The saga continues! Or at least the character franchise does in this very fun conconcoction of StarFox and Rare's several-year-old N64 Dinosaur Planet title. The game itself is cool, but markedly different--borrowing themes from Donkey Kong Country and Kameo: Elements of Power and play style and objectives similar to The Legend of Zelda-Ocarina of Time and Conker's Bad Fur Day, respectively. Only a handful of short flying stages grace the title, but the game is still a wish come true for those wanting to see more personality in a game.

Rather than reviewing the game in-depth and making a me-too fan page I instead hope to contribute a unique perspective after having played the E3 version (May, 2001) and the final game.

SFA as of May, 2001

E3 was such a surprise that year. No matter how much Xbox propaganda there was, GameCube was easily THE center of attention--period! And it was pleasantly surprising to hear an original StarFox theme piped over the din of the crowd (you hear it in Super Smash Bros. Melee, which also debuted in prototype form at the show).

And there it was! Dinosaur Planet had already metamorphosed into StarFox Adventures, and what a site to behold it was.

WHAT WAS SHOWN

The demo was well-rounded. It had demonstration flying missions, the Darkice Mines boss, the Cloudrunner Fortress level, and a pretty barren landscape with dinosaurs and the same, nice water effect used in Kameo.

WHAT WAS DIFFERENT

No fur. Fox's textures and ear animations were nice, however. Fur is done in the final game using the "shell" technique, which requires drawing the furred surface several times. The prototype had a bad framerate as it was, having just been ported from N64! No sense making it worse. Bad framerate. Easily the worst of the GameCube games at the show, though it never froze up on me like Kameo did! The finished game is SO much nicer! Special E3 mission message. Slippy's voice was horrible, but luckily it was hard to hear over the crowd. The "find item" animation was very simple and robotic. Fox's lower jaw just dropped with no other facial animation, often through objects he was holding.