Star Fox Zero

Star Fox Zero marked the return of Fox McCloud's space squadron after a long break, and it was also one of the most divisively received titles on the entire console. The story essentially returns to the plot of Star Fox 64: Andross once again threatens the Lylat system, and Team Star Fox flies from planet to planet to stop him. Missions alternate between corridor-style sections where you fly constantly forward, shooting down waves of enemies, and more open arenas where you can turn freely, circle giant targets, and complete objectives in any order.

The heart of the game is control split across two screens. On the TV you see the ship in third person, while the GamePad simultaneously runs a cockpit view that you aim by tilting the controller using its gyroscope. This lets you fly in one direction while shooting in an entirely different one, opening up maneuvers previous entries never allowed. At the same time, it's a habit that takes several hours to adjust to, and one that a large portion of players never fully absorbed. The Arwing also transforms into the walking Walker, joined by the Gyrowing helicopter with a small robot on a tether, and the fast ground-based Landmaster.

The game is deliberately short, built around replaying missions for better results and searching for alternative routes between planets, echoing the structure of the classic Nintendo 64 entry. Technically it's clean and smooth, since it has to render two views at once, though visually it feels more restrained than the console's other big games. The music leans on orchestral reworkings of familiar themes and works excellently. Reception was lukewarm; critics praised the mission design but considered the controls an obstacle. Today, Star Fox Zero stands as an interesting testament to just how far Nintendo pushed the dual-screen idea, and it offers a patient player an experience found nowhere else. Anyone who fights through the first few hours usually describes the feeling of piloting a machine rather than just moving a cursor on screen; for everyone else, the game mainly remains a reminder of just how risky the experiments Nintendo allowed itself in this generation could be.