Star Fox Zero

Nintendo designed the controls to prove the hardware, not to serve the game. In 2014 Satoru Iwata said Nintendo had not yet offered a decisive title that enriches solo play with the GamePad, and Miyamoto's department was given the job. The game cannot be played without the Gamepad, yet reviewers called it a multi-screen mess.

Iwata saw the Gamepad as suited to local multiplayer; the gap was a solo game that needs two distinct screens. Mark Brown estimates about 90% of the game would work on other controllers with minimal tweaks.

The second screen solved a problem single-screen games had already solved. Shooters have zoomed in for a better look for years, Star Fox 64 already had a cockpit view, and Zero itself uses a hold-to-look-down button in its laser shafts and robot-dropping sections.

Miyamoto said the style could work on a single screen by switching view styles. "Star Fox Zero ultimately tries to fix a problem that already has a solution."

Gyro aiming freed the sticks for flight and works better than a stick. Zero is the first Star Fox where you steer the ship and aim the guns separately, with the Gamepad's gyroscope giving more fluid aim. Brown calls the motion aiming mostly fine.

Aiming with one stick while steering with the other is "rubbing your tummy and patting your head." The gyro can aim beyond the TV's edges, though a Wii remote pointer would reach screen corners faster but needs constant recalibration; Zero has a dedicated button to recenter its controls.

Decoupling aim from the ship's nose changed the series' core rhythm. Older Star Fox games fixed the guns to the Arwing's nose, so you jumped into the line of fire, shot, then barrel rolled away, and the lock-on charge shot was central.

Brown compares the old feel to Space Harrier's arcade style; separate aiming is rare in space shooters, with Kid Icarus: Uprising and Sin and Punishment 2 as exceptions.

Overloading the right stick put risky moves where players trigger them by accident. The right stick handles boost, brake, somersaults, u-turns, barrel rolls and bombs, which fire when unwanted. Star Fox 64 100% speedrun record holder zallard1 abandoned record runs after accidental bombs and somersaults.

zallard1 says he is never in complete control of any vehicle: "the controls are confusing for no reason."

Unlike Splatoon, Zero gives no way to turn motion controls off. Splatoon used similar gyro aiming but allowed twin-stick aiming instead; Zero removes that option, partly because its right stick is already busy with maneuvers.

Expert players say they wish there were more control options.

A second screen works when each screen holds different information you must choose between. The TV shows the ship from behind and the Gamepad shows the cockpit, but they mostly show the same scene, so players settle on one screen and stay there.

Brown contrasts Affordable Space Adventures, where you reroute power on the Gamepad while the ship moves on the TV, and ZombiU, where you search your backpack on the Gamepad while watching the TV for zombies.

Hiding different threats on each screen creates overload, not a tactical choice. The Gamepad warns of enemies on your tail while the TV does not, and the TV shows a boss about to squash you while the Gamepad says nothing.

"Are you supposed to look at both screens at all times?"

A deliberately inaccurate TV reticule broke trust in where shots land. Shots aimed on the TV miss and land where the Gamepad reticule points, which looks designed to force use of the Gamepad.

"It's just deliberately broken to give the Gamepad a reason for existing."

Most levels never demand the cockpit view, so the mechanic goes unused. On the rails everything is ahead, so the TV is enough, and big strider weak points plus lock-on charge shots remove any need for the Gamepad.

One screen lets you see but not aim, the other lets you aim but not see, and nothing forces a switch.

The mother strider boss shows the mechanic working when geometry forces view switches. You circle the monster on the TV, aim the Gamepad sideways at its leg joints, then fly over and look back down on the Gamepad to hit weak points below.

Brown: "that's actually a lot of fun. When you're not dying over and over." Such moments rarely appear, and the robot-dropping sections clash with the arcade speed.

Putting the readable view on the small screen got players killed. In target mode the TV shows a zoomed-out, skewed cinematic camera while the real fighting happens on the Gamepad, and sparse starfields give no landmarks to link the two.

Miyamoto said he wanted to see something really cool and likened it to racing replays that look good for onlookers. It almost works in the Star Wolf dogfights; Brown says a simple map like Star Fox Command's would have served better.

A scheme needing training and an hour of play is a warning sign. Players track the ship, the reticule and two screens at once. The developers assumed players would get the hang of it, then added a training mode so they were "not just completely confused."

Training covers the Gyrowing, Gravmaster and a chicken walker with mid-90s tank controls. Hashimoto said fan complaints "did concern us" but asked players to adapt over 30 minutes, an hour or a second playthrough, unusual for a company known for accessibility.