YMMV / Star Fox

• Anti-Climax Boss: While Professor Hanger is just another stage boss, he's given a lot of buildup, having a whole segment before you can actually attack him and being one of the few bosses who can actually speak. All of this in addition to a massive health bar for this game and awesome music would hype players up to a threatening showdown...only for Hanger to go down really, really easily.
• Awesome Music:
  • The theme for the first stage, Corneria is a well-loved track by the fanbase to this day, even to those who otherwise started with Star Fox 64.
  • Most of the soundtrack applies, to the point where a good portion of fans of the original game prefer its soundtrack and more serious tone over 64's. See the Awesome Music page of the main series for more.
• Best Boss Ever: Despite it being incredibly annoying, the Slot Machine is perhaps the most memorable boss in the game.
• Best Level Ever: The Space Armada stands out for its epic feel, multiple paths to completion, and the ability to fly into enemy ships and destroy them.
• Bizarro Episode: Sector Y? Odd. The Black Hole? Really weird. Out of this Dimension? No words can describe it.
• Breather Boss: A few, a relief from the occasional That One Boss.
  • The most notable is Professor Hanger, who, although having a ton of health, is an easy target, has easy to dodge attacks, and doesn't really move, kinda.
  • Atomic Base 1 can be defeated in just a few seconds if you stockpile at least three nova bombs prior to taking it on. Even if you defeat it via the "correct" method, it still has a very short life bar and attacks that are easy to dodge.
  • The Path 3 bosses can either be this, That One Boss, or Goddamned Boss, depending on how you play. While Destructor can come as a nasty shock compared to the Attack Carrier, the Blade Barrier can be a major pain in the butt, and the Monarch Dodora is a genuinely tough fight, the next two bosses between them and Venom, Atomic Base II and Spinning Core, are actually not too hard compared to their stages.
• Breather Level: Venom Skyway, the Path 2 incarnation of Venom Surface, is actually easier than both its Path 1 counterpart and most of the earlier stages on Path 2, with the Galactic Rider also being the easiest of the Venom-related bosses.
• Complete Monster: Andross, banished to Venom for an unknown crime, converted the lush, green planet into a barren weapons factory while enslaving the natives to fight for him against their will. He then launched an assault on the Lylat System, severely damaging the various planets and regions while doing so. While Fox ends the war, Andross had put an AI copy of himself in charge of the operation, leaving him free to build the Astropolis base and attack again, this time with the goal of completely destroying Corneria.
• Goddamned Boss: Path 3 bosses have the potential to become this. The Great Commander's first fight, depending on your skill, can either become the most notable Goddamned Boss or the most notable That One Boss. The Slot Machine is not disputable. It's just that annoying.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The grinning asteroids◊ in the hard version of the Asteroid Belt bear quite a resemblance to the modern Trollface meme. Said asteroids even troll you by swerving to hit you!
  • The character from the comic, Herbert, is a robotic pig who works for Andross. Come Star Fox 64, Pigma Dengar is a pig on a mercenary team who works for Andross.
• Memetic Mutation: The Slot Machine's theme is used as the intro music for Sr. Pelo's "X is..." videos.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • "Wing repair."
  • "Twin Blaster!"
  • The Space Whale's call if you manage to summon it in Sector Y.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The box art and posters featuring realistic anthropomorphic versions of the Star Fox team. Let's just say there's a good reason the team doesn't look like road kill in-game or anywhere else...
  • Out of this Dimension, mostly due to Fridge Horror. Pepper tries to contact the Star Fox team and fails, and the team is stuck in an alternate dimension with no way back; even killing the endboss of the stage simply results in a "THE END" screen that goes on forever. Since the Star Fox team has left the dimension they came from, one can assume that Andross is now free to conquer the system with negligible resistance. Worse, none of Fox's teammates appear in the stage at all, which not only leads you to wonder if Fox is possibly all alone, trapped and lost in space forever, but what about the whereabouts of the others?
• Nintendo Hard: The game is short, but it doesn't have a save feature, which means it has to be beaten in one go. The primitive 3D graphics and limited resolution can make it difficult to figure out the distance between things or what's an enemy.
• Sequel Displacement: A lot of fans are still unaware there was a Star Fox before 64. And this game and story didn't have many of the things the series became known for later. No Great Fox. No ROB 64. No Star Wolf. No Krystal. And no Aquas, Area 6, Bolse, Fichina, Katina, Sauria, Solar or Zoness. But there was Papetoon and Fortuna, while the Venom orbital stages and Space Armada were similar in comparison to Area 6. The stages that did exist also look significantly different. The fact that 64 was an abnormally early reboot of the franchise doesn't help matters either.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Some fans have noted that the iconic Corneria theme sounds very similar to the main theme from Sega's After Burner, at least in tone. Not that you'll find anyone complaining, as the comparison has inspired some remixes using the Sega Genesis and arcade soundboards. This video makes a brief comparison.
• That One Boss: On Path 1, Phantron after going One-Winged Angel. On Path 2, Plasma Hydra. Everyone has the potential on Path 3, but the Great Commander in particular stands out.
• That One Level:
  • Sector Z and Macbeth, due to having very limited room to manoeuvre in both levels. On top of that, Sector Z is full of the same construction materials as Sector X, only this time they're transparent, while in Macbeth you have to deal with enemies on the top of the chasm as well as the ground.
  • Venom, on any difficulty. Let's say you're playing on level one (aka the easiest difficulty). At first the level isn't so bad if you have a decent trigger finger. You get to the end, you fight the boss, and you think, "Alright, it's over. Time to...THERE'S ANOTHER STAGE?!" And the second Venom stage is much much worse. Should you be fortunate enough to get past Andross' defenses and defeat another boss, well... there's still the big monkey himself.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • While they may look dated in this day and age, the Super FX graphics were considered quite impressive and groundbreaking back when the game first came out. Visually speaking, the game did not look like a first effort. Enemies animated, robots walked across the battlefield. There are even robots that abscond with buildings and the like; if you kill them, they drop what they're holding.
  • Special note should be given to the design of the Arwing itself. The in-game model is just 12 triangles, completely flat-shaded with no lighting. And yet, it maintains a clear and distinct silhouette, making it easily recognizable from other objects. It's clear that the Arwing was deliberately designed to look good with minimal triangles.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • Dear lord, the characters' puppet forms look creepy in the artwork. Thank god Nintendo stuck with the cartoony designs in-game afterwards.
  • The giant robot face sent in to represent Andross looks weirdly human, especially contrasted against the series' World of Funny Animals. The fact that it runs on Limited Animation also doesn't help, making it look as though it's a man having a stroke.

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