Most of the text is fairly obvious if you’ve ever played a Starfox game before, the cut-scenes can be skipped via the tiny button at the top of each cut-scene conversation.
On the Main Menu, the top button is Story Mode, followed by Local Multiplayer, then Wifi Multiplayer. The bottom-most button is Options.
The Story Mode is fairly obvious, although you’ll be asked whether you want to do the tutorials first (it’s always the bottom menu once in Story Mode if you need to re-do them). Once past the cutscenes you’ll be presented with the first map - you need to draw lines from your avatars towards the bad guys, then press the L Trigger, then tap the Round icon that appears with the stylus. The enemy will then move. Once it’s your turn again, draw lines into the enemies - don’t let them get to your mothership. Once you hit an enemy you’ll enter the main game mode. This continues throughout, although you’ll get missiles for your mothership and wingmen will be controllable on the grid map too (Yay for Slippy!).
In game is almost entirely stylus controlled - move with the stylus, fire with any button. Barrel roll by making circles, and tap the top of the screen to boost, the bottom to brake. There’s other buttons on the touchscreen for bombs and a loop the loop. Hold a button for a lock-on missile. You’ll soon get it.
In Options, the top button is sound (then mode - stereo/surround/headphones - then voice type - player/normal/computer (or machine?)). Next down is control type - whether up/down is inverted and whether or not you want rumble. The third option is Nickname, which should be obvious. The fourth is Record, which is beyond my Japanese, but the last option is Clear Data (then Single Player, Multiplayer and Wifi Rank). The bottom button in all these goes back to the Options screen.
Setting up WiFi is easier if you’ve already done it via an English game, such as Mario Kart, as Starfox will pick up existing Wifi settings. Anyway, the third main menu button is Wifi (then Battle, Friend Codes and Settings). Clicking Battle gives you two more options - Battle Royal (which will automatically search for players) and Free Battle. Free battle brings up 4 more options - Friend (2-4 players), Random (2 players), Random (3 players) and, obviously, Random (4 players). Free Battle is like Live’s Player Match - stats don’t get stored.
Friend Code menu (second on the WiFi menu) has the following four options: Friend List, Enter New Code, View Code and Trade Friend Codes (then Receive and Send on a sub-menu).
