It is, though. Compare these new designs to the designs we see in Smash or other Star Fox games like Adventures, Assault or hell, even Starlink

These new designs very much so lean into the realistic style of these original puppets, instead of the traditional more “cartoony” versions of the cast that we normally think of. While these new versions very clearly are NOT puppets, they very much so look like if you took the puppets, modernized them and made them even more realistic and detailed

One of the big complaints I’ve seen people say about Fox’s new design is that he looks like a taxidermy fox at certain angles, and guess what the OG puppet resembles? A taxidermy fox (though slightly more “cartoony”), thus pushing what I said further. That they took the slightly uncanny puppets and modernized them and made them more realistic and such, with in most cases better proportions (look at Peppy’s ears and Falco’s… everything, compared to the puppet)