Is Star Fox a mismanaged franchise?

[Wreckingcanon]

 

well then again the only in house made SF game was 64. every other SF game was made by someone else like Namco and Q-Games.

Yes.  But Nintendo's direct involvement in the star fox games varied from game to game.  For SNES games argonaut games made a lot of the level design and bosses but nintendo had overall creative input and composed a lot of the music.

[LightingMan64]

 

Yes.  But Nintendo's direct involvement in the star fox games varied from game to game.  For SNES games argonaut games made a lot of the level design and bosses but nintendo had overall creative input and composed a lot of the music.

I was just pointing out that SF64 was the only one made in house by Nintendo. of course they had full overall creative input and control. it's their IP.

[Giladen]

 

When referring to characters it means not having static and one note personality traits or roles.

As much as I berated the game, and to the game's credit it tried to evolve some of the characters, such as Fox and Wolf's relationship or pushing Peppy into a more fatherly figure.

 

It just made Wolf into a Vegetaesque Animu Rival and made too Peppy old after an unncessary timeskip. Among other things like having Fox's awkward moments with Krystal.

Anyway, yeah this series was mismanaged. They forced what was a completely unrelated game into the Star Fox Universe with unsurprising polarization. They tried to rope in the Third-Person Shooter crowd. They tried to ape Star Fox 2 with furry melodrama thrown in. They botched what could have been SF's Wii U comeback.

Star Fox is a mess of a franchise. They should have built on Star Fox 2.

 

[Robert Monroe]

 

well then again the only in house made SF game was 64. every other SF game was made by someone else like Namco and Q-Games.

 

 

Yes.  But Nintendo's direct involvement in the star fox games varied from game to game.  For SNES games argonaut games made a lot of the level design and bosses but nintendo had overall creative input and composed a lot of the music.

 

 

I was just pointing out that SF64 was the only one made in house by Nintendo. of course they had full overall creative input and control. it's their IP.

While it is true only 64 was the only pure in house developed game, SF1, Command, and Zero were made with significantly more creative oversight and direction from the Big N than Adventures or Assault. Either way, my point that you can't say Assault is "good" because Nintendo "made it for its own sake" still stands.

Also Assault wasn't made for its own sake, it was originally part of Nintendo's short lived foray into the Triforce arcade cabinets. It was meant to go alongside F-Zero AX but that never really succeeded well so Armada got the can and became Assault.

[Jaslazul]

 

>Assault was good, and there's a very obvious reason for that:  it's the only time Nintendo decided from the beginning that they were going to make a Star Fox game for the sake of making a Star Fox game.

lol wat

except you know 64. And Command. And Zero.

And the fact Nintendo didn't even fuckin' develop Assault, Namco did.

and the fact that no matter what the intentions are, it doesn't hold any water to the actual quality of the product

and the fact that Assault has several objective flaws to games older than it is

 

but hey what do I know I only wrote a massive analytical essay on Assault.

I'm confused. Did you read my post at all or just rush to reply with that edgy "lol wat?" The point is that most of these games were designed in large part to advertise specific Nintendo hardware.  SF64 is definitely the lowest scorer on that category though.

[Robert Monroe]

Yes, I did read your reply, did you read mine? Because I'm saying that Nintendo pushing hardware has no standing on the quality of that game. If you value Assault as "good" purely on the virtue that "well it existed to exist" then you have a really low standard of why games are considered good.

Honestly part of your argument doesn't even make sense because like with Command it wasn't showcasing anything, DS had been around for a while showing off dual screens. Moreover, "Assault didn't sell well"? It broke a million units, that qualifies it for the player's choice label.

[Jaslazul]

 

Honestly part of your argument doesn't even make sense because like with Command it wasn't showcasing anything, DS had been around for a while showing off dual screens.

Command controlled almost entirely using the touch screen.  This is a bit arguable, but from looking at the history of its development my impression is that Nintendo was pretty heavy-handed in forcing Q-Games to use it.  Nintendo had full control over the game design, if I remember correctly.

The situation with the DS isn't quite comparable to that of the Wii U, where they very directly wanted to draw new developers to the console, but it was certainly tied to the control scheme in a way that I don't think would have made a lot of sense if they were just thinking about the game as a unit.

 

 If you value Assault as "good" purely on the virtue that "well it existed to exist" then you have a really low standard of why games are considered good.

In what world could you reasonably think that's what I meant?

I like the direction Assault went, though I recognize it's a shift of tone many fans dislike. The game had scores of problems that made it not so fun to play in places, but I liked the idea of it quite a bit despite its execution failures.  Much more than Adventures, Zero, or Command.

 

Moreover, "Assault didn't sell well"? It broke a million units, that qualifies it for the player's choice label.

It sold worse than Adventures and SF64.  SF64 had ~4m sales. Adventures had ~1.8m.  Assault had the fewest at ~1m. Not exactly a direction Nintendo was happy with.

 

Yes, I did read your reply, did you read mine? Because I'm saying that Nintendo pushing hardware has no standing on the quality of that game.

 You said nothing of the sort. I don't understand why you would write this. I'm down for having a reasonable discussion, but the moment this becomes childish bickering for the sake of bickering I'm going to duck my head out.

[Robert Monroe]

 

In what world could you reasonably think that's what I meant?

>Assault was good, and there's a very obvious reason for that:  it's the only time Nintendo decided from the beginning that they were going to make a Star Fox game for the sake of making a Star Fox game.

How else am I supposed to interpret this? You are directly implying that Assault's quality is tied directly to its existence of being a game that existed for its own sake and not for the sake of hardware (which Assault was originally going to do anyway). These are your words, not mine. If this isn't what you meant then by all means, tell me what you DO mean.

 

And Assault sold good enough to get Command released the immediate following year. A million sales is still a million sales, so unless you can cough up a source of Nintendo being unhappy with that I'm going to ask you to stop making stuff up.

 

Speaking of Command, it came out during the awful "touching is good" ad campaign where Nintendo basically mandated every game on the DS use the touch screen for shit. Command wasn't pushing hardware, it was caught up in the tide.

[Wreckingcanon]

Wasn't most of the star fox game originally made from the start to be a star fox game?  I don't get that argument about assault being the only game made from the start to be a star fox game.  If you consider it was originally two different star fox games then that needs to be better explained

[Jaslazul]

I'll concede my phrasing was a bit strong there, as we don't really know Nintendo's motivations.  A more accurate thing to say is that most of the games were heavily tied into Nintendo's latest hardware craze, and Assault was one that wasn't.

 

How else am I supposed to interpret this?

You're being pretty intellectually dishonest, here.  I agree that I suspect the two are directly related--specifically, that the game was afforded a little bit more freedom because the focus wasn't quite so heavy on getting the platform's gimmick to feel good.  What you said, however, and what I replied to, is this:

 

 If you value Assault as "good" purely on the virtue that "well it existed to exist" then you have a really low standard of why games are considered good.

Which is a really silly thing to say; you're blatantly trying to denigrate me by putting words into my mouth ("purely?" Really?). Bear in mind that I am replying to things you said, not the things you want to believe you said.

 

And Assault sold good enough to get Command released the immediate following year. A million sales is still a million sales, so unless you can cough up a source of Nintendo being unhappy with that I'm going to ask you to stop making stuff up.

I don't consider this particularly relevant, but I'm reasonably confident that Q-Games started development of Command well before Assault's release, let alone the months building up its public reception.

I don't think we need Nintendo's official explicit word for this.  Miyamoto expressed open disappointment at Star Fox's sales after Command.  Command sold about half of what Assault did, and Assault sold four times less than SF64.  I think that a continuing trend of decreasing sales down to a factor of four loss is enough to be a little bothersome to any company, especially when we have Miyamoto making public statements about his disappointment in (presumably) a factor of two drop from Command.

 

Speaking of Command, it came out during the awful "touching is good" ad campaign where Nintendo basically mandated every game on the DS use the touch screen for shit. Command wasn't pushing hardware, it was caught up in the tide.

That's sort of what I mean. Yes.  The two are hard to tell apart without peeking behind the curtain.  If Command is Nintendo-mandated from the start to heavily use the touch screen, then I believe you can reasonably conclude that a nontrivial portion of its development budget went into what you could call advertising the hardware.

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ETA:  I'm curious about the above now--does anyone know when development for Command actually started, or when Nintendo made the decision to go recruit Q-Games to dev it?  Wikipedia seems to imply it might have been 2004, but it would be interesting (and impressive on Q-Games' end) if I'm wrong about its development cycle and it started late in 2005 or so.  All I know about it is that (correct me if I'm wrong) Q-Games spent three months making a port of Star Fox 1 to some prototype DS hardware to sell themselves to Nintendo before taking up the task, and I think this was in 2004?