Star Fox (SNES) - Beyond this world strange things are known

[raocow]

uploading, give it a couple minutes

[raocow]

[Grounder]

"like sure\",\"I get a bit angry\",\"but nothing\",\"out of the ordinary\"

Getting playback errors on this version. :/

[raocow]

I mean at this point it might just be youtube ?

[BurntTenda]

This level is interesting, but man does it expect a lot out of the player.

It started out pretty fine, too.

[raocow]

so is the video doing okay now? being a bit paranoid but yes.

[KTB]

It's all right now. YouTube has been having weird issues all day, so it's not the video's fault.

(Myself and others I know have gotten persistent 503 errors upon attempting to log in so .. that's a thing)


E: Also holy moly this level is crazy daisy

[Sebby19]

As much as how crazy this level is, it was a little frustrating watching raocow get killed by the exact same point in the level multiple times (right after rescuing your wingmate for the last time).

Game really expects you to boost and break to get around this stuff.
As for the Core boss, I think you would've had a better time if you were shooting at stuff that was rotating away from fox, not toward


Finally, what was the original video's description?

[Awoo]

1:09-1:15
"It's like a management position, but none of the letters make any sense"

Did you just describe my job?

[Zaidyer]

The Secrets of Sector Z:

the level design is biased towards the cockpit view. When you're in the cockpit, objects seem less likely to hit you and your hitbox in general is small enough to survive some very tight squeezes. The trade-off is that you see less of the playfield at once, but in Sector Z, this is a huge advantage because what you can't see won't distract you and won't be able to hit you at all. Even the spinning girders can't touch you unless they barge into your line of sight.
It also lets you see safe spots between the girders a little better in the post-checkpoint hell zone of ultimate hatred.

The post-checkpoint hell zone of ultimate hatred is the second worst challenge in the entire game and takes many sessions to eventually master, but there's a few things to remember that will help you each time:

• Don't be intimidated by all the crazy motion on screen. The true secret of this section is to move as little as possible, only making small adjustments when it becomes apparent that a girder is going to hit you. It's like driving through traffic, really.
• The center of the lower-right quadrant of the playfield is usually a safer place where you can get away with having to dodge fewer girders, but don't hug the edge of the screen because that makes the game think you're trying to escape. It will literally punish you by throwing in a rapid-firing tumbleweed that's invincible. I'm not kidding. This area hates you that much.
• Don't boost or brake. Girders are spawned in relation to your current position and speed; some are meant to hit you if you don't change course, while others are random and won't really hit you. If you boost or brake, it's just more likely you'll hit something that otherwise wouldn't have hit you.
• The transparent spinning girders here are special and can be shot to create a very tiny window of time where you can slip right through them, but this is rarely useful and only really works when you're trying to dodge and almost aren't going to make it. No other transparent girders in the level are like this, the rest of them are solid as steel.

Once the music changes and you start approaching the starbase, you can cheese it without getting punished. Just hug the extreme right side of the playfield, flying towards the spooky flashing reactor thing, and you're safe. The game will automatically guide you into the entrance tunnel.

While fighting the Atomic Base reactor core, it's important to keep in mind that your guns have a limited range and won't touch the power nodes even when it looks like they should. You can't trust your shots to connect if you're just hovering in one spot, no matter how close you are to the wall. You have to actively push toward the wall a little bit to hit a node. (The same is true of those weird creepy flying maintenance pod guys that come out of the walls sometimes.)
This version of the boss in particular has power nodes that can be toggled. If you accidentally hit one that's been shut off, it will turn on again. And believe it or not, this is way easier to have happen when the core is exposed and you're hammering away at it in the center of the screen. If you hit one node during this phase, they'll all be reactivated.
I don't know if the nodes have timers at any point during this battle. While the core is shielded, they seem to stay deactivated forever, provided you don't hit them. But while the core is exposed, it almost seems like there is a timer, but it seems random in the meanest and most infuriating way possible, and I suspect maybe there's no timer at all, maybe it's just easier to accidentally hit one of the power nodes if you manage to miss the core's very small hitbox.

[AuraLancer]

Yeah, as I posted earlier - kid me never got past this level. I certainly didn't expect to see that boss, either.

[Piesonscreations]

So, if raocow had decided to play the whole thing after those game overs, for how long would he have played? 2 hours? maybe more? This level did not seem fun at all.

[raocow]

I mean this session was an hour long

[helucard]

Yeah, vid's doing ok this time.
Here's hoping youtube stops being nonsense.

[Alice]

As much as how crazy this level is, it was a little frustrating watching raocow get killed by the exact same point in the level multiple times (right after rescuing your wingmate for the last time).

Game really expects you to boost and break to get around this stuff.

It's kinda hard to blame him here though. Whoever thought that making those girders wireframes was a good idea really needs to be taken out back and shot. Fast moving objects in an area where there's a lot of them on screen at once. It's basically impossible to actually figure out what's where. Boosting and breaking isn't really relevant when you can't tell how far away you are from the nearest girder.

I'd thankfully forgotten this stage exists until this video. It's the entire reason I've never beaten this path. I used to be able to get to this stage without even dying but simply could not get through it at all.

[Bean]

Yeah, this was the level I had to resort to switching from official game cart to *COUGH* with save states on. Fortuna, this, and even one later stage at a particular point were just asking way too much of my okay SNES Star Fox skills.

[HiroshiMishima]

In my Star Fox 64 heyday, I could beat every single level except the blasted escape sequence in Hard Route without much issue. But this level, no, this level was just a nightmare. Heck, my ex watched this video and was all "oh, yeah, this is why I never went back to Star Fox."

Even TVTropes has Sector Z as a "That One Level". It's just jarring how much more difficult it is than the rest of the game.

EDIT: While browsing their info on Star Fox, I found a translation of the introduction from a guide book that Japan had made. There's also an interview with some of the developers - it's pretty short, but still interesting. I was reminded of how much I liked the Nintendo Power comic, even though at the time I found the game unenjoyable.

https://www.glitterberri.com/star-fox/guidebook-intro/

Oh, and I tracked down a posting of the said comic.

[BurntTenda]

HYPER-TWINKIES

[raekuul]

[Piesonscreations]

If raocow didn't say that was a cave, i probably would've assumed it was just some weird sky with upside down rocks

[HiroshiMishima]

I was glad that today's episode went far more smoothly, even if the bunny got cooked a little bit. The Captain grew a new wing, had a scary dream, and then blew up a popcorn maker. A nice, somewhat easier sort of breather level before chaos resumes upon touching Venom.

[Peliptia]

If raocow didn't say that was a cave, i probably would've assumed it was just some weird sky with upside down rocks

i know right‽‽‽ hahah i literally thought it was like a mars surface environment⚊with like a thick orange fog atmosphere and stuffs✧ ﾟ though i really like the way the level cave is done honestly, the bright palette is perfect for this game (^▽^)

[Kleetus]

I'm only familiar with Star Fox 64, and I was surprised to see that Macbeth doesn't have the same basic concept between the two games.

Oh, and I tracked down a posting of the said comic.

I've read a bit of the comic. Pepper chewing on his lollipop as though it were a cigar is hilarious.

[raekuul]

[Sebby19]

I think the reason that boss took forever was because you were coming in too low.

Cute how they tried to simulate an 'all-range' mode before doing it in the next game.