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The Nintendo 64 was not my first video game console, but it was my formative one. Getting to grips with 3D movement in Super Mario 64 with that weird three-pronged controller is one of my most visceral childhood memories; the long, long wait for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was the background noise to a huge chunk of my youth. But back in the 1990s (in the UK at least), it felt as if nobody had an N64. When everybody had a PlayStation instead, I felt I was the only kid in my whole city who cared more about Banjo-Kazooie than Crash Bandicoot.

If even Zelda seemed comparatively niche in Europe in the 90s, Lylat Wars (known elsewhere as Star Fox 64) was a real deep cut. It’s a 1997 space-flight shooter starring Fox McCloud and his squad of animal pilots laser-blasting across different planets in nimble crafts called Arwings. I played this game to absolute death in 1998, when I got it for my birthday alongside the fabled Rumble Pak, which made your controller vibrate and shudder whenever something cool was happening on screen (fun fact: Lylat Wars was the first console game to feature controller rumble). But I really hadn’t thought about it much since. Then, last week, Nintendo announced a Switch 2 remake.

The Star Fox series has been dormant for a good decade, but there have been rumours a new game was in the works for a while now. The moment Fox McCloud appeared for an otherwise inexplicable cameo in the newly released Mario Galaxy movie, I knew that Nintendo must be planning to announce something. I did not for one second expect that game to be a straight-up rework of Lylat Wars, though.

It’s a strange choice.

The Star Fox series has an interesting history. The first game began as a technological experiment to see if it was possible to generate polygonal 3D graphics on a Snes – Nintendo flew a group of young British coders to Japan to help develop it (in itself a fascinating story that’s well worth reading). For that reason, it’s an on-rails shooter: you fly along a set path, moving the craft around the screen, rather than being in full control of where you’re going. Lylat Wars had the same limitations – all its levels are on rails, apart from a few small arenas where you have full freedom of movement. It was designed to show off the then-new Rumble Pak technology as well as the Nintendo 64’s 3D chops; the whole thing is just over an hour long (though there are several different routes through the game, taking you through variably hostile and challenging planets). It is very much a product of technical limitation.

Why not, then, make a new Star Fox game free of such limitation? Why remake a game that is so obviously an artefact of the late 90s? A more free-form and ambitious Star Fox game would be worth getting excited about – space dogfighting games are in much shorter supply now than they were in the 90s.

Obviously, not everything is the same. Beyond the level layouts, which are identical, the new game’s visuals and character designs are totally different – sparking some spirited debate on exactly how players want an anthropomorphic toad to look in 2026. It’s a strange feeling, watching a fly-though of stages I remember in detail. On the opening planet, Corneria, there are strange stone towers jutting up from water that you skate just above, the Arwings’s wingtips throwing up spray. I remember the cheesy dialogue word for word, but in place of the N64’s fuzzy squad-mate mugshots and muffled sound samples are uncannily realistic-looking animal faces and newly-voiced lines. Everything about the game looks better now than it ever did, even in my imagination, 30-ish years ago, and I know I will enjoy revisiting it.

Still, I would have preferred to see an entirely new game. There is a slightly troubling retreat to nostalgia across the gaming world: Sega is prepping new entries in long-abandoned series like Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio, and remaking/rereleasing Resident Evil and Final Fantasy games from the 90s has proved very fruitful for Capcom and Square Enix in recent years. As Konami is doing with its remake of the classic Silent Hill 2 and new takes on the series from Scottish developer SCREEN BURN Interactive (formerly NoCode) and Japanese author Ryukishi07, it would be good to see these nostalgia trips complemented by new takes on bankable franchises – perhaps from new developers.

What to play

Nostalgia isn’t just the purview of remakes, as Mixtape amply proves. An intentionally tropey interactive coming-of-age movie about three teens on their last night of high school in the mid-90s, it has encouraged a lot of discussion about commercialised longing for the past. The game is constructed around a licensed soundtrack that is, admittedly, a little much – even for the most insufferable American teenager of the time – featuring Portishead, Siouxsie and The Banshees and Silverchair among other sometimes anachronistic alternative rock.

I have read more interesting criticism on this game than any other this year. Some have found Mixtape to be a weirdly ill-fitting take on the 1990s, with the feel of second or even third-hand nostalgia; the fact that it is a small-town teen drama made by Australians about a city in the US Pacific Northwest might contribute to that. Others have absolutely loved it, related to it strongly, and showered it in 10/10s. I’m landing somewhere in the middle – I rolled my eyes often at the story, but loved the inventive way that it plays with adolescent experiences like a first kiss and a trip to the video store. However you feel about it, this is a game that’s worth having a take on.

Available on: Xbox, Switch 2, PS5, PC
Estimated playtime: 3-4 hours

What to read

  • The Nintendo Switch 2 will increase in price soon due to global RAM and component shortages. (Sony also recently raised the price on the PlayStation 5 for the same reasons.)

  • I felt all warm inside reading this paean to the video game pub from Jank, a new(ish) PC games website from some of the greatest people to ever cover the scene.

  • The video game industry unionisation push continues: Microsoft-owned Double Fine (Psychonauts, Keeper) is the latest US studio to unionise.

  • At Eurogamer, Dom Peppiatt writes about how they have learned to do cryptic crosswords with the help of Pokémon.

What to click

Question Block

Reader Chris asks:

“I am a member of a book club and we recently played through Crow Country. I thought that the length was about the same as a book, and the various themes (don’t want to spoil) would make for an interesting discussion. Do you think a game club would work? If so, what games would you recommend (ideally these would be multiplatform)?”

We had a similar question a year ago, Chris, and it got both me and Pushing Buttons readers thinking about what to call a video game book club and which games would be most suited to such an endeavour. So I’m taking this opportunity to resurface those recommendations and add some fresh ones. (If you’ve got 2-4 straight hours, you could even play most of these in a single evening with your fellow book-clubbers, or you could just all play them individually.)

Mixtape, mentioned earlier, would be a great shout, as there’s loads to talk about. To a T was hilarious, and short, and interesting. Thank Goodness You’re Here would also be a great comedic selection. You could do the multi-Bafta-winning Dispatch chapter by chapter. The Exit 8 has just been adapted into a film. I know we never shut up about Despelote in this newsletter, but it is also short and dense with meaning. Many Nights a Whisper is a one-night game that’s been on my list for ages. I reckon there’s a suitable short game for every theme you could possibly come up with. Have fun!

If you’ve got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.