Star Fox on the SNES was a revelation, before polygonal games were anything more then an occasional arcade novelty Argonaut Games and Nintendo found a cost effective way of building chips into SNES carts that would allow for true 3D games on a system that was never intended to have them.

More then that it had charm, visual design and a gameplay style that no other active Nintendo franchise did, flying though stages avoiding obstacles and shooting drones and bosses until they stop coming.

It was great... at the time, people forgave the simple look and horribly stutter frame rate due to how amazing it was at a fundamental level. With the new generation of Saturn and Playstation full 3D could be done with more detail and without the massive technical faults.

With a whole generation built around 3D bringing back one of the originators was a must. This did however lead to the cancellation of a SNES sequel but that's for later.

Star Fox 64 was in a lot of ways a remake, lots of new elements, enemies and bosses but most of what made the first so popular returns.

Stages filled with meteor, to avoid or blast apart, secret courses and bosses, allies needing your help. The power of the N64 was put to use to fill similar area as the first had with way more then was possible back then.

The big innovation of 64 was the pack in Rumble pack, allowing for more feedback via violent shacking of the controller reacting to what the player was doing.

It was a nicety that the player y did not need to use to play the game. The more pervasive innovation were stages that change the movement type, a submarine and tank. These were two of the worst stages and they have aged far worse then the rest of the game. Slower, more restrictive and with a lot of challenge coming from having to relearn basic movement.

64 is an amazing game but set the standard for Star Fox and innovation not getting on so well.

So while being born of innovation it getting close to it after growing up weakens it, much like Superman (64).

Star Fox Adventures does not count as it was an adventure game that had Star Fox IP juice wiped over it, form what I heard it had a couple of shooting stages just to trick people into thinking what they were playing was a real Star Fox game.

Star Fox: Assault developed by Namco for Nintendo a relationship that went though two Mario Kart arcade games all the way to the new Smash Bros.

Assault was a real Star Fox, almost like it was an apology for the bait and switch that was Adventures, the innovation that ruins this game?

On foot sections, they were so bad that I gave up on the first one that should up never touching the game again, were the traditional stages any good?

No idea.

Star Fox Command.

Star Fox 2 on the SNES, the game killed to make room for Star Fox 64 to shine rises from the grave and shows just how close we came to a terrible 16-bit Star Fox game.

The most important element with both 2 and Command was the map.

The enemy forces move around from stage to stage and the player must use strategy and forward thinking to plan counter measures and offensive strikes to win the war. Sounds good but in effect it means stages having to work no matter what the situation going into it is.

So stages could have just one or two drones in it that can be taken out in a few seconds, the crafted paths though amazing areas of 64 is gone replaced with big empty fields with no fun environmental aspects. Add the 'innovation' of touch screen controls and you know you got a stinker.

So of the 2 good Star Fox games the first was born of innovation and good and the second (64) was amazing apart from the innovations.

Star Fox should be Nintendo’s Gran Turismo, every gen we gen one maybe two games with the big difference being better production and new courses.

Now with fan demand hire then it has been for years Nintendo has announce a new Star Fox for the Wii U and they have already talked about how innovative it will be, will they never learn.