The ONE BIG way to improve the controls of Star Fox Assault

[The VGM Lover]

Everyone's seemingly unanimous agreement on the biggest flaw of Star Fox Assault is the on-foot controls. For me, the one thing that makes it really bad is how much time it takes just to a 360 turn: About 4 to 5 seconds. The Arwing takes LESS time to do the same thing!

I can imagine that if this was mitigated, the developers wouldn't have needed to do anything else with these controls, and they'd be TEN TIMES more comfortable to use than if it was the left the way it is now. But, of course, that's just me. What do you guys think would easily make the game more playable without having to do anything else?  

[Robert Monroe]

Assault's foot controls in general were really slippery and cumbersome. Fox zooms in a straight line like he has a segway for feet but yeah he turns like its a Resident Evil game. This makes every on foot movement feel both really exaggerated but also imprecise. Fox has no "weight" to when he moves like in say Starfox Adventures, he just glides around while animating his legs. 

[The VGM Lover]

12 minutes ago, Robert Monroe said:

Fox has no "weight" to when he moves like in say Starfox Adventures, he just glides around while animating his legs. 

From a technical standpoint, that's very true. My guess is that the developers pretty much treated the on-foot movement like vehicles, or 'tanks', so to speak. Probably not the best idea in terms of presentation.

[CrypticQuery]

I found the on-foot segments playable when using only the dual stick control scheme.  Rob hit the nail on the head when it comes to how light Fox feels to control though.

[Patch93]

That being said, even if Assault's on-foot controls were better, they would never be able to make up for square, cramped level design that isn't fun to navigate. (I'm looking at you Sauria and the Aparoid Homeworld.)

[The VGM Lover]

11 minutes ago, Patch93 said:

That being said, even if Assault's on-foot controls were better, they would never be able to make up for square, cramped level design that isn't fun to navigate. (I'm looking at you Sauria and the Aparoid Homeworld.)

So which would the bigger thing to improve on, then? Turning, or level design?

[Robert Monroe]

Late reply but fucking both but between the two I can forgive clumsy controls if the level design is good. Starfox Assault doesn't control so bad as to be unplayable but the slipperyness of the controls makes for a one-two punch of awfulness when combined with the terribad level design. Nothing sucks quite like being swarmed by instantly spawning enemies that just spam all over the screen and clutter your view in narrow hallways or being shot at from literally every angle in a wide open featureless outdoor area. Assault is a console action shooter, its never going to be a precise aiming experience, so good level design can help compensate that.