Introduction

Yep, the Wii U one. The most maligned Star Fox game ever released (besides Command due to its story), yet it has a place here on my site because...of course this weird game would end up taking a spot for me the moment I figured out how to enjoy its control scheme. Mainly by figuring out how to map it all on a controller and accepting the usage of two screens on CEMU (as I don't have a Wii U) - although I'm aware that my experience is definitely not going to be the exact same as intended by devs who wanted the cockpit view to always be in your tilting hands due to the gyro aim.

...And this page is kind of going to be here too just to write down how I managed to setup something that could work with my gyroless controller, as well as some videos of me playing that way.

Playing without Gyro (CEMU)

As you might know by now, SFZ is designed in so many ways to require the Gamepad's cockpit view and gyro aiming, whether for forced camera angles on the main screen or for precise aiming that either makes things far less cumbersome (Landmaster bosses) or is straight up required (aiming upwards with i-direct and Walker - former needed for Zoness and later needed for Andross) to progress at the game as the Walker, Landmaster and i-direct CANNOT aim vertically without the gamepad's gyro. Which is why it might seem unlikely to go through the whole thing in CEMU without a gamepad even if you map the rest of the controls.

You can find controller profiles out there that map your controls to a button layout like SF64, although you can adjust that or make your own profile to fit your tastes - I would recommend using the strategywiki's controls page for reference on what does what. But what you want is to leave the Right Stick free of mapped controls so that you use a tool to make that act as the gyro aim instead.

The tool I found was cemu-no-gyro, which is from 2023 but somehow still works for the most part. There was another one I had found that had a newer version, but between CMD UI using config files (not a dealbreaker for me but less easy for beginner) and the fact it didn't work even when it connected to CEMU, I ended up sticking with the older one. Although for whatever reason I couldn't minimize the window or go fullscreen with CEMU or else the tool would stop picking up the right stick inputs for gyro.

But that aside, when I set it up (connected as a DSUController thing, motion enabled) and disabled "hold triggers for speed control" (because I'm already using those for barrel rolling), it...surprisingly worked. It is very much moving a crosshair kind of like those lightgun games on consoles with a standard controller, but it allows me for aiming without putting the Arwing face first into danger (and aiming vertically at all with other modes). It also let me use the gyro aim without having to use right click on the mouse over CEMU's window (the only thing the emulator provides as a gyro aiming alternative if you don't have anything for it), therefore being able to keep my hands on the controller at all times.

Videos

These are some recordings of stuff I've done so far playing Star Fox Zero - note that all of the currently uploaded videos are all after I set up right stick for gyro aiming, so it isn't quite the same as playing without the gyro aiming ability at all. But the game definitely expects you to use it, so consider these a taste of how right stick aiming can work for playing on CEMU (and also dual screen views in the videos that apply).