Accessibility review: Star Fox – Nintendo Switch 2
Star Fox has been released exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2 and after one week with the game, it ended up being a very pleasant surprise for us. Since this was our first experience with the series, we went in without knowing much about Fox McCloud and his crew, but it did not take long before we started enjoying this world and its characters. Star Fox is charming, easy to get into, and delivers a fast-paced adventure that is difficult not to like.
The evil scientist Andross wants to take control of the Lylat System, and it is up to Fox McCloud, Peppy Hare, Falco Lombardi, and Slippy Toad to stop him. The game does not spend too much time trying to tell a huge or complicated story and instead focuses on pushing players from one mission to the next.
Both Alina and I have enjoyed the voice acting tremendously. The fully voiced cutscenes are excellent and add a lot of personality to the adventure. Mission briefings and conversations during gameplay make the Star Fox team feel like an actual crew, and hearing everyone constantly chatting makes the entire experience more immersive and atmospheric. The gameplay is fast, furious, rewarding, and highly addictive. Flying through space, engaging in battles, avoiding attacks, and performing barrel rolls and other maneuvers feels spot on, and the game moves at a very good pace. The different game modes also add a lot of value here and allow friends and families to play together locally or online.
The presentation is fantastic according to Alina, and while I cannot judge visuals directly myself, she kept telling me how great the game looked on the Nintendo Switch 2. According to her, the environments and effects look beautiful, everything feels shiny and polished, and the game runs smoothly.
Accessibility unfortunately feels like another missed opportunity by Nintendo. Let’s start with what’s good. There is a lot of spoken dialogue during gameplay and cutscenes, and players can customize audio levels for music, sound effects, and dialogue. We can change the game language, go for mouse controls with the Switch Joy-Con, use game chat to communicate, enable or disable vibrations, invert axes, and even use classic button combos from the original game.
Large subtitles are also enabled by default. The fully voiced campaign makes it easier to keep track of the story, and there are multiple difficulty choices when we first boot up the game; even that tutorial is fully voiced, which we appreciated.
Sadly though, there is no text-to-speech support, automatic targeting, or other accessibility features that could help totally blind players experience the game independently.
Star Fox on Nintendo Switch 2 is a charming and very enjoyable adventure. The excellent voice acting, epic soundtrack, colorful explosions, smooth performance, a well-put-together campaign, and multiple game modes make it easy to recommend, especially for families and groups of friends looking to play together. This feels like the best version of a classic and a game that really pushes Nintendo Switch 2 to its limits.
If you are nostalgic about the original game or are jumping into this adventure for the first time, Star Fox on the Switch 2 will not disappoint unless you are in need of the sadly missing accessibility features.
Review copy provided by Nintendo via CDMedia.
Victor Dima
