N64 Month | Nintendos Missing in Action - Part 2: Dinosaur Planet (Star Fox Adventures) [news]

It's bizarre how so much of this can be seen in almost identical ways to its finished StarFox counterpart.

It's a real shame that things happened the way they did though, I'd have loved to see what the original could have turned out like.

I actually didn't know any of that. A really well done article. Will we be seeing more, Azuardo?

Angus said:
I actually didn't know any of that. A really well done article. Will we be seeing more, Azuardo?

The more I read into the original ideas for Dinosaur Planet, the more I became sadder at the fact it never happened. Knowing the quality of the old Rare back then, this game could have been one of the greatest of its time, I'm sure. Some of the dialogue conversations and text data fans have uncovered mention things like time travel and a Krazoan war. Clearly adding Star Fox characters meant a lot of stuff had to be cut and changed. It's a real sad story made even sadder that we'll likely never see the original ideas come to fruition.

Good article.

I knew all of this & was dissapointed at the time that it didn't get released on N64. It would have been a classic N64 game I'm sure.

The finished product turned out to be one of the best games on Gamecube, even with all that was cut & changed. The graphics (as you say) would rival any Wii game & the adventure was fairly engrossing. I'd definitaley recomend it to anyone looking for old Gamecube games to play on their Wii.

Angus said:
I actually didn't know any of that. A really well done article. Will we be seeing more, Azuardo?

Part 1 of the new series is here, based on another cancelled N64 game, RiQa, which was meant to be Nintendo's answer to Tomb Raider. Part 3 will look at Mother 3 on N64, which eventually became a Japanese-only GBA title. There may be a Part 4 based on Rev Limit as well, but it's all dependent on time at the moment...

I vaguely remember that Shenmue one, but I just read the RiQa too and I have to say, they're very enjoyable piece. They're certainly a lot better than the opinion pieces that plague N4G. Anyway, I saw Mother 3 for the GBA this morning but didn't know whether to buy it, so I'm looking forward to Part 3.

Good stuff Az

I only new vague bits but not the whole story as such. Shame about some of those changes in a bid to switch to Star Fox. Would love them to release the original version on XBLA (though this might be a touchy subject) or even a remake/spruced up version for 3DS.

The problem I had with it was that Star Fox always felt so bolted on, and though Adventures was a good game it was hard to look past its inclusion. If they went down the original route I think it would have fared a lot better, especially as Rare's N64 send-off.

( Edited 26.03.2012 14:46 by jb )

At the time of getting SFA, I didn't know the full story, either. I knew it started out as Dino Planet, but like you, jb, didn't know the extent of how much was cut. It was painfully obvious when looking at the minute playable part of Krystal and the General Scales battle that never was, that the game was supposed to be more than that, though.

I don't know how many of the team that worked on Dino Planet are still at Rare now, so I'm not sure if the project could be brought back and end up as intended, but I would give everything to see it happen.

I thoroughly enjoyed SFA to pieces when I got it, though. It was simply a mix of Zelda and Star Fox to me, so win-win. It was one of those that I could replay and fly through again and again, and I was mad for the Musclefoot Strength Test, which I remember making a topic for here. I may revive that again soon. It's also amazing just how high end the graphics were, considering it was a first wave GameCube game, and still looks better than so much on the Wii today. Rare were extremely talented people. But it has to be said, I would have preferred to see what Dino Planet was supposed to have been, and would have been even better to see it on the GameCube with those graphics.

This was indeed a very informative and well written article. Good job, Az!

All I really knew before reading this was that Starfox Adventures was made from another game, much like Kirby's Epic Yarn was. Really surprising just how similar some Dinosaur Planet footage looks to SFA. I agree on the graphics part too; for an early Gamecube game it looks amazing.

I had a great time playing it back in the day, although it was exactly the Musclefoot strength test that gave me major trouble as a kid, though it wasn't a big deal anymore when I replayed it a few years ago. Thank god I had a turbo Gamecube controller back then, or I would have gone insane trying to beat that.

Thanks! Good feedback. May have to do another one.

Since we're on the SFA topic, I'll bump my old Musclefoot thread up (for the second time), and see if anyone is interested in competing again.

Great read! More stuff like this please.

I realise it's the last day, but you should have done one on Conker's Twelve Tales (which became Conker's BAD FUR DAY).

^ Probably the best footage I've seen.