Play Starfox Command Online

StarFox Command came out for the Nintendo DS in 2006, developed and published by Nintendo. It was part of that wave of DS games that really tried to use both screens and the stylus in a meaningful way, moving the series into a more tactical space after the straightforward action of earlier titles.

You control Fox McCloud's Arwing, but the game is split between two distinct phases. On the top screen, you engage in all-range mode dogfights, chasing down enemy fighters and dodging lasers in open arenas. The main objective is to protect the Great Fox carrier from an invading enemy armada across a series of branching, turn-based strategy maps. Between the shooting, you use the DS stylus on the lower screen to draw a flight path for your Arwing during the strategic overview, and you also manually aim your shots by tapping or dragging the stylus on the touch screen during combat. The pacing is tense; you are constantly managing the clock as enemies spawn and threaten your mothership, making for some frantic scrambles across the map. It feels like a constant, high-stakes puzzle where a single wrong move can leave a critical area undefended.