Star Fox takes 2 hours to beat, but much longer long to master

If you’ve never played Star Fox 64 before, you’re in for a treat with its glitzy new Nintendo Switch 2 remake. Star Fox gives the classic shoot-’em-up a cinematic makeover that makes it feel like you’re playing a Nintendofied Top Gun. Just be prepared for a shock if you’re used to playing modern games padded with content: the main Campaign can be cleared in under two hours. That’s how it was on the Nintendo 64, and it doesn’t change much with the addition of new cutscenes.

That’s great news if you like compact games that you can replay, but less enticing if you think of games as a time-to-value proposition. There are a few ways to pull significantly more playtime out of Star Fox if you need concrete incentives, though. Beyond beating the Campaign, here’s everything else you can do to make sure you’re getting the most for your $50.

Discovering new routes

The main pull of the original Star Fox 64, and Star Fox by extension, is that the Campaign isn’t necessarily the same experience every time you play it. Your goal is to clear seven stages en route to the nefarious Andross, but there are different paths you can take through the Lylat System. Several levels contain secret objectives that, if cleared, will take you to a different planet. Save Falco’s tail on Corneria, and he’ll lead you to an alternate stage ending that takes you around Meteo, instead of through it. You can look up how to unlock all of these routes if you’re impatient, but the fun comes from trying to crack puzzles that aren’t obviously telegraphed to you. It will take you around four playthroughs to see each stage, but far more to try every possible route.

Going for high hit scores

One major disappointment in Star Fox is that it doesn’t have a proper high score leaderboard. That was a big incentive to keep playing Star Fox 64, which operated like an old-school arcade game. High scores do still exist, though. You can see your hit count on each individual stage, and you can earn medals for hitting certain thresholds. Achieving a total completion involves mastering every level by blasting as many foes as possible. That’s not easy to pull off casually, so there’s a lot to chase there, if you’re down for it.

Completing all Challenges

Image: Velan Studios/Nintendo via Polygon

If high scores aren’t your thing, you do have some more concrete goals to chase in the form of Challenges. This mode lets you pop into any stage you’ve unlocked via the Campaign and try to complete a set of objectives. Completing six normal challenges will unlock an Expert difficulty with six challenges that are tougher. These will push you more towards perfection on each level, teaching you some tricks that aren’t always obvious in a casual playthrough. You can take that knowledge back into the Campaign to try and optimize your hit score and nab those medals.

Diving into Battle mode

Image: Velan Studios/Nintendo

If you don’t want to play the same handful of stages over and over again, you do have a multiplayer Battle mode to try. Here, you can compete in a series of objective-based team multiplayer modes across three maps. You’ve got some fun variants on capture the flag and zone control here, but combined with Star Fox’s tight flying controls and tense dogfighting. Don’t expect to get too much out of this, though. There are only three maps, each of which has one set objective. Hopefully Velan Studios adds a bit more to this mode in future updates, because there’s a strong foundation for a multiplayer game here that’s begging to be built on.

Unlocking banners, lore, and AR filters

Image: Velan Studios/Nintendo via Polygon

Looking for some tangible rewards for all this extra playtime? Star Fox does include a suite of unlockables for doing everything I’ve described above. You’ll unlock both banner backgrounds and icons that you can use to create a custom playercard. Many of those are unlocked in Battle mode, giving you some “achievements” to chase. There’s a whole suite of lore files that you’ll get by unlocking every planet and completing challenges. You can also pick up additional filters to use in the game’s AR GameChat integration, including secret characters and accessories. If you’re a completionist, Star Fox will keep you busy for a bit as you chip away at all of this. If none of that sounds appealing, just know that there’s not too much else for you beyond a satisfying, if short, Campaign.