The Nintendo Direct this morning started off on a strange note: Reggie, Iwata and Miyamoto together as… muppets?
The muppets quickly gained animal features and turned into Fox, Falco and Peppy from our beloved Star Fox series, revealing the new entry on the way: Star Fox Zero. After demoing the way it works, including classic Star Fox gameplay on the TV and a cockpit view from the Wii U Gamepad, Miyamoto came back on screen (as a human) to talk more about it.
He explained that Star Fox was originally inspired by Japanese cultural structures such as torii arches–the idea was that when you saw an arch, you wanted to go under it, and he based the gameplay on this idea of flying through tight spaces more than combat. However, you’ll still get to blast enemies in a lot of different ways–with the normal Arwing, Landmaster, an Arwing walker and more. The gyroscope controls he explained make a lot of sense, and hopefully they’ll be as good as promised.
It’s obvious by the way Miyamoto talked in the announcement that he and the team have put a lot of love into this, bringing the Star Fox series back to its roots while also innovating on it. I have high hopes for Star Fox Zero.
