Video Game / Star Fox Guard

Star Fox Guard is a spinoff game in the Star Fox series released for the Wii U in 2016. The game was originally announced under the title of "Project Guard" at E3 2014 by Shigeru Miyamoto before being rebranded and released as a Star Fox game. The game released as a companion game to Star Fox Zero, which came out on the same day.

The player takes the role of a newly-hired defense specialist of Corneria Precious Metals Ltd., a mining company run by Grippy Toad, the uncle of Slippy Toad of the famous Star Fox team. Their job is to protect the company's mining bases from attacking enemy robots by operating the Aegiscam Security System, a series of twelve cameras fitted with laser cannons. The player's TV screen shows a setup of screens with point-of-view sights from each of the twelve cameras. A large screen in the center displays a more complete view from whichever camera the player currently has selected. The player can switch which camera they are controlling by tapping the respective number on their Wii U Gamepad. Their selected camera can be aimed using the Control Sticks, and fire lasers using any of the buttons. The player must keep an eye on all the screens and strategically switch between them in order to take out the enemy robots and stop them from reaching the tower at the center of the base.

The enemy robots come in two different classes. Chaos Class robots are designed to distract the player and cause various effects to make defending the base more difficults. Combat Class bots are more dangerous, as their goal is to reach the tower in the center of the base to destroy it. If any Combat Class bots are able to reach and destroy the tower, the base will fall and the mission will end in failure. In order to clear each mission, the player must destroy all of the Combat Class bots, while still making sure to deal with the Chaos class bots to ensure they don't cause additional problems.

In addition to the main story mode, which comes with both main and unlockable extra missions, the player can create their own squads of robots to attack any of the bases they have unlocked in the main game, by selecting the types of robots they want to use, and what order they should spawn in. These squads can be uploaded online for other players to battle against in the online "World Rivals" mode.

At release, the game came bundled as a separate disc in a box set with Star Fox Zero. Players who purchased one of the two games digitally via the Nintendo eShop would be eligible to purchase the other at a discounted price, with the total price being equal to that of the box set. The game also features compatibility with amiibo. If the player owns a figure of Fox or Falco from the Super Smash Bros. series, they can scan the figure once per day before starting a mission to call in an airstrike from the Star Fox team if they find themselves overwhelmed by the enemy robots.

TROPES APPROACHING:

• Achievement System: Throughout the game, the player can unlock symbols by clearing different special conditions in each game mode. The emblems can be used to customize their CPM ID, and will also appear on their robots when other players fend off their squads in World Rivals mode.
• Ammunition Conservation: While the player normally has unlimited ammo and can fire with reckless abandon, the extra Sharpshooter missions only give them just enough ammo to take out all of the enemy bots, so they will have to make every shot count.
• Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: The F.L.I. Unit, a Combat Class bot, is the fastest enemy in that category that can reach the core & requires a couple of shots to destroy it. But just the first shot's enough to have it turn around & stagger about until it explodes into scrap metal.
• Attack Its Weak Point: The bosses tend to have specific points the cameras have to shoot in order to damage them. Hitting other spots will just harmlessly bounce off.
  • The King Hi-Ho can only be damaged by shooting its "mask" on the front of its body.
  • Queen Clucktron needs to be shot in the head in order to damage it.
  • The first phase of the Infernal Joker requires the player to take out the cannons on its outside rings, the second phase needs the player to hit the robot on top, and the final phase can be damaged by hitting the cannon in its mouth, but takes more damage from being hit in the eyes.
• Batman Gambit: The ending heavily implies that Grippy might have deliberately provoked Pigma into attacking his home base on Grippia, trusting that he would send his ultimate weapon, the player would destroy it, and Grippy would be free to harvest the destroyed robots and make a fortune. When Slippy questions him, he doesn't answer one way or the other if this was his plan, however.
• Big Bad: Pigma Dengar is ultimately revealed to be the owner of AstroMine, and by extension, the one who's been sending all the enemy robots to attack Grippy's bases. He's been running his own mining company to harvest precious materials to sell them to Andross to build machines for his army.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In the tutorial level, the player is forced to defend a base that quickly becomes swarmed with an overwhelming number of enemy bots with basically no instructions to fend them off. Luckily, the Star Fox team shows up just in the nick of time to take them out right before they can destroy the tower. Slippy even stays behind a bit longer to give the player detailed instructions of how to operate the Aegiscam system from here on out.
  • Star Fox returns in the final boss fight to protect the CPM HQ on Corneria after Pigma sends a large scale attack on both it and Grippia.
• Big Red Devil: The final boss is the Infernal Joker, which in its second form spawns a red A.T.K. Unit on its top that sports a pair of devilish horns and wields a pitchfork. Once that has been destroyed, the main body of the machine opens up to reveal a giant red skull-shaped head with devil horns and demonic wings.
• Blow You Away: F.A.N. Units are Chaos Class bots with giant rotary fans mounted on top. When they encounter cameras, they will blow air at them, causing their aim to be pushed up to the sky, where they can't see most incoming bots.
• Camera Spoofing: Pausemo is a robot type that resembles a television attached to a propeller with arms. It will attach itself to the front of one of your cameras and display an image of whatever was in front of it on its screen, effectively rendering that camera useless until another camera shoots it off.
• Company Cross References: Some of the robots have designs that are based on characters from Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. series.
  • BOO Unit is a robot type that resembles the ghostly Boos.
  • The Nabbot is a purple rabbit-like robot that steals metals as it runs around the base, and resembles Nabbit.
• Creative Closing Credits: The staff credits are accompanied by a minigame where the player can shoot all the different enemy robot types they encountered throughout the game as they dance. The game tracks how many you've shot out of 100, and the player can earn a new symbol if they score a perfect 100.
• Cute Machines: While they are the main antagonists, many of the enemy robot types have pretty cartoony and cute designs. The A.T.K. Unit even resembles a larger version of Direct-i, the cute robot sidekick from Zero.
• Dance Party Ending: The credits feature all of the enemy robots coming together and dancing. The player can shoot them if they want.
• A Day in the Limelight: Slippy Toad gets a co-starring role in this game, being the only member of the Star Fox team who appears for most of the game, acting as a guide for the player throughout. He even gets to appear front and center on the game's box art alongside his uncle.
• Demoted to Extra: With the exception of Slippy, the Star Fox team themselves don't appear much unless the player uses amiibo, and Fox is the only other one who gets any dialogue.
• Destroy the Security Camera: Certain enemies, especially those in the Chaos Class, are designed to attack your cameras in order to either temporarily or permanently disable them.
• Egopolis: Planet Grippia. Slippy's uncle Grippy Toad found this planet and named it after himself, and might have even carved up the planet's surface to resemble his face. Thankfully it seem to be airless and uninhabited.
• Evil, Inc.: After some analysis, Slippy discovers that the robots are being sent to attack Grippy's bases by AstroMine, Grippy's main rival mining company who is also the biggest of its kind in the Lylat system. It's also owned by recurring series antagonist Pigma Dengar, who is harvesting precious metals to sell them to Andross.
• Fastball Special: Big G has a unique interaction it can do when it appears alongside K.O.F. or B.A.M. Units. The larger bots will pick up their smaller allies and launch them directly into the middle of the base, where they will automatically explode shortly after landing.
• Flying Saucer: Abductrons are Chaos Class bots resembling a stereotypical flying disc-shaped alien spaceships. They fly in the sky above the base and attempt to steal one of your cameras by lifting it away with a tractor beam.
• Freeze Ray: One unlockable upgrade for your cameras is the Freeze Cam. This allows one of your cameras to fire icy wind instead of lasers, freezing robots in place and encasing them in ice. This can either allow you to stop bots in their tracks for another camera to destroy, or if used on airborne robots, it can make them fall to the ground and explode.
• Instant-Win Condition: The main objective of each mission is to destroy all of the Combat Class robots. Once the last one has been taken out, the mission ends in success, regardless of how many Chaos Class bots are remaining.
• Irony: Before the player prepares to defend the bases on Titania, Slippy remarks "You wouldn't catch me in a place like that!" seemingly forgetting the time he did end up on Titania in Star Fox 64, though this game may not be part of the same continuity.
• Killer Gorilla: Big G is a powerful type of robot that resembles a large gorilla and has lots of health. It's also a Combat Class robot, so it aims to destroy the tower in the base.
• King Mook: Most of the bosses in the game are giant robots with similar designs to regular enemies.
  • The first boss is the King Hi-Ho, which, as the name implies, is a giant version of the normal Hi-Ho enemy.
  • The boss on Zoness is the Queen Clucktron, a giant version of the Clucktron capable of flying around the base.
• The Goomba:
  • The Hi-Ho is the first and most common Chaos Class bot to be introduced. They only have one hit point and slowly make their way to the tower, but if they manage to reach it, they will self-destruct, potentially damaging any cameras nearby.
  • The most basic Combat Class bot is the ATK-Unit, which takes two hits to defeat and becomes faster after the first hit, but has no other special abilities or features.
• Hostage Spirit-Link: The Small Re:bot missions will have some robots approach the base with miniature Re:bots on top of their heads. If the player shoots a bot with one, it will be destroyed in the resulting explosion, and the mission will instantly end in failure, so the player has to wait until the Re:bots dismount their rides before they can shoot them.
• Metal Slime: A golden version of Nabbot has a rare chance of appearing at random during a mission. It has tons of health, but drops materials every time it is shot, potentially allowing the player to earn a huge amount at once so long as the player doesn't get distracted long enough that they fail the mission.
• Mighty Glacier: The gorilla-like Big G robots have very slow movement speed and are huge targets, but they have lots of hit points, and can knock cameras they encounter off of their walls, forcing the player to stop and put them back up.
• Multi-Mook Melee: The final stages of Titania and Fortuna have more traditional waves of enemies instead of proper boss fights. Both stages do introduce dangerous new enemy types, though.
• No Animals Were Harmed: Played for Laughs. The credits are prefaced with a message signed by Grippy indicating that no robots were harmed in the making of this game.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: The tower in each base cannot afford to take any damage at all. If any Combat Class bots successfully get an attack on it, it's all over.
• Parasol Parachute: Jumprella is a type of Combat Class bot that has the ability to use the spring on its underside to jump high in the air before using its umbrella shape to gently float down.
• Rail Shooter: Certain extra missions give you only a pair of cameras that are mounted atop two Squawky walkers. They walk around the base by themselves on a set path, and you have to use the cameras to shoot all the bots as they move around.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Grippy Toad's attitude towards you and Slippy feels a little iffy, but he and his company are ultimately on the up and up. If you ignore that he possibly lured Astro Mine's robot army to the final planet, Grippia, in the game to harvest them for scrap betting on you being able to beat them.
• Shield-Bearing Mook: Shieldtrons are Combat Class bots that carry shields that cover their entire front. They will face one of the cameras, completely blocking all shots from that one, and the player will need to select a different camera to shoot them in the back in order to defeat them.
• Stealthy Mook: Cloak-R is a Combat Class Bot that does not appear on the radar once it makes it into the base, so the player will need to be alert and spot it on the cameras, lest it reach the tower without being seen. There's a similar type called Cloak-B which is just the opposite; it can be found on the radar, but is usually invisible to the cameras.
• Tank Goodness: Tanks appear as Chaos Class bots. They slowly proceed toward the base and will fire shots at any cameras they get near, temporarily disabling them.
• This Is a Drill: The King Hi-Ho has a giant drill installed inside its head, and will sometimes charge directly at the tower with it. Unless the player shoots it fast enough to shoo it away, it will use the drill to instantly destroy the tower.
• Timed Mission: The Quick Draw missions give you a short time limit to clear them. You can increase the length of the timer by shooting the robots.
• Underground Monkey:
  • Cloak-B is a variant of the Cloak-R enemy introduced earlier in the game. While Cloak-R is visible to the cameras but does not appear on the radar, Cloak-B can be clearly seen on the radar, but is mostly invisible to the cameras.
  • Red Tanks are a more dangerous version of the Green Tanks. Red Tanks have the additional ability to deploy a force field after being shot at, rendering them untouchable for a bit. The shield stays up for a substantially long time, so the player doesn't have time to wait for it to go down; they'll need to jump to the other cameras to keep shooting other enemies, but keep an eye on the tank to see when the shield goes down.
• Victory Fakeout: After draining the Infernal Joker's health to zero, the game displays "Defense Successful" like usual as if you've won, and Pigma starts to break down, but then it gets up for one final attack on the tower. You have to destroy it before it connects.
• Villainous Breakdown: Pigma utterly falls apart and starts sobbing like a baby once his ultimate weapon is destroyed in the final battle.

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