It's been a little while since we got a new, bonafide Star Fox game, but this upcoming Switch release from publisher Raptor Claw looks like it might just scratch the same itch.
FUR Squadron launches on the eShop on March 17th, 2023 at a price of £6.29, and judging from the above trailer and accompanying screenshots, it looks very much like classic Star Fox, but with an extra burst of colour and flair. Heck, even the main characters look pretty similar to Star Fox himself, Peppy Hare, and Slippy Toad. Overall, we're liking the vibe.
Here's some more info from Raptor Claw on the game's features:
- An action and narrative-driven on-rails adventure with a classic 90’s shooter flair.
- Smooth and quick gameplay through levels full of enemies and massive bosses. Unlock their secrets and power-up your star ship for maximum performance.
- Six Levels. Three levels of difficulty piloting a variety of ships.
- Original synthesizer soundtrack to match the retrowave aesthetics.
- A lovely axolotl!
What do you think? Will you be picking this one up when it launches next month? Let us know with a comment.
Comments 43
More Rail Shooters for Switch is a good thing. If it is a good one, I might just do a barrel roll!
If this gets a good review then at that price point I can’t say no.
Looks like it's inspired by Terminalmontage's Star Fox Vaporwave Dimension
And that's a compliment
When you ask for Star Fox,
and what Grandma comes back with.
I'm sold already. If Nintendo won't give us more Star Fox, I'm glad to see other folks doing their part to give us something similar
They forgot to add textures
Ehhh... i'm all for derivitave inspired games but this just seems like a blatant copy...
Looks pretty good, sometimes I remember those old titles and there's probably good reason they haven't brought them back. Honestly, indie developers are probably the best bet for making spirtual successors for these old nintendo games.
Looking at today's market I feel like it would be tough to charge full price for a rail shooter and a zero gravity racer like fzero without expanding on the formula.
Not feeling this one, it looks slow, the visuals aren't that impressive with very thick edges on the 3D geometry, and the 80s cyberspace aesthetic doesn't really make sense.
The visuals remind me a LOT of this old laserdisc game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YANvpuBCQtA
Yeah I mean paying homage or making a spiritual successor too Star Fox is great...but this just feels like a knock-off. And the 80's retro neon looks feels at odds with the characters on top of it, not to mention a little but late to the fad.
Psychedelic Furs?
I like the way the gameplay looks. It uses the Star Fox formula but does something interesting with it visually. But I’m not sure it was the best idea to also include talking cartoon animals. That’s really a bit too derivative and I wish they’d trust their own creativity more.
Is there a narrative reason for why they are only fighting in like VR instead of real life?
Nintendo legal counsel on line 1 . . .
It look like a lost Star Fox game from the Virtual Boy now finally in polish form.
“Fine, I’ll do it myself.”
I hate the name but it looks pretty awesome. It also reminds me that I have Star Fox games on both my 3DS and Wii U that I haven't played for more than like 10 minutes each.
@Chocobo_Shepherd Yeah, in the trailer they get, like, stuck in the simulation because evil computer or whatever (it's not really explained). Didn't say it was a good reason, but it's there.
This looks good! I often don't bother with clones of active series, but Star Fox has been dormant for a while so this fills a niche (or it will if it's good).
Looks interesting, but it would of been better with completely different characters, also I'm not sold on the production values, the player ship looks floaty and awkward at points, like it doesn't control correctly. More than happy to be wrong though.
@PinderSchloss Totally agree with the characters comment, that's just silly. It would of been better to have it's own identity to match its visual aesthetic.
This doesn't just look similar to Star Fox. This is a blatant ripoff. Even the clothing looks like it came from Star Fox (the ferret and the axolotl have outfits that look like their Star Fox counterparts, specifically Star Fox 64, and the other character looks just like Wolf O'Donnell, albeit just a color palette swap).
Even Genshin Impact (which is often compared to The Legend of Zelda, specifically Breath of the Wild) has more originality than this. About the only real similarities between Genshin and BOTW are the gliding, climbing, and cel-shaded anime art style. But everything else could not be more different.
I'm also not a fan of the wire frame environments or the slow pace that some of the footage from the trailer showed. As rudimentary as the SNES Star Fox games were, you could at least tell the difference between objects and go at a decent speed.
Frankly, if I want to play a Star Fox-like game, I'll just play Star Fox. Heck, even Starlink: Battle For Atlas for the Switch would suffice. But this is just too blatant of a ripoff for me to give it the time of day.
Please let there be gyro
@Daggot yes Interstellar is a great game, have it on emulation.
@Chunkboi79 how about you just make them as budget titles. Surely you can outsource them to indie companies.
Doing what nintendon't I'm definitely interested.
No interest in this. I get that people want more Starfox, but are people really going to get excited over a direct rip-off?
What ever happened to the Switch version of Ex-Zodiac? That was the retro Star Fox upgrade we deserve!
The first words out of my mouth were quite literally, Hey they've got an axolotol on their team! Lol
@World honestly, even a short or lame explanation is all I need. thank you for providing it!!!
...I'll just stick with EX-Zodiac if that's alright with everybody.
Uh, this comes out on my 50th birthday!! This looks so trippy!! Happy DAY ONE Birthday FOR ME!!!!!
@brunojenso you mean do a Psychedelic Roll!
This looks dope af
Don't care if it's a "rip-off", clone etc. as long as the game is good, hope Nintendo Life will review it to let us know!
@sixrings that's honestly something that I've been hoping for, for years. Looking at games like cadence of hyrule I wonder why they don't throw a bag at more indie developers to get more diverse games out.
Could you imagine what devs like shin'en could do for the f-zero franchise. Or maybe seeing a darker kid icarus platformer made by the guys who developed blue fire. They could really make for some diverse content but Nintendo def holds their IP's tightly so it's sad to see cadence of hyrule be there only real collaborative effort outside of the warriors titles.
I’d be down for some new StarFox, but I don’t like the wireframe look.
@somnambulance the game isn't even out yet, we don't know what other aspects to the game that may expand upon the formula.
Honestly, Nintendo fanboys are only worried about things being "rip offs" as if Nintendo is the only one that can make a space rail shooter.
It’s like someone colorized Red Alarm on the Virtual Boy. 😋
@Chunkboi79 The gameplay isn’t the rip off. The characters are. Starferret is wearing Fox’s clothes, for crying out loud. I have no problem with homages, but it becomes pandering when something so closely resembles the point of inspiration.
McFur Squadron in the Crescent Galaxy
Looks good. I am always for some Star fox inspired games.
This looks not very good. 80's cyber theme that makes no sense given the title and they clearly thought going with knock-off characters would be good. I hope I'm wrong, though.
If you want a Star Fox clone that actually has some of its own spirit, Ex-Zodiac is over on Steam right now.
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