story is supposed to work without working characters?!

 

Then you go on to say that everything doesn't need to have a point and oh my god dude if you honestly don't understand that your story has to fucking make sense then I really don't know what to tell you.

 

 

Oh I didn't think the scene in Assault with Fox and Krystal had much impact either. The only really impactful moments to me were perhaps Peppy risking his life to save Pepper or crashing the Great Fox. I would expect the Star Fox team to have to save each other on a regular basis, considering how much Fox himself has to save his team members so unless its done dramatically, which, it didn't seem to me to be very dramatized. Feel free to disagree though. How an event impacts someone is different from person to person.And its not that I don't remember the games all that well, its that I still don't know many of the inner details of the games in how they worked. I've played Adventures once, and Assault two and a half times. Once I buy Adventures, I'll likely play it again.

Also, I didn't like Krystal because of the fact that she needed saving. The moment you need to save a character, and that that's much the purpose of the game, that character that needs saving becomes uninteresting. I will, however, admit based on what you've said that the character is badly written. I admit this. I just get irritated when I see her being the only one people attack, when none of the characters are well written.

Well...my favorite storylines in gaming are from Kingdom Hearts II and Metal Gear Solid 4, which are both notorious for having extremely convoluted storylines that don't make sense to the average person. They are usually either praised for being brilliant or denounced as trash. Admittedly Kingdom Hearts a bit more denounced, since many people will say that the characters are bad too, while MGS4 can be forgiven for having great characters. I like these games because of how extremely convoluted and detailed the storylines are. They are extremely complex, and that is why I like them.

I don't quite understand why a great story needs good characters. Remember when I said I liked Twilight? You understand that I don't like the two main characters, and in fact find them annoying? The characters weren't why I liked it. My interest had specifically to do with the events that occurred. I kept wanting to know what would happen next. I could care less about the two main characters. I'm not saying characters aren't important. I'm saying that characters aren't important to me, specifically. That's why I'm saying that I am probably not the person to talk to about what characters are bad. I can usually tell if a character is very well written, but its hard for me to see when a character is bad because I usually don't have issues with characters. I accept them as they are, whether written wonderfully or horribly. And so, because of this, I apologize for bringing up this whole argument, since I'm no good at figuring out what characters are bad anyway.

 

Potentially, but is there necessarily a need for him at all?  The inclusion of offspring characters almost always provides questions regarding aging of the main characters, namely if they do age at all.  The complexities of two sets of characters; younger versus older, will undoubtedly be problematic considering the series can't even get the current set right. 

I'm not really sure how Nintendo handles time passing in video games. Besides the Legend of Zelda series, which has most of the games take plays years after the last game with a new Link, and besides the Pokemon tv show, which has Ash at age 10 forever, Nintendo usually doesn't have much time pass in its series but a couple of years, and I doubt if they kept making games that they'd throw out their current characters to put in new ones because of passing time. I suspect at some point the ages of characters won't make sense if Nintendo doesn't figure out how it will handle this. They'll need to figure this out with Starfox and Metroid for sure. Finally, there's the Mario series in which I'm not even sure there's a passage of time between games. How Nintendo will handle time still baffles me.

[Drasiana]

Oh I didn't think the scene in Assault with Fox and Krystal had much impact either. The only really impactful moments to me were perhaps Peppy risking his life to save Pepper or crashing the Great Fox. I would expect the Star Fox team to have to save each other on a regular basis, considering how much Fox himself has to save his team members so unless its done dramatically, which, it didn't seem to me to be very dramatized. Feel free to disagree though. How an event impacts someone is different from person to person.And its not that I don't remember the games all that well, its that I still don't know many of the inner details of the games in how they worked. I've played Adventures once, and Assault two and a half times. Once I buy Adventures, I'll likely play it again

 

I don't know dude landing an Arwing on a bunch of robots is pretty dramatic and even if you didn't find it that way it still has a direct cause-and-effect of Falco saving Fox's life. Krystal never has this kind of impact, ever. Your subjective opinion on whether or not the scene was entertaining has nothing to do with the logistical outcome of the scene, which was in fact a purposeful and needed moment.

 

You clearly don't remember the games all that well if you're so demonstrably lost in the conversation.

 

 

 

Also, I didn't like Krystal because of the fact that she needed saving. The moment you need to save a character, and that that's much the purpose of the game, that character that needs saving becomes uninteresting. I will, however, admit based on what you've said that the character is badly written. I admit this. I just get irritated when I see her being the only one people attack, when none of the characters are well written.

 

I've always agreed that the other characters aren't well-written; Wolf is almost as bad as Krystal in my opinion. People are still wholly justified in criticizing Krystal, though. She didn't "ruin Star Fox" like some people claim but she sure didn't help.

 

 

 

I don't quite understand why a great story needs good characters. Remember when I said I liked Twilight?

 

Oh god please do not go there

 

Twilight is not a great story, it's not a good story, it's not even a mediocre story. It's a wretched abortion of text that Stephanie Meyer wholly admits she didn't even care to keep consistent throughout the series, based on a wet dream of her's, that glorifies codependency and abusive relationships.

 

And even then to claim that characters are useless to a story, even the MAIN PROTAGONISTS, is completely baffling. They are important to you, even if you don't realize it, because a story isn't a story without characters and vise-versa. You're interested to know what happens next specifically because what happens next is completely up to the actions of the characters and what will happen to them. A story is not just a series of Things happening in a void, it's a series of things happening around a vessel you're meant to identify with or be interested by and those are typically what we call characters.

 

You might not care about the nitty-gritty of character development and arc structure and that's fine, I really don't expect you to, but you seriously cannot examine the story without the characters because they rely completely on one another.

 

edit: cries because broken quote tags

[TCPeppyTc]

Perhaps it should be established once and for all that James is in fact dead?

 

Theres no way he could have been "hiding out" on venom for 10 + years, and even if Andross' prisinor, unlikely he could have escaped in his arwing to guide fox out of the maze.

 

Falco's moodiness doesn't need a ton of explanation. He probably resents fox being the best pilot/ leader and wants to be that himself. He used to be part of a biker gang and probably from "the wrong side of town" and probably has just a chip on his shoulder and is antiauthority in general. For next game they could probably tone down the "joisey" accent just a little bit.

 

I myself prefer Peppy's Texas/prairie  twang as opposed to his old man voice. Ive said it before, but he can't be a geriatric waste of space. He also shouldn't replace Pepper as General, since he is only a mercenary pilot with no military command/ organizational experience.

 

Dras, I know you don't agree with this, but I think Krystal is Starfox's Yoko Ono

 

Slippys pretty much good as being a scatterbrained mechanic in need of assistance. 

Fox too is good as his adventures self, a rogueish Hans soloesque character

[Thomas Draco]

Perhaps it should be established once and for all that James is in fact dead?

 

... This is actually a thing?

 

As to the thread topic: the Cornerian Army

 

The only named Cornerian Army affiliated (as in not mercenaries or free roamers) characters we see in the entire series are Pepper, Bill, Dash, and if you can count him, Beltino.

 

There may have been plans for more characters to show a bit more of the Cornerian armed forces, but that's it, just 3, 4 characters. In fact, who is Bill? Why does he stay in the  military instead of hanging out with Fox as part of the team? What's his rank, why does he like green? 

 

The Cornerian Army needs to be fleshed out, storywise and with more characters involved. Explanations as to why the Cornerian Army seems to get steamrolled by whatever threat decides to attack, and as to why the army is so heavily dependent on the Star Fox team would be beneficial to the series. Hell, actually making the Cornerian Army more competent in would be great period, or at least to the point they actually work along side the Starfox team instead of sitting in the background doing nothing but twiddling their thumbs.

 

Personally I think some sort of Advance Wars crossover with Star Fox would help this, since you would have to command Cornerian troops around, so why not give them a story? But really, the Cornerian Army is wasted potential incarnate. 

[Talyl Landmaster]

I believe that Bill Grey and Kat Monroe really do need to be fleshed out a bit. They seem to be thrown at the side. Kat especially needs more character development. She is quite mysterious in some ways, and she has a personal relationship with Falco. Those are some high qualities.

[TrishaCat]

 

... This is actually a thing?

 

As to the thread topic: the Cornerian Army

 

The only named Cornerian Army affiliated (as in not mercenaries or free roamers) characters we see in the entire series are Pepper, Bill, Dash, and if you can count him, Beltino.

 

There may have been plans for more characters to show a bit more of the Cornerian armed forces, but that's it, just 3, 4 characters. In fact, who is Bill? Why does he stay in the  military instead of hanging out with Fox as part of the team? What's his rank, why does he like green? 

 

The Cornerian Army needs to be fleshed out, storywise and with more characters involved. Explanations as to why the Cornerian Army seems to get steamrolled by whatever threat decides to attack, and as to why the army is so heavily dependent on the Star Fox team would be beneficial to the series. Hell, actually making the Cornerian Army more competent in would be great period, or at least to the point they actually work along side the Starfox team instead of sitting in the background doing nothing but twiddling their thumbs.

 

Personally I think some sort of Advance Wars crossover with Star Fox would help this, since you would have to command Cornerian troops around, so why not give them a story? But really, the Cornerian Army is wasted potential incarnate. 

Wow. This never even crossed my mind, but you're right. There's not a whole lot we know about the army, and the idea of an entire army being more incompetent than a small group of mercenaries seems rediculous, so this is definitely something that needs to be done. I've not played the game Advance Wars yet much, though. I recently got the game, but I'm not entirely sure how to play it. But I like this idea. 

[Arashikage]

I don't quite understand why a great story needs good characters. Remember when I said I liked Twilight? You understand that I don't like the two main characters, and in fact find them annoying? The characters weren't why I liked it. My interest had specifically to do with the events that occurred. I kept wanting to know what would happen next. I could care less about the two main characters. I'm not saying characters aren't important. I'm saying that characters aren't important to me, specifically. That's why I'm saying that I am probably not the person to talk to about what characters are bad. I can usually tell if a character is very well written, but its hard for me to see when a character is bad because I usually don't have issues with characters. I accept them as they are, whether written wonderfully or horribly. And so, because of this, I apologize for bringing up this whole argument, since I'm no good at figuring out what characters are bad anyway.

I just want to point out a few things even if this is rather outdated.  I didn't see it before, I'm late to the party, please, stone me or something later.  

 

Anyway, the events that occur in a story are largely(If not wholly) due to the characters doing something.  If you don't have good characters doing shit, you don't have shit happening, you don't have a story.  Actually, let's take out the good because we're talking about Twilight.  If you don't have CHARACTERS doing shit, you don't have shit happening, and you don't have a story.  Now unfortunately, I have to admit there's at least something in that wretched mess of a text, and it's due to the sparkly vampires doing something, or the obsessed idiot doing something stupid or anything of the like.  Had the characters not existed, what the hell would a story be?  

 

Now you may be saying "But Kage, I said that characters didn't matter to me, not that they shouldn't be there at all."  Well it's almost like saying that, in saying you don't care about the characters, you're leading everyone to believe that it'd be beneficial if they weren't there in the first place.  Now, I can say that about Twilight, because I don't like the book, and therefore I would be perfectly fine if the series just ceased to be and the memory was purged from everyone's minds.  But this isn't the case, and this is especially not the case in a Starfox Character discussion

 

Which brings me to my last point.  Not to be rude or anything, but why are you here?  I mean, you say you don't care about any of the characters, but you're on a character discussion thread which thoroughly confuses me.  That's not a criticism, people can go anywhere they please, but why here if you don't care about the characters in anything?  It's not a story discussion thread, do we have one of those?  We should if we don't, but it'd probably turn into a lot of complaining about the story or lack thereof in Star Fox.  The fan works are good though, for the most part.  

 

Now please, I don't want this to blow up or anything, because like I said, I'm not out to get anyone, I just wanna know why is all.  I'm not here to tell people to GTFO or anything, that's not my place.  But why the character discussion thread if you don't believe characters are important to a story?

[Ala1n-J]

Not to be rude or anything, but why are you here?  I mean, you say you don't care about any of the characters, but you're on a character discussion thread which thoroughly confuses me.  That's not a criticism, people can go anywhere they please, but why here if you don't care about the characters in anything?

 

I'm confused too, and I want to add something else : my dear Battlechili1, you said you don't care that much for the characters, right? Then why did YOU create that very "Starfox Character Discussion" topic in the first place?!

I don't want to be mean to you, but I'm trying to figure out your reasoning. Creating a topic related to characters, and then say that they're not so important? I'm not asking you to leave this topic. But don't you admit it's quite confusing?

--

I agree the Cornerian Army should be more effective than it is currently in the series. Starfox would be a small squadron sent behind the lines on key points to disorganzie the enemy, while the regular army does the rest of the job. But I'm not too fond of the idea of Starfox controlling an entire squadron of military vessels, since there is already a squadron to lead to begin with, and a mercenary wouldn't be given the control of regular soldiers (Peppy at the head of the freaking whole army? WTF?!).

Now, on some characters :

- Gen.Pepper : I always figured him as someone who isn't afraid of recuiting rogues if he thinks they can be a vital asset, where the rest of the command would be too reluctant and/or too proud to give importance to some hired guns. His SF64 portrayal was quite the opposite and showed the "incompetent" reputation of the Cornerian Army. He treats Starfox as his allies, but at the same time may try to gain more control on them. After all, he seems to care a lot for the Arwings.

- Bill : His friendshp with Fox should be explored. But I also want something else for him. I'd like to see him more square and soldier-like, in constrat to Fox who is more deviant. That was one of my critiques in SF64, where Fox sounded too square while Bill sounded not enough like a soldier. It was like a role reversal.

- Dash : No more of him as Andross's heir! That's what Andrew is supposed to be! As for Dash (or Onion Head as I call him), I've thought about what would happen to monkey citizens in Lylat after Andross's fall. More details here.

- Beltino : Hm, I don't have much of an opinion on him.

Perhaps some more characters in the Army, but again, let's not overload the next game with new characters. That said, we still can have Gen.Pepper's "right arm" leopard officer from the SNES comics and that "Dog commander" from Assault's concept art who could try to disband Starfox and class them as criminals, in order to get back the Arwings. Just a thought.

About Katt, she stole a venomian fighter, painted it pink and was of great help to Starfox... We need more of her! But not as Command depicted her, as some girl who cannot live without a man (in that case, Falco) Like in Farewell, Bleoved Falco, her relationship with Falco in the past should be explored. And I have to admit, if that weren't for her, I wouldn't have liked Falco at all, her presence showing somehow a softer side of the avian. Speaking of him :

 

Falco's moodiness doesn't need a ton of explanation. He probably resents fox being the best pilot/ leader and wants to be that himself. He used to be part of a biker gang and probably from "the wrong side of town" and probably has just a chip on his shoulder and is antiauthority in general. For next game they could probably tone down the "joisey" accent just a little bit.

 

The problem with him is not his mood or how to explain it, it's that he's an arse to his teammates, never giving a "thank you" (except in Assault) or always complaining about his comrades. Having someone who doesn't appreciate his team is not good to keep along. To be honest, I'd rather save Slippy anytime.

 

Dras, I know you don't agree with this, but I think Krystal is Starfox's Yoko Ono

 

From what I heard, as time went on, Yoko Ono was less and less credited for the Beatle's disband than what it was told at the time.

Back on Starfox. You can say that Krystal is, as she is right now, useless. But seeing how Adventures's story and mechanics didn't have that much of an impact in Assault and Command, she is not the reason of everything that goes wrong with Starfox.

 

Perhaps it should be established once and for all that James is in fact dead?

 

Theres no way he could have been "hiding out" on venom for 10 + years, and even if Andross' prisinor, unlikely he could have escaped in his arwing to guide fox out of the maze.

 

Maybe giving some hints here and there, but the full story would not be revealed. Like when, James and Peppy escape from Venom, James turns back to take on the fighters so Peppy could flee away. He would never come back. He's most likely dead, but having some doubt gives SF64's second ending all its strength : Was it really James? Or was it Fox's imagination?

[TrishaCat]

I made the thread as an excuse to bring up my frustration with people complaining about the characters. I couldn't just make a rant thread, that'd be no fun and really annoying. So I thought, and I thought that this sort of thread would give me an excuse to basically defend the characters in an attempt to end the complaining, as well as give people the ability to discuss characters, as I'm sure there are quite a few who might want to do that, thus giving me what I want while still making a useful thread. Plus, I thought it might be nice to talk about many of the characters in a good way, as I love positive thinking. I love to praise things. I wanted people to go into detail about why they loved their favorite characters. And even now, I wouldn't mind people talking about what they wish would be improved about the characters or changed, or perhaps come up with fun ideas on what could be done with the characters, or perhaps talk about what characters deserve more attention.

 

Don't get me wrong, there are characters I like. I do understand that characters can move a story forward, but what I want is an elaborate story. To me, if a storyline is detailed and elaborate, its probably going to be amazing. The characters themselves don't have to be the ones to make it elaborate. If anyone here has ever played Kingdom Hearts games, this can be understood very well very quickly from them. The main character is a boring young teen who wants to help people out. Yes, the things he does are because of his personality, and the things other characters do are because of their personalities and goals, but the problem is that some of the characters aren't good characters. They aren't interesting. Specifically I'm still referring to the main character, Sora. There isn't any depth to him. He's a bad character because he isn't interesting. He still moves the story forward, and the story can still be made interesting, its just that the character himself isn't interesting. He's just a typical hero. Thus is why I'd say that bad characters can form a good story. (Though many would argue that Kingdom Hearts has a horribly convoluted story) Still, I'm getting off topic, at least a little.

 

 

 

Maybe giving some hints here and there, but the full story would not be revealed. Like when, James and Peppy escape from Venom, James turns back to take on the fighters so Peppy could flee away. He would never come back. He's most likely dead, but having some doubt gives SF64's second ending all its strength : Was it really James? Or was it Fox's imagination?

 

I agree. It would be much less interesting if we knew everything about what happened to James. The air of mystery makes things interesting.

[Drasiana]

...okay, ignoring the fact that Kingdom Hearts is a completely overcomplicated nonsensical clusterfuck of anime story tropes, the story is still reliant on the characters. Everything is reliant on the actions of the characters: the destiny fruit thing, Xehanort, Roxas leaving the Organization, Namine's involvement, Axel running around kidnapping people, Mickey doing whatever, everything. It doesn't necessarily revolve around Sora 100% but last I checked he's not the only character in the series. Funnily enough, I wouldn't actually call Sora a bad character because he isn't written poorly. He might be an archetypical hero but he doesn't conflict or contradict himself in his various instances throughout the games, and always has a fairly set goal and moral standard. You might not find him interesting but it doesn't make him badly written. Likewise, being interested in a character doesn't mean they're well-written, and that's exactly the reason why people complain about the Star Fox characters so much: at their base, they are interesting characters, they've just been handled terribly, and that's what makes it wholly more frustrating than if they'd just been boring to begin with.

 

The problem is, people aren't going to be able to "go into detail" as to why they like their favourite characters because there are no details. 95% of the reasoning is entirely reliant on headcanon, and it's frustrating when people rely on that too because then they run around saying things like "oh I love Krystal because she's extremely powerful and always does what's right despite the pain of her tortured past" and it's like...no, no she isn't and doesn't, you literally just invented that to cope with how shittily she was written.

[Faisul]

I think you're approaching this thing from the wrong direction. You come off as if you feel the need to defend Star Fox, because of all this 'complaining'. I'm not seeing any, I'm seeing criticism, and most of it legitimate and worth thinking about. You won't 'end' the complaining because you don't have any definite authority over any of us' opinions on what makes the Star Fox characters work or, conversely, what makes them not work. If you want an end to criticism you're going to have to wait until Nintendo releases the perfect Star Fox narrative or we're all dead.

 

If it's your subjective opinion that characters are subordinate in importance to story, that's fine, but I'll still disagree with you. Characters and their actions are what makes a story, and if events just happen, completely outside of a character's ability to influence or comprehend, you don't have story - you just have a bunch of stuff happening to passive actors. Any given narrative is completely dependent on two things, the way the narrative is presented and the characters that make the events of the narrative take place.

 

Twilight is universally reviled just because of that - the characters are awful and that makes for a completely awful story. What it does well is more a question of manipulation than anything else - it plucks at the heart strings of confused teens, involving stereotypical but effective models of male sexuality, female submissiveness and a whole lot of melodramatic pining and angst.

E,F;B - dras got it

[Gentlefood]

The Cornerian Army has been shown throughout the series sporadically.(Typically 'We need your help Star Fox!') However IIRC in 64 I think its hinted at that they go the opposite path you choose carving up that half of the solar system while your actions mainly influence the side you chose. The Cornerian Cruisers (Shown in 64, Assault, and Brawl) seem to use some form of laser weapon (Assault, Brawl) while the Venomian Fleet is shown to mainly use missiles until Assault where they switched almost entirely to lasers. I don't believe the ships in 64 fired at all.

 

In the Independance Day mission in 64 with Bill the Cornerian Army was holding their own against the vastly numerically superior force, they just lacked the weapons to take down the carrier.

 

I think the biggest issue with the Cornerian Army appearances is that since Star Fox can be considered a type of Special Forces (In the terms of the missions they do) all of the times you see them are on do or die missions against vastly superior odds. On an even footing the Cornerian Army would probably hold its own, but since all of the games have been from Star Fox's perspective there aren't any 'even footing' missions because you're called in against the odds.

 

I'd love to see more of Bill, baring Command he hasn't made a single appearance since 64. And I agree he needs a good amount of character development. But I disagree that he necessarily needs to be more stoic. There are more motivations to remain in an army instead of join a band of mercenaries than simple order. Patriotism, Sense of Duty, and attachment to those under his command are just a few. He commands two full wings of Cornerian Soldiers and IIRC holds the rank of Captain or Commander in the forces. Plus there's the potential issue of money. As a Commander/Captain his pay would be rather luxurious being an upper officer, being a member of Star Fox... well weren't two of the games based around the principle that Star Fox had no money? Case in point. We don't know what his home life is at all. Is he supporting a family? Does he have a wife? Children? There could/are likely base reasons for his continued stay in the Army.

 

There are some subtle hints to his personality however. In Starfox 64, if you fail to destroy the carrier in time and you head to Sector X, Bill shows up to assist you. This is a major dereliction of duty especially for a commanding officer. It is likely that he sent whatever surviving troops back to Corneria, but as the Commanding Officer he would be required to submit a report on the loss of the base. And as the likely highest surviving Officer he would take over -ANY- remaining forces and be responsible for their logistics. Instead he helps Star Fox shoot at the remains of an enemy base to help out his friend. What can be taken from this, is while Bill remains in the forces, he either A. Has a personal vendetta from the loss. B. Values his friendship with Fox to risk punishment or C. Is the only survivor of the defeat and has deserted. (Due to his apperance in Command this is unlikely).

[Snys93]

Yeah there are plenty of holes in the story.

 

I was wondering the same, why does the Starfox universe seem like a cardboard cutout? Theres a plot, a few characters and stuff blows up. Ok thats good, but no substance. Not sauce or spice when it needs some and in this case alot.

[Talyl Landmaster]

Yeah there are plenty of holes in the story.

 

I was wondering the same, why does the Starfox universe seem like a cardboard cutout? Theres a plot, a few characters and stuff blows up. Ok thats good, but no substance. Not sauce or spice when it needs some and in this case alot.

I agree, someone needs to make a fan series on youtube or something to add that meat to the story.

[Thomas Draco]

Yeah there are plenty of holes in the story.

 

I was wondering the same, why does the Starfox universe seem like a cardboard cutout? Theres a plot, a few characters and stuff blows up. Ok thats good, but no substance. Not sauce or spice when it needs some and in this case alot.

 

That's the thing: That's all Nintendo wants Starfox to be

 

It's always been first and formost an arcade space shooter game, and everything else, including story, takes a back seat.

 

[Talyl Landmaster]

Then keep it simple, but somehow push it to the next level...the right way. If that can somehow be done.

[TrishaCat]

That's the thing: That's all Nintendo wants Starfox to be

 

It's always been first and formost an arcade space shooter game, and everything else, including story, takes a back seat.

 

Nintendo doesn't do much with storylines anyway. The games that they give the most detail and effort in storylines are The Legend of Zelda and the Fire Emblem series, and when you really think about it, in some ways a lot of the Zelda games plot wise are basically "Ganondorf takes over Hyrule and Link must defeat him to save Hyrule", and Fire Emblem games, at least based on what  I've played, have very generic fantasy storylines. Nintendo isn't much on stories; Their main focus seems to be to just make games fun, and in that regard I think they've succeeded.

That said, I do very much enjoy the storylines of Zelda games and Fire Emblem games, and I'd even argue that newer Zelda games have much better more detailed storylines. I hope the same happens to the Star Fox series. I want Star Fox to become story heavy with great orchestral music and gameplay, but so far its only been able to satisfy the gameplay and music well.

[Mecha-Katt]

- SF64 : a young enthusiastic and obedient pilot who sounds like a soldier rather than a mercenary;

Hmm..well, that's because he went to a military academy for pilots..perhaps?

At least,I think it's some sort of excuse explanation for it.

[Talyl Landmaster]

So...who wants to see Bill Grey in more games?

[Drasiana]

edit: I saw that edit. I'm onto you...

 

Hmm..well, that's because he went to a military academy for pilots..perhaps?

 

Was this ever actually said anywhere in the games, as far as the current continuity goes? Because this is one of those things that I'm pretty sure the fandom just sort of invented and it stuck and everyone just sort of assumes that it's canon.