The dampest of squibs.

I can’t speak highly enough of the exceptional claymation graphics on display here. They are beautiful to behold and as a concept for better games they are proof positive of the unique impact of such a style. In almost every other aspect however Harold Halibut is unfortunately woeful.

It’s just not a videogame in any meaningful sense. This is an interactive animation, and even then I mean that in the most limited way. There isn’t a single puzzle or narrative choice of any significance in this game. At least walking simulators have deeply engaging worlds full of things to interact with. They also understand that when the pace is slow you have to (a) keep the game relatively short and (b) allow for passive narration that continues as you progress. Harold Halibut makes you engage in fixed place conversations with very few dialogue choices that go on forever and by all accounts this game is 12 hours long. I genuinely cannot describe how many absolutely empty exchanges you have with largely uninteresting characters throughout that time.

You can tell the developers think this story is incredibly witty and quirky, but it really isn’t. I watched more curious, risky, and engaging programmes as a child on national broadcasters than this. Perhaps there’s some incredible twist I will unfortunately miss out on but I simply could not go on any longer. I gave up after the 25th time of being asked to slowly jog back to the same area I had just come from to carry out a menial conversation with very little wit or interest. I just could not do it again. In one objective you must deliver some letters, and after each letter you must go back to your bedroom to get the next one. Why can I not simply carry them all at once? Why do I have to ‘go to bed’ every night to progress? Why must I use a water tube transportation system that often requires me to go through a central hub, so in effect I’m going through this process twice just to get to my destination? None of this is fun or interesting in any way. If you want to make people do busy work there has to be some sort of narrative or gameplay reward - at least some exposition that isn’t just the same deeply uninteresting dialogue.

I’m sorry Harold, you seem like a nice fellow, but could you occasionally say or do anything other than sound confused? A big problem with having a man who is essentially stupid as the main character is that everyone you meet strikes you as having the advantage over Harold, which in turn just makes you feel entirely passive. This would work better if the game was particularly funny but it simply isn’t and I say that as a Brit who enjoys understated jokes and awkwardness.

Having thrown the towel in means that Harold Halibut becomes the only adventure game I have simply refused to finish, and I have played a lot of bad adventure games.

I think that says it all.

Star Fox: Assault has to be one of the most criminally underrated Nintendo games. Now I’m not saying that this is some hidden masterpiece to rival the all time greats. It definitely isn’t. But let me explain

I love Star Fox but it’s an interesting case of a series while good, never really goes anywhere. The series rarely evolved with each entry, rather choosing to continuously keep things familiar to its origins. This is with the exception of Star Fox Adventures which hardly counts due to the nature of its development (Was developed as a completely different game/new IP before being reworked into a Star Fox game). This kinda led many to share the sentiment that the franchise feels stale, has no idea where to go, etc. Star Fox: Assault seems to be absent from most of these conversations. Between people singing the praises of Star Fox 64, arguing about the strange existence of Star Fox Adventures, or saying how disappointed they were by Star Fox Zero, nobody really ever leaves room to talk about Assault…and that absolutely shocks me. Star Fox: Assault feels like the biggest and last step the series made to actually take itself somewhere, taking the formula and trying to evolve it over repeating itself. This feels like the proper sequel to Star Fox 64 rather than another loose imitation. Frankly, it feels like the final Star Fox game even though it wasn’t since what little came afterwards just went right back to basics.

Star Fox: Assault still contains the same great on rails space piloting and shooting gameplay you’ll certainly be familiar with by now. These segments are as good as ever, delivering on twice the spectacle thanks to the GameCube’s visual capabilities as well as the game’s excellent orchestral soundtrack. This is not the entire game, however. Alongside missions with the classic Arwing gameplay, Assault introduces ground missions. Now…depending on how much you get along with the controls will decide whether these missions are a make or break deal for you, considering they take up half the game. There are a few control options and while it doesn’t take long to get used to them, none of them particularly change the core issues. They’re still generally a bit clunky. The sensitivity is cranked up to 100 and everything just feels very slippery. I highly recommend the dual sticks control option which will give you the smoothest possible experience. I think the ground controls alone are enough to drop my rating from a 4 out of 5 to a 3.5, but…eeeeeeeeh. I love this game too much. While this is still A review and I like to be critically honest and fair, it’s still MY review and thus I don’t like to totally downplay or dismiss my personal feelings either.

All that being said, I do still enjoy these missions quite a bit actually. I think once you get a feel for the controls as best as you can, there’s plenty of fun to be had here. It’s really cool to run around and blast your way through enemies as Fox with a small handful of weapons at your disposal. Sometimes you have access to the Landmaster to ram through enemies on the ground with a tank or even your Arwing to seamlessly take the battle back up to the skies. Some missions even have you take up arms while standing on the side of a flying ship. 3rd person shooter segments feel surprisingly appropriate in a Star Fox game, especially when it’s integrated so seamlessly with the other classic play styles. While the controls could’ve absolutely used more polish, I love the variety that these ground missions add to Star Fox’s gameplay loop and they feel perfectly in line with the kind of series Star Fox is. I love how pretty much all missions maintain the feeling of a large scale space battle. The ground is highly populated with enemies to blast away whilst your allies cover an ongoing battle in the skies, and as mentioned before sometimes you can even hop back into your Arwing to assist them as the gameplay seamlessly transitions into SF64’s All-Range Mode. Honestly, even if you don’t enjoy these segments it’s hard to say they’re offensive. They still contain shooting, vehicle action and they typically don’t last very long at all. Nor do they take up the entire game. The classic Star Fox 64-type missions are still here to balance it out and they’re as quality as ever.

The only other thing to talk about really is the presentation and other miscellaneous things which I briefly touched upon earlier. This game looks fantastic. GameCube era visuals have continued to age pretty gracefully and Star Fox: Assault is no exception. The jump from Star Fox 64’s very simplistic, sometimes empty environments to Star Fox: Assault’s colorful, highly detailed, and populated environments is absolutely gigantic. Even other visual elements like UI and character design. I love the UI aesthetic and I’ve always enjoyed the pretty unique GameCube era designs of the cast. Everything is enhanced by the game’s truly spectacular soundtrack. Like, I’m serious. This game has a full blown orchestral soundtrack and it’s incredible. Truly makes the game feel like a space epic. Also just like Star Fox 64, the game still contains fully voice acted banter between the game’s cast during its missions. While not quite as quotable as 64, this dialogue still brings out the memorable personalities of the characters. Combined with some of the cutscenes and mission briefings, it’s actually pretty great how well the Star Fox series is able to showcase so much personality in such a short run time. Yes, this game is very short as is the case for most of the series. You can finish the main story in 2-3 hours. The story itself is nothing special but I do love the character moments it provides.

Don’t know where else to put this in the review so here’s this brief note- It’s been a hot minute since I’ve actually gotten to play the game’s multiplayer but it’s quite fun and one of the most remembered aspects of the game. Star Fox multiplayer is always a blast. Didn’t want to go by without mentioning it.

In the end, I think it’s a shame Star Fox: Assault as a whole has pretty much been all but forgotten. After the release of the DS’ Star Fox Command only a year later, the series went quiet without an entirely new mainline entry for 10 years with only a 3DS remake of Star Fox 64 in between. Star Fox Zero marked an anticlimactic return in 2016 as another reboot and becoming one of if not the series’ most hated entry. At least as of the time I’m writing this, Star Fox has been absent once again for almost another decade. You know what’s frustrating though? That they literally just had it. Star Fox: Assault was the one. It paved a great direction for sequels to follow…sequels that unfortunately never came. Nintendo has been vocally reluctant on pursuing some games because they don’t want to make anything that doesn’t offer a fresh idea. As I’d explained at the beginning, Star Fox as a series was often criticized for growing stale. So it kinda baffles me that when Assault actually helped bring the series forward…that’s where they quit? And when the series came back a decade later it was just…back to basics again? Make it make sense. Star Fox has unfortunately become a dying name in the eyes of the public and what little of it is still discussed is often spent on people’s strong opinions on other entries. But…I don’t want Star Fox: Assault to be forgotten. We don’t talk about it enough. It’s one of the couple Star Fox entries that really put its foot down in finding its place in a series that struggled to find one. A proper follow up and evolution to its predecessors. Not a repeat. A game like Star Fox: Assault is the game the series needed, but Nintendo didn’t realize that and probably never will.