
Star Fox Zero will be a key release on Wii U this Holiday season, likely to lead the Wii U charge alongside diverse titles such as Animal Crossing amiibo Festival, Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash and Xenoblade Chronicles X. The return of the franchise will also bring one of the heaviest uses of the GamePad in a Nintendo title, with the big N and PlatinumGames teaming up to put the controller to use.
As with plenty of Nintendo games, challenge is relative - many will breeze through the campaign with ease, but grabbing all of the medals, collectibles and Mission Accomplishment ratings will likely demand repeat plays. Speaking to Wired, PlatinumGames' Yusuke Hashimoto, and Nintendo's Yugo Hayashi explained how utilising the gyro controls will be vital for the best results, but also highlighted how co-op (with one player flying and the other shooting) will open the game up to less skilled or experienced players.
Hashmoto: We don't want to make it a simple game, by any means. The challenge for us is, how to make a game that feels good and challenging to play for lots of different people?
Hayashi: At first glance, [the demo] looks very much like a traditional Star Fox level, but if you're not looking around with the GamePad, if you want to shoot down all the enemies, you wouldn't be able to do it without utilizing the gyro controls.
...We think it's a great mode [co-op] for parents to play with their children, but basically for anyone who maybe has a friend who isn't that used to shooters/
The broader interview touches upon the working relationship between PlatinumGames and Nintendo, and the rapid progress of development, but a segment on the walking Arwing transformation caught our eye. Described by plenty of gamers as a robot chicken, Hayashi-san was keen to correct that particular perception.
It is not a chicken. More like a dinosaur. Talking with one of the Star Fox character designers, since all of the characters are animals, he thought it would be better to make this design also more like an animal. That's how we ended up like this.
When you jump, it flutters its arms. That was all Miyamoto's idea.
Perhaps we should all agree that it's a dinosaur-era chicken in robot form?
In any case, let us know your thoughts on the potential of co-op in Star Fox Zero, and whether that Arwing transformation really is a chicken.
[source wired.com]
Comments 64
Was having no online or any type multiplayer what's so ever Miyamoto's idea as well?
Still looks like a chicken to me
If there's local co-op where one player uses a WiiU Pro controller to steer while the other player aims and fires weapons with the Gamepad, I think that would be a fantastic easier way to play where each person is only focused on one task...might also make learning the controls easier.
@TwilightAngel Obviously. He is a genius when it comes to embracing these kinds of concepts.
I don't want two screens, and I don't want gyro controls. They're "innovating" in all the wrong directions.
It is a chicken.
Well, I sure as hell hope the NX will have some way of finally putting Nintendo games online ... oh wait :-/
Pshaw! Chicken Arwing is best Arwing!
it's got Bayonetta's run animation- dressed up as a robot chicken.
Anyone who's seen Jurassic park knows that chickens and dinosaurs are distant relatives anyway
were the Wii graphics his idea too?
Nah. I prefer to think of it as a chicken. I guess you could call it a...Robot Chicken .
@TwilightAngel Yeah...I'm looking forward to this game, but that was REALLY a bad decision.
If it looks like a chicken, walks like a chicken, and flaps like a chicken, it is a chicken. Unless it is Nintendo then it's a Cucco.
@TwilightAngel well... Technically, all Nintendo said was that they wanted to focus on developing the solo-player part... they could always patch up an online mode later... Or maybe not.
@arronishere don't some dinosaurs have tiny hands that they flail around sometimes? XD
I still like to believe the Arwing is a chicken.
@arronishere Yoshi does.
I like chickens, especially ones with lasers.
Wait, so is this game just a reboot of a reboot with different control options?
@VeeFlamesNL Myamoto has said that if the game has a large enough install base to warrant it he will update Star Fox with a multiplayer mode.
@rishisquid The Star Fox series seems to always reimagine the original game. I kinda don't mind retellings. We get hundreds of retellings of classic fairy tales and comic book heroes so why not video games?
@Koopa-King please find a regenerate for that statement. I have heard no talk of online.
Personally, I would like to see 2 person co-op or even 4...on or offline but ATLEAST being able to play with a wingman would be cool. And not the co op they talking about.
@bofis - Agree w/ you.
So there is co-op? Did they have it at E3 b/c that's kind of news to me. 1 person flying and shooting from the front of the airwing using a Pro while another is in a bubble like the Millenium Falcon on the Gamepad works for me.
Or 1 person flying w/ gyro's on the Gamepad while another shoots w/ a Wiimote at the tv Duck Hunt style works for me as well.
Is there footage somewhere? I hope this works w/o some weird strap a Wiimote to the Pro Spaltoon setup, that's just awkward, and I can never remember the button combination to get it to work.
@Donutman http://mynintendonews.com/2015/06/16/star-fox-zero-hasnt-got-online-multiplayer/
Robot chicken. Case closed.
Birds and dinosaurs share many similarities. It's easy to see why there's confusion with the walker.
@TwilightAngel
They said there will be online just not immediately at launch
I hope they add online features, at least for co-op
Not a chicken...
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/980/753/4e0.jpg
Not a dinosaur.
@Donutman thanks. But I don't think he means large install base. Sounds more like a no but maybe there will be a tacked on mode like the n64 has.
Of course, I'm still wanting an online multiplayer that is similar to Assault.
Anyway, co-op still sounds like a good idea. Though, I would like it to make sense like how you have a pilot and a copilot in said aircraft. You know, your short shot guy?
So excited for this game!
I grew up playing Star Fox and have always dreamed of the day I would be able to play a game that looks this good in high definition, with bad a** controls and a second screen- if I could've told my kid self 20 years ago that these are the types of games I would be playing I would've flipped.
I've been waiting a long time for this game- and it's almost here
@rjejr I don't think co-op was mentioned at all this E3, but I have a hazy memory of it being mentioned last year as a suggested possible way of playing. That could be really fun, too.
The more they try to say it isn't a chicken...
...the more it becomes one.
You know... the moment I heard this game wasn't going to have online play I wasn't shocked... I was sadden obviously and it killed any and all interest I had for this game but I surprisingly wasn't shocked.
@Koopa-King ... and we all know how well Nintendo keeps their promises.
@JaxonH - "and it's almost here"
Well at least now we know whom to blame when it gets delayed. I hope you were at least knocking on wood while you typed that.
Speaking of great games, 120 hours into Xeno and spent most of the night watching a 2 hour cutscene w/ a fight or 2 interspersed, and it still isn't over yet. I'm glad XCX has skells and looks great, cause there's no way they can outdo this story.
@rjejr
Is it that good? Man I wanna play it now.
But I'm 50 hours into Fire Emblem (GBA) on Wii U Virtual Console. That story really has me man. I just want to spend all the rest of my time is a gamer in this life playing Fire Emblem. And I would be content.
@rjejr
I also just played some Star Fox Assault not too long ago. And I was playing Command just 3 days ago. I am in the Star Fox mood my man... Everybody seems to find a gripe but I just want to play the freaking game! BAD
@aaronsullivan - "I don't think co-op was mentioned at all this E3"
Yeah, weren't they all hemming and hawing about multiplayer at E3 last month, yet this paragraph is so matter of fact.
"As with most of Nintendo’s games, Star Fox Zero will have cooperative multiplayer gameplay, in which one person controls the movement of the Arwing and the other aims and fires the shots. “We think it’s a great mode for parents to play with their children, but basically for anyone who maybe has a friend who isn’t that used to shooters,” Hayashi says."
Isn't that something they could have presented at E3 while they were being the whipping boy and the anti king Midas, corroding everything they touched?
@JaxonH - That's b/c you're smart enough not to care what anybody else thinks, you just want to have fun playing games you like. And didn't Fire Emblem just come out like 5 days ago, how are you 50 hours in? You taking a MH break? And what about Splatoon?
Yeah, Xeno is that good. Someday when I actually finish it - I'm assuming it will end at some point - I was going to have you ask your brother what old JRPG I should play next. Well after X, that's next. Did he play Ni No Kuni? I bought it and played an hour but beyond the gorgeous graphics it just wasn't doing it for me. Those little Pokemon wannabes aren't exactly Ifrit, Bahamut and Shiva.
@rjejr
He loves the Tales games- especially Vesperia on 360. Also on 360- Lost Odyssee. He touts those as being two of the greatest he has ever played. And Last Story on Wii. And he LOVES Fire Emblem Path of Radiance on Gamecube. But you probably wouldn't last long in that one...
Fire Emblem Fates released about 5 days ago in Japan, and Sacred Stones released on NA virtual console around 5 days ago too. But neither of those are the entry I am playing. I'm playing the one before Sacred Stones- titled just "Fire Emblem" in the west (think its Japanese name was Blazing Sword, also known as FE7- The first of the series to make it to the west).
I have taken a break from MH4U- I hit 400+ hours in that game after all. Once all the DLC finishes releasing I'll probably sink another 50 hrs into it as a farewell. And Splatoon, well. I'm just really caught up with Fire Emblem atm, but I plan to play that game much more.
@Mona-Reggie I'm going to pay 60 dollars for a game that only has single player? And wait for multiplayer? That's shady screw them then. When they do patch online mode(and i know they won't) i would have lost interest in the game by now.
Looks good
Of course it's a chicken; it will always be a chicken.
All I have to say is this: "bock,bock,bock,,begowwwwk!"
It's obviously a robot raptor chicken
In his Japan Expo masterclass last week, Miyamoto said it was some kind of ostrich. I sure thought it looked like a chicken...
yeah im also going to go with a chicken its the first thing i thought about when i saw it so yeah >.>
Hey it shoots lasers, automatic badarse, chicken or not.
It's not a chicken—but it looks like a stupid chicken, and especially with it's silly flappy little wings/stubs as it lands (Miyamotoooo!).
Now, if it looked kinda chunky and powerful, like a big mech or dinobot or something, then it might actually be cool.
It's not cool. It's just kinda crap. It's a leftover from the cancelled Star Fox 2 and imo it should have stayed there, along with most of the other dodgy design ideas that originated in Star Fox 2.
Also; I want to be the one doing the shooting but I don't want to have to do the flying while also doing the shooting as though I was the other co-op f'n player. I want to do the shooting the same way I did in every other Star Fox game, which worked perfectly as it was; where I fly the ship and point it in the direction I want to fire, then press fire and it fires in that direction. One control, which actually makes sense; one thing to concentrate on; nice, simple, intuitive, fun.
Why not have the standard control for single player by default, which already works perfectly and everyone loves, then have this 'co-op' mode as an additional option where two people can work together or one person can CHOOSE to play it like they expect everyone to in the current demos?
Why am I even having to suggest such f'n obvious and common sense stuff?!
God d*mn you, Nintendo!
@rjejr sometimes Miyamoto goes into humble honest apologetic mode just like when he tried to describe the controls. It's not good for PR. But honestly local co-op is not the multiplayer people were clamoring for, right? Still, it would have been something.
The goal going in was probably to focus 100% on single player to sell it as a solid sequel with all the hallmarks of what the Star Fox fans were looking for (multiplayer was always only tacked on in Star Fox). The control features of course everyone would expect because they were talked about last year. This year they are shown to be solid and to not destroy the core game play and there's backlash. Lol. Lesson for Nintendo: Never overestimate a game's fan base.
Btw, anti Midas touch. I'll probably use that phrase some day.
@TwilightAngel No, that was due to Star Fox being a series best suited for single player.
Online dog fights at least or bust.
It's a chicken!
@aaronsullivan - Yeah, I get this isn't really multiplayer, it's more like "assist" player, and after SMG that idea is probably mostly frowned upon in gaming circles, but didn't MK:DD make assist player legit?
I don't know, maybe I'm just a big Millennium Falcon fan, but 1 player shooting and 1 driving seems like something they just should have shown and talked about at E3. Maybe they did, but I don't recall reading it. It actually makes me consider buying it, which I wasn't doing before. Maybe brand it "Couch co-op" rather than multiplayer. Something positive.
@rjejr Sure, they certainly should talk it up. It just might not have been a solution. There's plenty of Nintendo Directs before release, too. Lots of work to do for Nintendo PR.
I'm looking forward to the gamepad controls, and the graphics style doesn't bother me, it's just that in the demo you're fighting in a city with no people in it...
No online mp in new starfox... Where's the online multiplayer? I'm not buying this if there's no online!! When will Nintendo step into the 21st century?
Nintendo introduces online mp to the metroid universe... Wtf is this crap!? I never asked for this... Why does Nintendo have to mess with dirty mahjong tiles like this!?
No wonder Nintendo make confusing decisions!
@aaronsullivan "Lots of work to do for Nintendo PR."
What they need is Nintendo FF. Firefighters. They have a lot of fires after E3 to put out. Normally spin doctors might work but they really didn't even have enough to spin. "We will have yarn Yoshi amiibo at the US game release because we are delaying it until Oct." Hurrah?
Robo Yoshi.... Roboshi!
I wish this game would come out sooner because I am dying to play it!
@JaxonH - "Fire Emblem Path of Radiance on Gamecube. But you probably wouldn't last long in that one..."
I think I remember playing that one. Lasted about an hour, kept getting killed in the first cave. Upon Google review that was Tales of Symphonia.
I've been waiting on Rainbow Skies for 2 years, still no date. Maybe I'll just keep playing XC until XCX. I thought I was at the end the other night. Uh, no.
It's clearly a Chocobo.
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