YMMV / Star Fox: Assault

• Awesome Music:
  • The new Star Wolf theme gets just as much love (if not more love) than the original version.
  • In fact, most of the soundtrack is very good. Special mention goes to the aparoid boss battle themes. All of them.
• Best Level Ever: Levels 1, 3, and 7. Those are the most Fanservice-packed ones after all.
• Broken Base: The fandom's even more divided with this game than Star Fox Adventures.
  • Some fans think this game's the best one in the series because of its Darker and Edgier plot, and because you get to do more than just pilot an Arwing. Others feel that the on foot segments are too numerous compared to the classic on-rails flight missions and that the on-foot gameplay isn't good enough to justify how much time you are out of your Arwing.
  • Some fans hate the game for being too different from Star Fox 64. Others welcomed the new approach.
  • Many fans despise the ground missions (in large part due to the controls) and wish they got to pilot the Arwing more. Others tolerate them to a point where the game is at least worth playing. A few fans would go as far as saying that the ground missions are better than the Arwing ones.
  • The voice acting. Quite a few people prefer this game's voice acting over Star Fox 64 because it isn't so cheesy, the dialogue is more believable, and the voice actors and actresses are taking their lines seriously. Others found the lines and dialogue dull, forgettable, cliché at times, and worst of all, not worthy of becoming a meme.
• Complete Monster: The Aparoid Queen birthed the Aparoid race and unleashed them upon the Lylat System to infect all matter in a cataclysmic attempt at bypassing evolution. When opposed by Fox McCloud and the rest of Star Fox, the Aparoid Queen initiates horrifically destructive campaigns upon Sauria, Corneria, and the Orbital Gate to distract them or stamp out resistance. Her Assimilation Plot sees those infected by Aparoids retain some consciousness coupled with the inability to do anything about it; the tragic effects are seen most vividly in the fights against General Pepper and Pigma Dengar. When Star Fox confronted her at the heart of the Aparoid Homeworld, the Queen uses the information she absorbed from her spawn's exploits to imitate the voices of the fallen, including Fox's deceased father James, to break their spirits. Under the delusion everything existed for her race of "truth," the Aparoid Queen threatened existence itself in her quest to dominate all as Aparoid.
• Cliché Storm: It's a bog standard "alien invasion" plot like you can see in any Sci-Fi, though the strong voice acting, excellent orchestral soundtrack and high-stakes missions elevate it into being genuinely enjoyable. It also helps that it's the first real Star Fox game to break away from the Andross threat that wasn't Adventures where he's shoehorned in at the last second anyways.
• Critical Dissonance:
  • Several professional game critics gave Assault a pretty high score, or at least thought the game was So Okay, It's Average. The fans? See Broken Base above.
  • It goes the other way, too. Assault is the lowest-reviewed game in the series overall, but fans generally have a higher opinion of it than a better-reviewed game, Command.
• Cry for the Devil: Not even Pigma Dengar deserved to be brainwashed and slowly assimilated into an enormous aparoid Eldritch Abomination.
• Funny Moments:
  • When the fight with Oikonny begins at the end of the first mission, he transforms his flagship into a giant version of his head and hands in a clear homage to Andross both in- and out-of-universe (which Falco calls out as "an Andross wannabe"), and Oikonny "starts" the fight by using this Humongous Mecha to do the "bring it on" gesture. When the fight is over, he starts talking about how he's "the one true heir to the great Emperor Andross" and immediately gets shot down.
  • After defeating the Aparoids on Sauria, Fox gets a Glomp from Tricky, who due to having grown over the years is now much larger than Fox and ends up inadvertently crushing him. In the next scene, Fox and Krystal are riding on Tricky's back, and while Tricky is sad that he can't come with them like old times, he's at least excited at the possibility that Fox and Krystal can come back to Sauria for their honeymoon, which causes Fox a great deal of embarrassment and makes him start arguing with Tricky, to Krystal's amusement.
• Game-Breaker: In the multiplayer each character has their own individual stats related to HP, movement speed, specific vehicle handling etc. This makes each character unique but also means that specific characters are more favorable to use for specific game modes. Then there's Wolf, who stomps everyone in just about everything with his insanely high health, movement speed and high aircraft handling. Anyone fighting against a player controlling Wolf is doing so at a severe disadvantage.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the briefing for the first mission, when discussing the mercenaries Andrew hired, Krystal says that they're surprisingly dedicated for hired guns. After Baneposting got popular, it's not hard to be reminded of one of the CIA operative's lines in The Dark Knight Rises.
  • Maybe not hilarious, but the Aparoid Queen assumes Fox's dad is dead, and uses his voice to torment Fox. Even though it might not be canon, James is an unlockable character in Command.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: Compared to Star Fox 64, Assault is quite simple and easy to beat. Unless you play on Gold difficulty.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: The game can easily be beaten in a couple of hours. The main problem is that unlike Star Fox 64, Assault doesn't have much Replay Value and suffers from being too linear.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Even those who dislike the game will agree that the multiplayer is incredibly fun, perhaps even the best in the series. It has loads of options you can progressively unlock, a ton of weapons (some even exclusive to the mode), and the ability to switch vehicles. Plus, the iffy aiming controls aren't as big of an issue since it's overall less hectic than the campaign.
• Narm:
  • The prerelease dub. Just imagine trying to take the game seriously with that voice acting, especially Slippy's.
  • Fox's brief Contemplate Our Navels moment after defeating the Aparoid Queen. Even his teammates react to it awkwardly.
• One-Scene Wonder: Aparoid Pigma gets dealt with as soon as he shows up, but the concept behind the boss is so shockingly terrifying for a Star Fox character that's almost impossible to forget about him and his battle.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: The biggest fans of this game are of the belief its single player exists to unlock new features in multiplayer, which in a Star Fox first is much deeper than the "story mode". Even those that like single player are mostly interested in racking up high scores.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Slippy, for some fans. While he's still not the most likable character, he's much more tolerable compared to his Star Fox 64 version. He can bring up the bosses' health bar right at the beginning of each fight (as opposed to halfway through) and he even participates in a ground mission with you. While he does still need to be rescued from danger frequently, Falco and Krystal get in as much danger as Slippy does, so all of your teammates feel like The Load sometimes instead of just him. At the very least, they made sure he wasn't voiced by a woman this time around.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The ground controls are the most criticized gameplay aspect of Assault, which can be a pain for some since most of the game is comprised of ground-based missions. Although there are several control schemes that fit multiple styles of play, all of them suffer from overly sensitive aiming and movement controls when it comes to both analog sticks. It is perhaps less of a problem with those who are more used to the Arwing controls, which the ground controls are meant to resemble, but for those who play other third-person shooters, it can feel like a slippery mess.
• So Okay, It's Average: The fans who didn't flat-out hate the game thought it was okay, but not great. The ground controls are criticized by many, and more than enough people have brought up the fact that many of the missions aren't Arwing-only. However, the same fans also praise the game for having a great soundtrack, an amazing story, and improved voice acting.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The fight against the level 7 boss. If it goes on long enough, Fox will very clearly have a difficult time emotionally dealing with it. Rather understandable, since this time it's Infected General Pepper, begging Fox to kill him before he's fully infected.
  • Peppy's "death" after level 9. Sure, he got better, but the whole cutscene is one of the most heartwrenching (and awesome) moments in the series.
• Vindicated by History: The game's reputation still isn't perfect, and still not up to the level of Star Fox 64, but even those who dislike the game have a little more appreciation for the fact that unlike Star Fox Zero, which is seen as little more than a rehash of 64, this one at least attempted to try something new with the series. The same thing also applies to Star Fox Adventures.