I picked this up, expecting a clumsy Star Fox-y experience and a few hours of entertainment. I was very wrong.
This game is big. Freaking HUGE, considering its genre. Not really sure where to begin, in fact. I believe I'll leave out everything concerning the storyline, except for this little tidbit: if you are the kind of person who can't stand constant banter while playing, there's an option to turn it off. However, I LIKE the constant banter, it breaks the fourth wall constantly and doesn't take itself seriously, allowing cheesy lines to just work.
EDIT: all this talk about the complexity of the game and I didn't even mention how it looks. Silly me. Anywho, this is easily the most diverse and prettiest game on the 3DS yet. You'd think "aerial battle" would leave little room for variety, but each chapter has constantly shifting environments that go from pretty to trippy to occasionally creepy. Sometimes you will fly gracefully and be able to take in the sights, other times the camera will spin you 360-degrees while ten floating eyeballs fire at you nonstop. Animation is extremely fluid and framerate never drops in single player, with online rarely hiccuping at the 6-player chaos going on. That's all pretty impressive considering I cranked the 3D up at all times.
Well anyway, the game plays like 1/3 Star Fox and 2/3...I dunno how the hell you'd describe it. Super Smash Bros. in three dimensions comes close, as you run around, shoot/swat at anything that lies before your path and dodge projectiles that can (and will) block the entire screen. The air parts are the easiest, as it shares similar-yet-advanced controls with Star Fox 64 3D. Unlike that game, you can move and aim in different directions using the slider and touch screen, respectively, which gives an amazing level of aim. A charged shot loads while you have a moment of peace, movement is quicker when you're not shooting, certain enemy projectiles can be shot back or reflected...there's a lot going on.
This gets even more complex on the ground. Pit is an agile cat, able to pull off charged shots with the same ease you had in the air. But land combat also includes dashing (which itself has its own charged shots depending on which direction you go), grinding rails, bunny-hopping and camera control. The last one is the finicky bit. A lot of reviewers apparently can't wrap their heads around the touch screen being used to move the camera AND the aiming reticule with different motions, it's usually the dominant complaint in any review of the game so far. But while the control layout itself is abstract, it is by no means unusable. I kinda relate it to a similar "holy crap this is difficult" feeling you get playing rhythm games like Rock Band, where the input method itself works fine but it's the person playing who has to adapt. But this will differ for everyone, and just because I have yet to feel anything remotely painful enough to stop playing, doesn't mean you can show up and play the game flawlessly.
Those are the only two things you actually DO throughout the whole game, which consists of plenty of storyline chapters and an online mode. Sounds pretty simple, eh? It's not. As soon as you complete the first mission - set on the "baby" difficulty - you are awarded with hearts (in-game currency) and perhaps a new weapon. These are doled out from playing the missions themselves and finding hidden chests, or from completing a task on the HUGE achievement list. Weapons not only come in nine different classes, there are easily a hundred different weapons to choose from, and the stats vary on EVERY SINGLE ONE, and the bullets fired all vary in shape/speed/homing capacity/look/size/damage depending on HOW it's fired and what weapon it's fired from, and melee attacks have varying range/power/speed/combo length, and two weapons can be fused to create a new weapon with hybrid stats. You get all that? If you have no interest in the weapon at all, you can sell it for more hearts, which in turn can be used to buy more weapons. I know some of you may be imagining a nightmare scenario where you have to equip each weapon and halfheartedly play a mission to get a feel for it. Fear not: you can try out any weapon you want while in the weapons menu.
See, look at all that text, and I didn't even mention the bonus box. I dunno what the game calls it, but the bonus box is a Tetris-like system where certain skills (poison, grenades, health boost, dozens of others) can be equipped by sliding their blocky shape into said box. These show up in-game on the bottom screen, and can be activated with touch or the d-pad. These can change your playstyle just as drastically as a different weapon class, so experimentation is key.
Sound like a lot of grinding? Well, it COULD be, if you take the easy way out and pick "wuss" mode. But the difficulty is extremely adjustable, allowing you to wager hearts and say "Yeah, I can beat this." I wouldn't recommend this early on, you will get stomped. But when you DO feel up to it, don't think the game will be completely out of surprises just yet: hidden areas will only open if you hit the difficulty threshold, and that's where you'll find even greater challenge and loot.
As that wasn't cool enough, 99% of what you unlock in the storyline will become available to use against people all over the world. There are only two game types - free-for-all deathmatch and a protect the leader-ish Light vs. Dark mode - but the infinite weapon variations more than make up for it. Once again there is no online voice chat, not even for friends, but to be honest there's so much going on I don't know what I'd say to my partners that would lessen the chaos. And there are items you can only collect/use from playing online, too, giving even more variety.
On top of all that, you have a card-battle system which uses the 3DS camera, a Smash Bros.-like figurine collection, hidden pictures slowly revealed via achievements and customizable menu screen. Yeah, really. It is insane how much content is packed in that little cartridge, and anyone who thinks they're up to testing the unusual control method could do worse than pick this game up.
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Ok, so usually I cut some slack when I order something used, and I feel bad for the low rating, but I couldn't even play the game because it was a European game. Now, I looked everywhere before I ordered and it said it was American, so when I get the game I don't think twice and try and play it. The game icon doesn't even show up on the screen. Nothing. I try other games and they work just fine so I restart the 3ds and try again, I tried looking things up, too. Nothing. European games just don't work for the American systems and vice versa. So I'm giving it a one star rating because I couldn't get it to even work :/
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