Okay, the title is hyperbole….. sort of. Look, it’s complicated. Let’s start from the beginning. Video game giant Nintendo released a surprise Nintendo Direct (a video stream detailing upcoming game releases) announcing a new Star Fox game. Star Fox is basically animal puppets in space flying around and blowing things up. That’s about as deep as the lore goes. The first game was released way back on the Super NES in the 1990s and the follow-up game Star Fox 64 was released for the Nintendo 64, and then for several systems afterwards. Basically, they’ve been remaking the first two games for 30 years in some form or another. And this thing is going to cost 60 bucks. Yay.

But longtime fans aren’t unhappy with the complete lack of originality from a company that’s made a name for itself on innovation. No, a more egregious offense has made its way into the headlines, ie: “the character designs aren’t cute.” Some said “creepy” or “weird” but I know what they really mean. Sorry but there’s no easy way to say this.

“Not a furry” has always been code for “absolutely 100% a furry”, because who even thinks that? But it doesn’t stop at perverts who like their animated fox space ship pilots to come with a set of come hither eyes, it’s normal fans who think the design is too realistic. In the interest of not being disingenuous, even the lead designer of the original game said he prefers the cartoon look of the Fox McCloud from the Super Mario Galaxy movie (pictured below), but presumably not for the same reason as the one which has furries up in arms and whatever else they have up. He even says the designs and animation from the upcoming controversial-already remake are ‘good’. You won’t get a lot of people to admit that.

But those nay-sayers are not the only people on the planet. Just as many, if not more, players are either excited to have a NEW Star Fox game, or actually love the designs, or both. Yes, there are people who have never played a Star Fox game, like this young lady whose exuberance is infectious:

She loves the designs and graphics. And so do plenty of other people, because there’s really nothing wrong with them. Here’s another new player whose innocence and ability to take the designs at face value are inspiring:

I think the crux of the matter lies in what happened between the last game in the series I played (Star Fox 64) and the Switch 2 remake, which was essentially Sonic-izing the main characters. If you know who Sonic the Hedgehog is, you’re either a learned follower of pop culture or you have a few secret accounts on Deviant Art. Look at the attitude on this guy:

These edgy Sonic tweens-in-40-year-old-bodies are not content with any anthropomorphic animal characters not being conventionally attractive (for whatever their idea of convention is). If they had their way, designs would never change from the early 2000s when copycat mascots were all the rage… and given that companies stopped trying to mimic Mario, bits of Sonic attitude and swagger were all that was left on the design room floor. I directly blame Yuji Uekawa for this trend. What business did you have giving Sonic long legs and giant anime quills, sir? Oh right, it was the late 90s and everything was extreme and apparently designed to be put on skateboards. My bad.

But this isn’t about how hot people think Sonic is, it’s about how unattractive people think Star Fox is, though why those combinations of words written into a sentence have to exist is beyond me. I feel dirty writing them, like putting together the world’s hairiest, funkiest Tetris puzzle.

This is all to say that, yes, everyone is entitled to their opinions, and yes, Fox looks maybe more Fox-like than his predecessors, but if your sole problem with the game is that it looks different, maybe modernity is not for you and you should find a used time machine on Craig’s List with the dial stuck at Y2K.

Just watch though, the vocal minority will elicit a major response and redesign from Nintendo, an industry giant that is very well known for acquiescing to fans.

That’s a joke and it will never happen. In fact, if it sells well, you can expect a more realistic Fox McCloud on their next system, fleas and all.

It’s a nice day somewhere. Go outside and stop worrying about this stuff.

Exo