Way back in 2006, when the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection was actually seeing support, Nintendo and Q-Games released Star Fox Command for the Nintendo DS. The game was my first and only experience with the series, and my main reason for getting the game at the time had nothing to do with the gaming community’s praise for past games in the series, but merely the fact that it was a Nintendo first-party title with the light blue Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection label on its box. Since, at the time I was a rather active member of the website DS-Play, a now defunct online Nintendo community. While I found myself having lots of fun with the online, it was quickly rejected for more time with Metroid Prime Hunters, Mario Kart DS, and later on, Jump Ultimate Stars.

Though the multiplayer didn’t last, I did find quite a bit of enjoyment with the game’s single player. What was really unique for me at the time was that the game allowed for different endings based on the choices made during the campaign. This was something that many other games had done before, but Star Fox Command was really my first experience with such a thing. I also really enjoyed fact that the level maps reminded me a great deal of tactic games like Advance Wars, of course with the added bonus of great air combat.

At the time, however, I did have issues with the way the game was controlled largely with the touch screen. I was one of the odd balls that played Metroid Prime Hunters with the directional pad after all. Fortunately, going back to the controls now feels rather intuitive, while playing Metroid Prime Hunters without the touch screen feels almost impossible.

I also remember the game to be quite challenging at the time. Not only were some of the combat encounters quite difficult, but one mistake with the tactics on the map, and the missions could be over quite easily. The difficulty also carried over to the amount of ships and characters that were available in the game, some of which had weapons that acted differently than the Arwing’s. Though this shouldn’t necessarily add to the difficulty, for someone who often relied on the homing shot, the ships that didn’t have that ability were much harder to use.

With all of the game’s perks, the highlight of the game in my eyes, as with most games, was undoubtedly the bosses. I have a soft spot for any game that has decent boss fights, and Star Fox Command had quite a few of them. Each of the bosses had their own unique pattern and weak spot. There was also often a character that would work best on a particular boss, which allowed me to test out different ships if I wasn’t successful on the first try. The bosses were also kind of odd, I mean when was the last time you’ve fought a giant angular fish or mechanical pig head in space?

Despite Star Fox Command’s rather average reception, I really enjoyed it as a 13 year old. That reception also has me excited to play Star Fox 64 3D, since it’s supposed to be such a superior game.