Star Fox Command

The game has two types of single-player gameplay including a strategic map and battle mode. The overworld-like map mode is where the player takes command of several ships. The mode is used to get ships into the battle mode and is essentially a simple turn-based strategy game. Up to four ships can be maneuvered at a time.

The object of the mode is to prevent the enemy ones from reaching the Great Fox. It also allows players to fire missiles from the Great Fox that they have picked up from exploring in this mode, or from meeting certain conditions in the battle mode (usually destroying all enemies). When a craft that is controlled by the player encounters an enemy group or missile in this mode, the gameplay switches to the battle mode.

The game is set in the Lylat system, using a similar map as Star Fox 64 to switch between each area. The majority of planets from Star Fox 64 return, with the exception of Fortuna, Macbeth, and Zoness. Command has the largest number of playable characters in any Star Fox game, with a total of fourteen, consisting of Star Fox team members Fox McCloud, Falco Lombardi, Krystal, Slippy Toad, and Peppy Hare; Star Wolf team members Wolf O'Donnell, Panther Caroso, and Leon Powalski, Star Fox 64 supporting characters Bill Grey and Katt Monroe; Fox's father James McCloud; and three new characters created for Command: Slippy's fiancée Amanda, Peppy's daughter Lucy, and Andross's grandson Dash Bowman.

Other characters make non-playable appearances in the game's story. ROB 64 pilots the Great Fox when on the map screen, while Slippy's father Beltino Toad makes an appearance during a mission briefing. In addition to primary antagonist Anglar Emperor, Andross's nephew Andrew Oikonny, Pigma Dengar, the ghost of Andross, and F-Zero series racer Octoman can all appear as bosses depending on the player's route in gameplay.

Star Fox Command was co-developed by Q-Games and directed by its founder, Dylan Cuthbert, who previously served as a lead programmer of the original Star Fox duology. Q-Games was working on a puzzle game called Digidrive for Nintendo when they were approached by Shigeru Miyamoto, who suggested that they'd do a concept demo for Star Fox for the then-coming Nintendo DS, which lead to the team spending a couple of months creating a "space elevator" demo styled after the original Star Fox. They also had massively revamped the look of the Star Fox characters and team, but this direction was dropped when the game entered full production and series character artist Takaya Imamura was assigned to produce the title.

According to Cuthbert, Miyamoto approached him and his company because he wanted to see more of the ideas from the then-unreleased Star Fox 2 (who Cuthbert was heavily involved with during its development), such as its strategy game elements, explored and applied to the Nintendo DS with its two screens, as he viewed the Star Fox IP as an avenue to explore new ideas in 3D gaming as opposed to relying on a consistent formula, and thus encouraged the team to try out various new ideas and see what happened; for example, Cuthbert wanted to include more traditional rail-shooter stages in the game design, similar to stages present in previous games such as Star Fox and Star Fox 64, but Miyamoto was adamant that the team stuck with free-range stages, desiring to take the project "elsewhere" as opposed to just copying the original games. The team had also originally experimented with incorporating the Arwing transformations from Star Fox 2, but this would ultimately be scrapped.

Star Fox Command debuted on the Japanese best seller list as number 14, selling over 20,000 copies on the first day. In the United States, it was the 5th best seller in the first week. Star Fox Command has received mostly positive reviews, with a Metacritic score of 76/100 and a GameRankings score of 76%. IGN gave it an 8 out of 10, or "Impressive", calling it a "surprisingly rich and faithful action game" that had similar game play to Star Fox and Star Fox 64.

Star Fox Command received IGN DS's August 2006 Game of the Month Award for capturing the fun and essence that made the series significant. Famitsu gave a 32/40, and was cited as an influence for the game's large initial sales. It received a 4 out of 5 star rating on G4's X-Play, praising the stylus control and the strategy elements. The Associated Press noted the game for having developed the game to work well with the DS controls, but had mixed feelings about the turn-based sections of gameplay.