Jack of Harts

I’ve been playing Starlink: The Battle for Atlas pretty much since it came out. And been playing the Nintendo Switch version since I got a Switch. It’s pretty much the best Starfox game released in years as far as I’m concerned.

You can buy a digital deluxe version and get all of the ships and weapons, or you can buy the standard physical copy for more money and get a limited number of ships and weapons. So why buy physical? Because Toys to Life games can be fun. And because if you play on the Nintendo Switch you get Star Fox’s Arwing starfighter in actual physical form. Which is pretty awesome, even if all you want to do is place it on your game room shelf so your buddies can ogle it.

The game in general is flying or hovering around and blowing stuff up with different weapons. Some enemies are more vulnerable to certain types of weapons, so you want to catch them all. The weapons, that is. And some ships are faster or have better armor as default. The Arwing is a good mixed craft that defaults to a bit more maneuverable, while the Neptune is a good tank. All of these can be modified by getting…well…mods that further tweak movement and armor profiles.

You fight in space and on planets, and have a pretty good story to follow. The Switch version adds a Star Fox campaign where Star Fox and his buddies showed up a week before the main Starlink folks arrived. He’s in system to track down Wolf. So…you know. Fun times abound.

You can play different pilots with different skills and skill trees. You will be shocked to understand that while I have all of them, I play as Star Fox. I’ve actually played it on both the Xbox One (where Star Fox and the Arwing don’t work) and Switch, and the stories are subtly different based on which pilot you are playing with. They talk differently to the locals when meeting them, and some of the cutscenes are even a bit different. It was really cool to see Star Fox and his buddies walking across the deck of the primary Good Guy starship for instance.

It is fairly basic space and planetary shootemup game. But it is polished to an amazing degree. The planetary environments are diverse and beautiful. Even in their darkest and dingiest, they are beautiful. And they flower with color when you drive the Bad Guys out. I’ve played very few games where you can so quickly see the actions you make literally change the worlds around you. Both aesthetically and in actual gameplay results. Destroy a Bad Guy tower that corrupts the very air around it and you get to see the planetary landscape in all its beauty. And it stops clogging your engines so you can actually fly.

There are few things as fun as flying around a world, seeing a group of Bad Guys running around below you, and banking over to give them a stiff firing run of missiles. Or maybe some gatling guns. Whatever floats your boat. Then pull up, hit the boosters, and leave atmosphere a few seconds later.

And on the Switch, I can take the game with me and play it digitally with all the ships, weapons, and pilots I’ve purchased physically. Which is pretty much awesome.

In the end, I like the game and look forward to the possibility of more games in the series. It is easily one of the funnest starfighter games I’ve ever played. The bugs are minimal to nonexistent, and the play balance is pretty easy. Good story, beautiful ships, pilots, weapons, and environments. Easily one of the more polished games I’ve ever played.

If you like starfighter games, I think you’ll like this one. And if you like Star Fox, I think you’ll LOVE it. I give it two wee little fox thumbs way up.