5-6 hours in the first playthrough, and I don't know how many for the others paths, but overall the same lenght as Starfox Assault.

The map in the OP seems to suggest that one playthrough will comprise 6 stages, 7 if Venom has its traditional space stage and surface stage.

For it to be 6 hours long, each stage would have to last an hour, and we can see from the playthroughs of Cornera, Titania, and Fortuna already available that this isn't the case.

No....not blatant denial. Nintendo said so in there direct that all copies of the game would come shipped with Star Fox Guard. I can't find it for anything less than $60 online. It's not very hard to look up. I'm not really sure what else to tell you. At retail, it's a $60 game with a packed in copy of Star Fox Guard. They did the same thing with Bayonetta 2 by including Bayonetta 1 with it. And I've really got to disagree on it being "dumb". It's a way to add value to the package without making the core dev team spend resources trying to pad out the main experience. As I understand it, Guard was not made at Platinum Games like Zero was.

Who said anything about local multiplayer? All discussion in this thread has targeted "online multiplayer". That's what people were complaining about, that's what I was replying to. There is technically a local multiplayer co-operative mode, too. If Star Fox Zero could produce a quality, modern-day multiplayer, it would not require an "above and beyond" effort to get it to work just because of motion control. Saying that motion control is what kept this game from getting a multiplayer mode doesn't make any sense. "Fear that you might do a bad job" isn't a very good reason, but I'm not sure why you're bringing that up. Yes, Star Fox 64 had multiplayer. For it's day, the multiplayer was a simplistic throwaway arena mode. Today, that multiplayer doesn't hold up well at all. Your welcome to be as certain as you want, but I just don't see it.

What you're describing is basically how they do multiplayer in light gun games, which are a different animal compared to rail shooters like Star Fox and Panzer Dragoon. I've never seen a rail shooter pull off co-operative multiplayer well, but regardless, it's still not the kind of "online multiplayer that infinite hours can be sunk into" that's been described in this thread as something people want.

The freeflight areas, as they are, don't really seem to offer a whole lot. In order for them to become a proper multiplayer mode, they'd need to be made deeper. Many more vehicles, many more kinds of weapons, more complex 3D areas. From what I've seen of this game (I haven't been going out of my way to watch every game play video, FYI) this game doesn't really offer much of that. There are a few kinds of vehicles. There's a complex 3D area that centers around the hover vehicle and stealth. But on the whole, it all looks like a simplistic arcade flight game. Which is great. Star Fox is at it's best when it isn't trying to be especially complex. One need to only look how Star Fox Assault failed so horribly to understand what happens when a Star Fox game tries to become a more traditional 3D action game. A game of that level, done really well, could produce a compelling multiplayer mode. But Star Fox Zero, which is basically a big HD version of Star Fox 64? I'd prefer they put their resources into smoothing over the main game rather than trying to put together an okayish online dogfighting game that most people won't touch after a few weeks.

I played Star Fox 64 back in the day, too. And it very briefly became a game I played at my friends house, before we went back to playing stuff like Smash Bros and Golden Eye. Simply put, the multiplayer got old, quickly. And in all my years of hearing about people recount their multiplayer experiences on N64, the only contexts I've heard Star Fox 64 mentioned was the fact that it had one, and that it was possible to unlock playing onfoot. Never that it was "exceptional". I'm glad you liked it back in the day, I guess that explains why we are coming at this from such differennt angles. But I personally just don't how Zero could produce a compelling, deep multiplayer experience, that would be worth doing and lives up to today's standards.

Nintendo tried progressing the series. It's called Star Fox Assault. It did basically completely change the Star Fox formula to make it more friendly to console gaming and multiplayer. We got a bunch of different weapon pick ups, more complex 3D level design, and the ability to run around freely on foot, in a tank, and an arwing. It also wasn't especially fun. The point of Zero is to revitialize the series: bring it back to basics while expanding on what made the original Star Fox 64 so great: an awesome, focused single player mode.

Anyway, I am now most definitely done with this discussion. At this point, we're pretty close to just going into a loop: I don't think the original SF64 multiplayer was especially good, I think Star Fox would need to be significantly redesigned from the only formula that's ever worked for the franchise in order to produce good multiplayer, and I don't want to see that. You loved the original multiplayer, and because Nintendo had success with implementing it into Luigi's Mansion, you think the only reason why they aren't doing it here is because they are either too lazy, too afraid, or because motion controls. I don't really think there's anywhere else for this discussion to go. At least not until Star Fox Zero comes out. Who knows, maybe I'll change my tune? :P

Please excuse any horrible typing errors, btw. I wrote this in a bit of a rush.

Do a barrel roll!

No way in hell that a playthrough will last that long. There are 7 levels to get to Andross, so, unless each level last 1 hours, which is ridiculous, it will last around 1/2 hours. Replayability factor is what keeps Star Fox entertaining. 

So it is a NoA thing again giving no choice to buy Star Fox Zero without Guard for a reduced price.

Here in Europe we can chose again, just like Bayonetta 2 (with or without Bayonetta 1) or Twilight Princess HD (with or without Amiibo).

Star Fox Zero:  €42 (shipping + taxes included) http://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/OffersOfProduct/4481435_-star-fox-zero-wii-u.html

Star Fox Zero + Star Fox Guard: €56 (shipping + taxes included) http://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/OffersOfProduct/4973909_-star-fox-zero-first-print-edition-wii-u.html

Yeah our walls of text are getting way too big so I'll drop this. If this were Paper Mario we were fighting over though, I would never stop! xP

I didn't bother looking it up because it doesn't really matter to any American Wii U owner how Nintendo Europe purchases its games. Here, this is being sold as a $60 package.

I think Nintendo was pretty clearly worried that there would be backlash from reviewers or gamers if they tried selling a shorter, arcadey, on rails experience in America at retail price. Better to throw in Star Fox Guard to make it a fully tricked out, fully priced, content filled retail package. I've seen plenty of other games go the opposite route: throw in a bunch of fluff modes or time wasting game play elements in order to pad out the experience. With Star Fox Guard being packed in, we are effectively getting two individual games designed to be fun on their own terms at the price of your average retail game. I definitely prefer this method.

Fair enough. I already said I was dropping this. So yeah, I'm taking my leave from this particular discussion as of now.

Good thing I don't care much about Paper Mario. While I'm not especially pessemistic over Color Splash, if it's as much like Sticker Star as it initially appears, I will be disappointed. I really wish Nintendo would make something more akin to Thousand Year Old Door.

Yeah, it seems like there's probably 2 different versions of some planets to make a total of 20 levels. And, some paths unlock optional bosses like Aquarosa. And an unknown mode, not sure what it could possibly be. Maybe a galery or something like that. I'm fine with the content, it's looking really good for me.