Cape Claw is another area that was considerably larger and more complex in Dinosaur Planet than it was in the final Star Fox Adventures.

Both versions of the stage include the same starting point, a beach/cliff area with a giant Krazoa head structure, but unlike in Star Fox Adventures, the gas room puzzle in the cave was blocked by a BribeClaw (called "GuardClaw" in Adventures) that Krystal needed to bypass by giving him shiny nuggets, which allowed her to partake in the aforementioned Poison Chamber puzzle. This would actually unlock the way to a massive SharpClaw fortress area, featuring a wide cliffside and a mountable cannon, which was to be used to blast away the metal doors on the left and right of its placement, allowing Krystal to enter Cape Claw's courtyard. This is where Krystal would free Princess Kyte, who would then accompany her for the rest of her campaign. By having Kyte perch on a series of levers, the towers surrounding the Courtyard would reveal a pair of torches which would need to be lit by Kyte's Flame command, which would open the way back to the entry way, letting Krystal and Kyte leave Cape Claw only to have a run in with the LightFoot tribe in SwapStone Circle.

Krystal and Kyte would have to later revisit Cape Claw after acquiring an artifact of the Krazoa found in Discovery Falls (another of Krystal's areas that was removed in Star Fox Adventures), which would allow them to access even more areas, such as Cape Claw's Village section. They'd first need to collect three Fire Gems hidden around the area, one of which requires defeating a mini-boss encounter with the Sand Snake enemy. They would also encounter a pair of robot scorpion enemies hidden within a cave in the Village area, discovered by detonating explosive barrels, where they would be rewarded with another Krazoa tablet after defeating them. Afterwards, they would place the Fire Gems they've found inside their Lighthouse Beacon counterparts, and once they've been lit, or a Krazoa tablet has been placed, the Courtyard Well will reflect this change and unlock further areas of CapeClaw.

This was where Krystal would come across another Krazoa shrine, which housed the Test of Character, which would pit her against an apparition of Sabre (or Fox in the leaked December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet), who taunted her by claiming he never trust her and that Randorn should have left her to die with her tribe when he found her, and that now he must finish her off, perhaps as a way to foreshadow the truth about Randorn and her parents, while hinting at Krystal's inner fears of abandonment or betrayal. Krystal would have to fight this illusion and then be given the choice to spare or finish him off, and the former was the only way to pass the test and acquire the spirit.

Krystal and Kyte would make their third and final visit to Cape Claw after Sabre acquired the sixth spirit, which would open the mouth of the giant Krazoa Head. Going by the condensed story, they were to discover hidden caves containing a Krazoa translator, which allows them to read the ancient texts that have seen throughout their adventures and help open the gate into the Krazoa Palace, Krystal's final SpellStone dungeon.

Pretty much all of this would be entirely removed in the final Star Fox Adventures. The initial beach/cliff area with the giant Krazoa head would remain, as would the gas room puzzle, but solving the latter would only free the Queen CloudRunner (filling in for Kyte) from her prison within a nearby cave, and the Krazoa head would now lead into the Ocean Force Point Temple. There also exists a sidequest involving a finding a HighTop's stack of gold.

Curiously, the Dinosaur Planet globe map made for Star Fox Adventures does actually include the SharpClaw fortress area, which possibly indicates that Rare had intended on bringing Cape Claw in its entirety over to SFA before heavily cutting it down.

Diamond Bay, along with Willow Grove, was one of the precious few areas from Sabre's campaign from Dinosaur Planet that ended up being scrapped entirely in the final Star Fox Adventures. A massive coastal area with cascading water falls, Sabre (or Fox in the leaked Dinosaur Planet build) and Tricky would access this area by swimming down the river in SwapStone Hollow.

This was the original home of the Volcano Force Point Temple. It was also home to a single, seemingly last standing member of the PointBack tribe, a race of Stegosaurs. This individual would help Fox/Sabre by providing them the key to access the Volcano Force Point Temple, and would provide them with different tasks every time they returned from Diamond Bay with a SpellStone, such as preventing her eggs and nest from being raided by thieves, or being swept away by a flood. Completing each of these tasks would reward Sabre another key into the Force Point Temple.

It was also home to Sabre's first Krazoa shrine test, the Test of Strength. After depositing his first SpellStone, Sabre would be able to find a pathway that leads to a temple containing this shrine that was being guarded by a group of floating droids.

Diamond Bay was completely removed in the final Star Fox Adventures, and the Volcano Force Point Temple and the Test of Strength would be relocated to Moon Mountain Pass and SnowHorn Wastes respectively. Though absent in the final game, early design documents and concept art indicate that Rare did plan on bringing the PointBack back, but relocated to ThornTail Hollow (originally SwapStone Hollow).

It is worth pointing out that in the final game, there exists a mother ThornTail whose eggs and nest are similarly being raided by thieves and thus requests Fox for help. Bumping the contrast on Kevin Bayliss' early Star Fox Adventures cutscene sequence document reveals "The PointBack's eggs" on the next page, which makes it clear that this role was originally intended for the PointBack before she was dropped entirely in favor of the ThornTail.

In the E3 2002 Kiosk version of Star Fox Adventures, CloudRunner Fortress contains a handful of elements from the Dinosaur Planet version that got scrapped in the final game, some of these being:

• The level is set on a stormy night in this version of the game, just like in Dinosaur Planet. The weather changes to daytime in the later areas of the fortress after Fox is captured.

• Certain sections of the stage use the "Sound Test 09" and "Sound Test 28" music tracks which go unused in the final version of Star Fox Adventures outside of the jukebox. Both music tracks were originally composed for Dinosaur Planet, and one of which is played while Krystal makes her approach into its version of CloudRunner Fortress.

• Interactive Krazoa-pattern-framed info screens appear throughout the fortress, which are also in the N64 version. In Dinosaur Planet, these info screens would provide advice and also occasional lore, one of which mentioning the Kamerian Dragon, which the CloudRunners thank for providing their wealth.

Curiously, the demo contains an unused map of the interior of General Scales' galleon separate from the one used during the intro. Its internal name is "insidegal"; Dinosaur Planet also has this map and it can be visited while the galleon is docked at the back of CloudRunner Frotress, which makes it seem that General Scales' galleon was at one point planned to appear here in Adventures, too. In 2024, an account named
Jeebs' Game Shack was finally able to access "insidegal" (as well as various other older SFA maps that seem to be circa mid-2001), fully confirming this to be the case. Hidden warp zone objects exist floating where the lower deck doors would be positioned if the ship was docked there, even in the retail version.

The Kamerian Heart was the original intended boss fight for Dragon Rock in Dinosaur Planet. It represented the Frankenstein remains of the last great Kamerian war dragon that fell in battle against the Krazoa over Dinosaur Planet's orbit, and became something of a god figure to the dinosaur inhabitants, who believed that they were spawned from it. One of the dragon's descendants, Drakor, becomes aware of its presence on Dinosaur Planet and seeks the assistance of General Scales and the SharpClaw to take over the planet and begin channeling all of its magical energies into the Kamerian Heart within Dragon Rock using the Force Point Temples, in order to revive it and thus allow Drakor to use its huge destructive powers to destroy the planet and seek vengeance against the Krazoa, as well as conquering the entire universe. Inside the Kamerian Heart was where the area's SpellStone resided, and thus Sabre had to defeat the heart in order to acquire it, and after an encounter with Drakor, would need to escape from within Dragon Rock before he is trapped there forever.

The Kamerian Heart is noticeably the only boss fight present in the leaked December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet to be entirely absent in the final Star Fox Adventures. Drakor, whose role was repurposed as General Scales' mutant bioweapon, would take over its role as Dragon Rock's boss that Fox must defeat in order to obtain the SpellStone. In turn, Andross would take over Drakor's role as the final boss of Star Fox Adventures.

Every time Fox collects a Krazoa spirit from partaking in a Krazoa shrine test, he must use the WarpStone to return to an area called Krazoa Palace, where he can deposit the spirits. Krystal also visits this area in Star Fox Adventures' prologue where she partakes in the Test of Observation, the only time she's ever playable in the story (outside of hacking), as she's soon imprisoned within a crystal by an unknown force. Collecting all of the Krazoa spirits at the end frees her, but also inadvertently resurrects Andross, who had been manipulating Fox the entire time.

In Dinosaur Planet, this area was known as Warlock Mountain, and was the only location that both Sabre (or Fox, in the December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet) and Krystal could visit in their otherwise two completely separate adventures, though it's worth noting that the characters that their own sides of the map that were separated by the main chamber room. Like in SFA, every time they completed a Krazoa trial, they'd have to return to the mountain by using their respective SwapStone to deposit the spirits they've collected. Each trek back to the mountain would result in another encounter with their father and mentor, Randorn, as well as other lore dumps such as the Quan Ata Lachu (the "god" of the Krazoa).

Surprisingly, Krazoa Palace also exists in Dinosaur Planet, but as a completely different location than the one that appears in SFA, in this case being Krystal's final SpellStone dungeon that she could access through the giant Krazoa head structure in Cape Claw, after depositing enough spirits. Unfortunately, just like BlackWater Canyon, there appears to be zero design work done in the leaked December 2000 build.

Going by the unused voice lines and also the Dinosaur Planet condensed story, it is here where Krystal and Kyte, with the help of a Krazoa guard who was awoken by Drakor's activities on Dinosaur Planet, would travel back in time to acquire the area's SpellStone. First, they'd head to the future to see that Drakor had succeeded in his plan in resurrecting the Kamerian Heart and thus has destroyed everything, including Sabre, and the now dying Krazoa would hand them the Mind Read spell page and encourage them to go to the past to prevent this from ever happening. From there, they'd time travel to the past, right when the Krazoa and Kamerians (Drakor's race) were having their universe spanning war, and see the Krazoa for who they really are, an extremely evil warmongering race that started the Great War against the Kamerians. They would retrieve the SpellStone from one of these evil Krazoa (who also seems to be a spy working for the Kamerians) and return to the present with questions for the Krazoa, who claims that they have changed since the Great War and promise to bring peace to the universe with the alignment of the Majestic Eight planets. Of course, the leaked voice clips for the last scenes in Warlock Mountain reveal this to be a lie, as the now revived Krazoa reveal they plan on using the power of Quan Ata Lachu to devastate the universe.

This stage was removed in the final Star Fox Adventures, and its name would be repurposed for the reworked Warlock Mountain. Interestingly, early design documents posted by Kevin Bayliss show that even early on SFA's development on GCN, they had still intended on it's version of Krazoa Palace still being called Warlock Mountain, even after its namesake warlock (Randorn) had been scrapped by this point. An early version of SFA's Dinosaur Planet map would even clearly have what is Warlock Mountain at the south pole, though of course this would be revised in the final map.

One of Star Fox Adventures' most infamous scenes comes during the final Krazoa Shrine at Krazoa Palace; just as Fox is about to engage in combat with General Scales (seemingly the game's main antagonist and final boss) the encounter is abruptly cut short. The spirit of Andross suddenly appears, interrupting the fight and forcing Scales to hand over the last Krazoa Spirit to Fox as Scales falls to the ground defeated and seemingly dead, effectively ending the confrontation before it even begins. According to a February 2008 edition of Rare’s Scribes, a proper boss battle against General Scales had originally been planned, but due to the impending Microsoft buyout, which was officially announced in September 2002, the team was forced to scrap it and focus exclusively on the final battle with Andross.

However, looking deeper into the development history of Dinosaur Planet and Star Fox Adventures, reveals a more complex picture regarding Scales' intended boss fight. The Dinosaur Planet condensed story promises a true final confrontation between Krystal and General Scales within the Desert Force Point Temple, as she places her final SpellStone. After Scales' defeat, the King EarthWalker would barge in and tell Krystal to take his belt (that was provided by Drakor), but then it would turn into stone, resulting in the player into having to swap over to Sabre's story, who takes it to the mutant Shabunga in Willow Grove to help reactivate it, which allows him to enter Dragon Rock unharmed.

Yet, in the leaked December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet, this boss fight doesn’t exist. Instead, after Krystal places the final SpellStone, a cutscene plays where she, Scales, and Kyte are teleported outside the temple. Krystal lands safely in a pond, while Scales crashes onto a rock and injures his back, leaving him incapacitated. Instead of the King EarthWalker, it's the BoneHead SpellStone guardian who first appeared in CloudRunner Fortress that instructs Krystal to take the Kamerian belt to Sabre so he can have Shabunga revitalize it, as Scales whispers that he'll have his revenge as he passes out.

When the game transitioned to Star Fox Adventures on the GameCube, there were still signs that Rare hadn’t completely abandoned the idea of a Scales boss fight. Unused voice clips and data found in the 2002 E3 kiosk build suggest plans for a rematch with Scales aboard his flying galleon, similar to the prologue battle. However, this time, Fox would pilot the Arwing instead of Krystal riding the CloudRunner. Notably, Falco was set to appear much earlier in the story to assist Fox during this aerial battle. After defeating Scales, Fox would land at Krazoa Palace and partake in the Test of Sacrifice, the true final Krazoa test.

By the time of the 2002 E3 kiosk build, it seems Rare had already abandoned both the planned galleon battle and the Test of Sacrifice. Instead, they were experimenting with a one-on-one, on-foot boss fight against General Scales, taking place in the last Krazoa Shrine where the Test of Sacrifice was planned. While the encounter is clearly incomplete, it offers a glimpse of what could have been. In this version, Scales actively engages the player—unlike in the final game where he simply approaches Fox and assumes a fighting stance. He showcases several unique animations not seen in the finished release, including blocking, flinching from attacks, and even a brief defeat animation. Interestingly, the arena is populated with SharpClaw soldiers, suggesting that the fight may have originally been designed as a multi-phase battle, where players would fend off waves of enemies alongside the duel with Scales.

The SpellStones and Force Point Temples served a difference purpose lore-wise in Dinosaur Planet than in Star Fox Adventures. After their intergalactic war with the Kamerians, the weakened Krazoa settled on Dinosaur Planet (Sauria), which housed the universe’s richest magical energy. To heal and enter stasis for the next billion of years, they built the Force Point Temples to concentrate this energy, which the dinosaurs later used to power their world.

Following the fall of the last great Kamerian war dragon on Sauria, the SpellStone Guardians were formed to protect the SpellStones. If the planet was threatened, these Guardians were to place the SpellStones into the Temples to shut down magic extraction. Drakor, a surviving Kamerian, plotted to seek vengence against the Krazoa and revive his ancestor using Sauria’s magic by aiding General Scales and the SharpClaw with advanced tech, enabling them to take control of the Temples and funnel the energy into the Kamerian heart at Dragon Rock. Sabre and Krystal’s goal was to retrieve and activate the SpellStones to stop this.

Early concepts included five guardians:

• Garunda Te, the leader of the SnowHorn Tribe.
• Shabunga, the Willow Grove mutant.
• The leader of the ShadowHunter Tribe from BlackWater Canyon.
• Two unknown guardians found with in the Walled City and CloudRunner Fortress.

By the December 2000 build, this was reduced to four:

•Garunda Te
•Shabunga
•King EarthWalker (aka "Albada")
•A BoneHead (or "Gradabug" as he's called in Star Fox Adventures) imprisoned within CloudRunner Fortress

By this point, the ShadowHunters were rewritten as mere scavengers within BlackWater Canyon, and Krystal was to use the Tree of Souls to activate the area's SpellStone instead. Her final SpellStone at Krazoa Palace would require time travel, as it had disappeared due to several tears in time and space occurring because of the huge quantity of magic energy being extracted.

In Star Fox Adventures's version of the story. The Krazoa still built the Temples and SpellStones, but now to prevent dark magic from tearing the planet apart. General Scales stole the SpellStones and returned them to the lands they were forged in (DarkIce Mines, CloudRunner Fortress, Walled City, Dragon Rock), breaking the planet into floating pieces. The Guardians became “GateKeepers,” charged with opening portals to these lands:

• Garunda Te, retaining his role from Dinosaur Planet.
• The Queen CloudRunner, taking over the BoneHead/Gradabug's intended role.
• The King EarthWalker, retaining his role from Dinosaur Planet.
• A generic quiet ThornTail, taking over Shabunga's intended role.

Fox’s mission was to locate the GateKeepers, use their power to reach the floating lands via the Arwing, retrieve the SpellStones, and return them to the Temples to restore the planet. These changes were likely done to justify including Arwing segments in the otherwise adventure gameplay framework established by Dinosaur Planet.

Star Fox Adventures contains a peculiar character named the WarpStone, a living stone creature that has the ability to warp users to the top of Ice Mountain and also Krazoa Palace, where Fox will need to deposit all of the six Krazoa Spirits he acquired through partaking through the Krazoa's trials in order to save Krystal, who is imprisoned at the top of the Palace. Underneath the WarpStone also lays the Game Well Maze, where Fox can deposit any of the Cheat Tokens he's collected from Scarab Wells hidden in the map throughout his Adventures to unlock extra features and also cryptic messages.

In Dinosaur Planet, the WarpStone was originally meant to be two different characters, the SwapStone twins known as Rocky and Rubble. Hence their name, their original purpose was to let the player be able to switch back and forth between Sabre and Krystal's adventures. Sabre would utilize Rocky in an area called SwapStone Hollow, while Krystal would utilize Rubble in her equivalent, SwapStone Circle (which is also where the LightFoot Village was situated). Both characters would also retain the ability to warp their respective character to Warlock Mountain (the predecessor to SFA's Krazoa Palace) where the characters could similarly deposit the Krazoa spirits they acquired from the Krazoa shrines. Underneath the SwapStones was the only in-game store where Sabre and Krystal could purchase items, maps, etc. Curiously, their bio claims that they were created during the age of the Krazoa, by being mined from the magic rock of Warlock Mountain, and that they assisted in the creation of the Force Point Temples and the Krazoa shrines.

As Krystal's playable co-protagonist role was scrapped in SFA outside of the prologue, the SwapStones were merged into one character, the WarpStone, and SwapStone Hollow was renamed to ThornTail Hollow. SwapStone Circle would be effectively removed, but the LightFoot Village segment was heavily expanded into its own distinct area. In place of being able to swap to Krystal, Fox could be teleported back to the top of Ice Mountain where he could replay the jet bike race against the SharpClaw. While early design documents, leftover data from the E3 2002 kiosk build, and as well as an unused audio file found within the retail release of SFA indicate that the store was still planned to be located underneath the WarpStone, in the final game it was relocated to the middle of ThornTail Hollow as its own distinct establishment, the ThornTail Store, and the alformentioned Game Well Maze took its original intended spot.

Diving in to the game files, it seems Rare had also intended on letting the WarpStone teleport Fox over to additional areas such as Cape Claw, Moon Mountain Pass, and the Force Point Temples, but this was scrapped and currently, the WarpStone can only warp you to Ice Mountain and Krazoa Palace.

There's a somewhat notable plot hole in Star Fox Adventures when Fox meets up with Tricky for the first time: the former tells him that his father, the King EarthWalker, has been captured by the SharpClaw and that it was the Queen EarthWalker that sent him to rescue Tricky.

The issue is that Fox shouldn't actually know anything about the King EarthWalker's predicament because all he was told by the Queen EarthWalker (translated by Slippy Toad) was to go to Ice Mountain and save Tricky. It's obvious that this plothole is merely a remnant of the original Dinosaur Planet storyline, where Sabre was already informed by his father, Randorn, about the King EarthWalker and Tricky, and was instructed to rescue the latter at Ice Mountain.

The Japanese version of Star Fox Adventures would actually attempt to rectify this plothole by altering the dialogue between Fox and Tricky through the Japanese subtitles.


As one can see from above, Fox's dialogue was reworked to remove all mention of the King EarthWalker being captured, instead worrying about the health of the Queen EarthWalker.

Much like how Prince Tricky of the EarthWalker Tribe accompanied Sabre (or Fox McCloud, in the leaked December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet and of course the final Star Fox Adventures), Princess Kyte of the CloudRunner Tribe was meant to be Krystal's partner when was she was the playable co-protagonist of Dinosaur Planet. While sharing many of the same command abilites as Tricky, the primary difference with him and Kyte is that the latter could fly, and pull levers.

Much like how Sabre/Fox would be sent to save Tricky from the top of Ice Mountain, Krystal would be sent to rescue Kyte from General Scales' galleon and eventually finally free her from within a SharpClaw fortress situated at Cape Claw, and from there she would accompany Krystal for almost the majority of her campaign, helping her solve puzzles and fight enemies. For example, in SwapStone Circle, Kyte would help Krystal fend off the LightFoot villagers (who had tied the latter onto one of their totem poles, mistaking her as an associate with the SharpClaw who stole their spell page) with properly timed flame commands.

Soon afterwards, the two head would toward Kyte's home, the CloudRunner Fortress, which would be overrun with SharpClaw forces with robot sentinels (given to them by Drakor), where they would have witnessed General Scales brutally interrogate Kyte's mother, the Queen CloudRunner, for the area's SpellStone, which results in Scales murdering her in front of Krystal and Kyte, much to the latter's horror. Both would get captured, but Krystal would break free and eventually rescue Kyte again, who then go onto find the latter's siblings hiding throughout the fortress with the use of Kyte's new Distract command. Going by voice lines found with in the leaked Dinosaur Planet build, Kyte would also accompany Krystal to her additional two SpellStone areas (both of which were cut in the transition to Star Fox Adventures), Krazoa Palace (which was actually an entirely seperate area from the Krazoa Palace in SFA which was reworked from Warlock Mountain in Dinosaur Planet) and BlackWater Canyon, and in the latter they would come across a ghostly apparition of Kyte's mother, who encourages them on to find the area's SpellStone and beware of the angry spirits that dwelled within the Canyon.

In the final Star Fox Adventures game, with Krystal's playable co-protagonist role scrapped entirely outside of the prologue, Kyte would unfortunately be removed entirely as well, leaving Tricky as the only dinosaur companion accompanying Fox throughout his adventure. Other CloudRunners would fill in for the roles that were originally earmarked for Kyte back in Dinosaur Planet:

• In LightFoot Village, Fox is protected from the LightFoot villagers by a generic CloudRunner, who similarly fends off the LightFoot with properly timed flame commands.

• In Cape Claw, Fox instead rescues the Queen CloudRunner after partaking in the gas room puzzle in a nearby cave (the fortress area that Krystal rescues Kyte in was removed entirely, leaving only the beachside with the giant Krazoa head). He later meets up with her again at CloudRunner Fortress where she's similarly interrogated by General Scales, but unlike in Dinosaur Planet, she actually survives the ordeal, and Fox rescues her from the same room Kyte was meant to be imprisoned. She gives him the CloudRunner Flute which helps him locate the Queen's children which in turn opens the way to the CloudRunner's treasure room, essentially filling in for Kyte's Distract command.

• On board General Scales' galleon within the prologue, there lies a caged generic baby CloudRunner in the place of where Kyte was in Dinosaur Planet, who instructs Krystal on what using the A button does, and also instructs her to explore the bottom deck to acquire a key she will eventually use in Krazoa Palace. Some fans think that this individual is meant to be Kyte, however, an unused voice clip pertaining to this character reveals it to have a clearly masculine voice, which combined with the fact that it uses the same model as the Queen CloudRunner's children at the CloudRunner Fortress, makes it very clear that this is not Kyte and merely just a generic small CloudRunner.

The ShadowHunters, a mysterious dromeosaur-like race, appear only once in Star Fox Adventures during the Test of Fear.

Originally, they had a larger role in Dinosaur Planet. According to the story provided by the leaked condensed plot, Krystal, alongside a LightFoot guide (temporarily replacing Kyte, mirroring how Sabre was supposed to get a temporary sidekick in place of Tricky in the form of a infant RedEye within Walled City), would encounter them in BlackWater Canyon, a sacred dinosaur burial ground and home to the Tree of Souls, which returned the magical energy of the dead to the planet. The ShadowHunters were its protectors, with their leader serving as a SpellStone guardian. After the leader agrees to give Krystal the SpellStone, his jealous son steals it, leading to a chase and inadvertently, a boss battle with a skeletal monster. Once the latter is defeated, the ShadowHunter recognize Krystal’s intentions and allows her to activate the SpellStone with the help of his father.

In the December 2000 Dinosaur Planet build, BlackWater Canyon is incomplete, but unused voice clips suggests a different version of the story: two ShadowHunter brothers, scavengers who find the SpellStone, argue over it, with one willing to give it away to Krystal who is now accompanied by Kyte as usual, but the other gives chases with it, resulting in Krystal and Kyte taking after him, which also leads to an encounter with the ghost of Kyte's Mother, the Queen CloudRunner (previously murdered by General Scales at CloudRunner Fortress), who encourages Kyte to fufill her duty as the new queen of the tribe while warning the duo about angry spirits within the area. After reclaiming the SpellStone, they activate it via the Tree of Souls, replacing a formal guardian encounter.

BlackWater Canyon was ultimately cut in Star Fox Adventures, though an unused Peppy briefing hints that the ShadowHunters were nonetheless once planned to appear in the Walled City alongside the RedEyes as the secondary predatory threats, a role likely inherited from the also then-long cut HookClaw Tribe.


Animator Michael Cawood mentioned that, when working on the Test of Fear, he had to improvise due to limited direction and time. As a result, he hastily used leftover ShadowHunter animations from their scrapped enemy role. Despite their minimal presence in the final game, the ShadowHunters were present in some of Star Fox Adventures' Japanese material, most notably on the boxart, oddly utilizing their original Dinosaur Planet renders, likely because no GameCube model renders were ever officially produced as a result of their last minute inclusions.

What exists as the Walled City in Star Fox Adventures, as well as the leaked December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet, was originally meant to be two different areas: the EarthWalker Temple, which features a similar set of puzzles and layout to what is found in the Walled City today, and the actual Walled City itself that could only be accessed by the "Jungle Doors" in the very back.

This version of the Walled City, as described the condensed Dinosaur Planet story, was said to be a place where the most dangerous dinosaurs on Dinosaur Planet lived, such as the RedEye Tribe, but also another race said to be the distant relatives of the SharpClaw, dubbed the HookClaw, who were apparently manipulating the RedEye, and was also said to be situated in the "Twilight Marshes". General Scales was said to have imprisoned the King EarthWalker (alternatively known as "Albada") here. As Tricky was said to have stayed behind in EarthWalker Temple, Sabre was to discover an egg that hatches to reveal a baby RedEye sidekick, who remains with him during his stay in the Walled City. The condensed story then describes Sabre rescuing Albada and also meeting with the area's SpellStone guardian, who helps him defeat the HookClaws and return the Baby RedEye to his father, the King of the RedEye Tribe, who has Sabre partake in some sort of challenge in order to gain the SpellStone. Sabre would later have to revisit EarthWalker Temple in order to partake in his second Krazoa shrine test, the Test of Skill, which would now be accessible at the top of the central temple.

This entire sequence and stage had already been completely reworked and rewritten by the time of the December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet. EarthWalker Temple and Walled City had essentially been condensed into one area filled with rampaging RedEyes, with absolutely zero traces of the alformentioned HookClaw tribe or the Baby RedEye sidekick. The RedEye King (now dubbed "Klanadack" in the leaked build) would remain, but as a boss fight Sabre (or Fox McCloud, who had already taken Sabre's place in this build) must defeat in order to obtain the area's SpellStone. Lastly, Albada himself was revealed to be the SpellStone guardian. For the most part, all of this would carry over into the final Star Fox Adventures game. The Krazoa shrine located at the central temple would remain, but in Star Fox Adventures, the Test of Skill (renamed to "Test of Observation") would be relocated to Krazoa Palace as Krystal's one and only test in the opening prologue, whereas the Test of Knowledge, Krystal's final test from Golden Plains in Dinosaur Planet and fittingly enough, Fox's final proper Krazoa test in Star Fox Adventures, would be moved here.

The original EarthWalker Temple stage was found within the game files of the leaked Dinosaur Planet build, but there's no remants of the original Walled City stage, suggesting it had been scrapped before any design work had been done on it.

Curiously, an unused briefing from Peppy Hare seems to indicate that Rare had considered repurposing the ShadowHunter tribe, who were previously from BlackWater Canyon (an area that was scrapped in the transition from Dinosaur Planet to Star Fox Adventures), as the secondary carnivorous antagonists of the Walled City along with the RedEyes, filling in for the HookClaw Tribe. This too was scrapped in the final game as only the RedEyes are present in the area, and the ShadowHunters only make a brief appearance in the Test of Fear.

One thing that's worth pointing out is that early promotional material for Dinosaur Planet depicted the RedEyes as more cartoonier and cuter in appearance, in comparison to their far more monstrous and realistic appearance in both the December 2000 build as well as the final Star Fox Adventures. It's very likely that the former was a remnant from the original Walled City concept, where the RedEye were described as not being completely evil. It's also been speculated within the Dinosaur Planet community that this particular render essentially is the Prince RedEye who was mentioned in the Condensed Story, as it's shown following Sabre from behind in one of the screenshots and was also prominently featured as a statue along with Sabre and Krystal for Dinosaur Planet's promotional E3 2000 material.

Throughout their quests in Dinosaur Planet, Sabre and Krystal could collect spell pages that were ripped from Randorn's spellbook by General Scales. These spell pages would grant them new magical abilities, such as firing ice or fire magic, disguising themselves as SharpClaw soldiers, or opening special portal doors.

In the final Star Fox Adventures, Fox periodically acquires these magic upgrades as well, but instead of collecting spell pages, he must seek magic caves spread throughout the maps which contain shrines, where he can upgrade Krystal's staff to unlock new abilities. The majority of these upgrades were repurposed from the spells from Dinosaur Planet with two subtractions: the Mind Read spell (which let Sabre and Krystal read the thoughts/minds of NPC characters) and a spell that unleashes a fiery mine that explodes and hurts enemies (that strangely is internally referred to as "Randorn Wizard"). In their place is a new ability called "Rocket Boost" that grants Fox the ability to boost himself straight upwards with the staff to reach higher ledges, should he find the corresponding Rocket Boost Pads.

One of the spells from Dinosaur Planet, the aforementioned Disguise ability that lets the player disguise themselves as a SharpClaw, appears in Star Fox Adventures but is unlocked in a completely different manner from the other upgrades: instead of finding a magic cave, Fox, after being imprisoned within CloudRunner Fortress by General Scales, communicates with Slippy who beams him the SharpClaw Disguise, which allows Fox to sneak past the nearby SharpClaw guard to reacquire his stolen staff. In comparison, in Dinosaur Planet, Krystal was granted this ability as a spell page given to her by the imprisoned BoneHead NPC (also known as "Gradabug").

This actually seems to be a leftover concept from an earlier version of Star Fox Adventures, where Krystal had been removed entirely and Fox would instead gain all of the abilities from Slippy, as the cutscene sequence posted by Kevin Bayliss shows Slippy beaming Fox the projectile upgrade in Warlock Mountain (in the final game, Fox unlocks this ability, now known as "Fire Blast", after landing in ThornTail Hollow and acquiring Krystal's staff, then finding the nearby magic cave), which would become Krazoa Palace in the final game.

The original Dinosaur Planet was supposed to have six total SpellStones for Sabre and Krystal to collect, three for each. After collecting one of these SpellStones (typically after defeating a boss), they'd have to trek back to their respective Force Point Temple, with Sabre's being the Volcano Force Point Temple and Krystal's being the Desert Force Point Temple, and deposit it there, in order to stop Drakor and General Scales from extracting any more of Dinosaur Planet's magic energy into the Kamerian Heart.

In the final Star Fox Adventures, this was reduced to four SpellStones for Fox to collect, two for each Force Point Temple. While the Volcano Force Point was brought in mostly in-tact from Dinosaur Planet, the Desert Force Point was reworked into the Ocean Force Point Temple, retaining most of the same layout and puzzles, but eschewing the industrial or technological aesthetic in favor of a underwater ruins theme.

One notable difference between the Desert Force Point and the Ocean Force Point is that in the former, Krystal uses an elevator to descend deeper into the temple, whereas in the latter, Fox just simply uses a teleporter to access the lower levels. The E3 2002 Star Fox Adventures kiosk reveals that Rare had still intended on using an elevator to connect the lower and upper portions of the Ocean Force Point like its Dinosaur Planet equivalent, but this was scrapped in the final game.

The music that currently plays in the Ocean Force Point Temple is the track that was intended for the Golden Plains, a desert area in Dinosaur Planet that Krystal would have to trek through in order to access the Desert Force Point Temple. This area was removed in the final Star Fox Adventures, and Fox now accesses the Ocean Force Point Temple through Cape Claw.

Early footage of Dinosaur Planet shows that Sabre and Krystal were to utilize the Projectile spell by firing it directly from their hands. It seems this was already scrapped by the time of the December 2000 build that was leaked on the internet in early 2021, as Sabre (or Fox McCloud, who has already replaced Sabre at this point) and Krystal instead fire projectiles through their sword and staff respectively. This would carry over into Star Fox Adventures, where Fox can fire magic projectiles through Krystal's staff.

One holdover from this early idea that remains in both the December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet and the final Star Fox Adventures is within the prologue, where Krystal, riding on top of a CloudRunner, is inexplicably shown to be able to fire blasts of magic from her own hands in the battle against General Scales' galleon.

Unused models of both Sabre and Krystal's arms can be found within the files of the leaked Dinosaur Planet ROM.

The music track that currently plays in Dragon Rock in Star Fox Adventures was originally intended for the Walled City in Dinosaur Planet.

Dragon Rock originally just featured eerie sounding ambience for background music in Dinosaur Planet. In Star Fox Adventures, Walled City now shares the same stage music with LightFoot Village.

Contrary to popular belief, General Scales was never actually intended to be the primary antagonist and final boss of Dinosaur Planet, even before the transition to Star Fox Adventures, which jammed in Andross in the climax. That role would belong to Drakor, who appears in the final Star Fox Adventures as a turret boss in Dragon Rock.

Drakor's original backstory was that he belonged to an ancient race of alien dragons known as the Kamerians, that existed in the early days of the universe along with another race known as the Krazoa. The two races had a big intergalactic war with each other that nearly destroyed the galaxy and it ended above orbit of what would eventually be known as Sauria, the Dinosaur Planet, with the Krazoa narrowingly winning. One of the last great war dragons was killed in battle and its body fell onto the planet's surface, and it became something of a god figure to Sauria's dinosaur inhabitants who spawned right around the same time.

Drakor, recently banished by his people who deemed him a threat to their society, became aware that the Kamerian dragon, now reduced into a heart, was on Sauria, so he invaded and helped General Scales and the SharpClaw by providing them advanced weapons and technology so that they could take over the planet and also its Force Point Temples, as they planned on channeling all of Sauria's magical energies and pumping it into the Kamerian heart within Dragon Rock, which would revive it and allow Drakor to destroy the planet and gain ultimate revenge on the Krazoa, who still dwelled there in stasis lock.

The twist was that, despite obviously his methods involving genocide and conquest, Drakor was actually trying to save the galaxy in his own way: The Krazoa themselves were also revealed to be actually extremely evil. As they go back in time to the time of the Great War in Krazoa Palace, Krystal and Kyte discover that the Krazoa were the ones who started the Great War against the Kamerians, because the latter didn't wish to be ruled by them and their god, the "Quan Ata Lachu". They manipulated Sabre and Krystal into finding each of the Quan Ata Lachu spirits hidden away in their shrines/test and depositing them at Warlock Mountain, planning on aligning the Majestic Eight planets their home world Animus and Dinosaur Planet belong to, promising that it will bring "peace" to the universe, when in reality they want nothing more than to set it into flames and remold it into their image/liking, spreading disease, terror and chaos as they please.

The final Star Fox Adventures game saw all of this scrapped in favor of Andross as the main antagonist. Drakor would be repurposed as a subordinate of General Scales, a mutant bioweapon that dwells within Dragon Rock as the guardian of the one of the SpellStones Fox (who similarly replaced both Sabre and Krystal as the main playable character) must collect. The Krazoa were more or less condensed into the Quan Ata Lachu spirits Fox must also collect, and also essentially replaced the Kamerian Heart as the deities the inhabitants of Dinosaur Planet worship.

As mentioned before, Andross' spirit would fulfill Drakor's original role as the manipulator behind General Scales and the SharpClaw's uprising, and would also fill in for the Krazoa's role, posing as one as he manipulates Fox into finding the Krazoa Spirits in promise of rescuing Krystal from her prison atop of Krazoa Palace (which was reworked from DP's Warlock Mountain), all of which results in his resurrection as the game's final boss.

Star Fox Adventures has (to say the least) a pretty infamous scene where Fox McCloud, upon visiting the rooftop of Krazoa Palace for the first time, sees the imprisoned and unconscious Krystal and becomes immediately infatuated with her at first sight, all while romantic saxophone music plays in the background.

According to the game's composer, David Wise, the saxophone music was a satirical tongue-in-cheek reference and nod to the Love Theme from the film "Blade Runner", which was composed by Vangelis. The music itself is a remix of the theme that was originally composed for Discovery Falls, an area from Dinosaur Planet that was cut in the transition to Star Fox Adventures, and thus can now be heard in Cape Claw in the final game.

In Star Fox Adventures, the boss of Walled City is known simply as the RedEye King. However, the leaked December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet indicates that he was meant to have a name: "Klanadack".

Oddly enough, earlier on, after the battle with Galdon (or "Galadon" as he's called in the December 2000 build) in DarkIce Mines, when Sabre/Fox and Tricky return to Garunda Te with the SpellStone, he tells them he forgot to inform them about the "CLANNAD-ack" and how he managed to freeze him in a waterfall a few years prior, obviously referring to Galdon/Galadon. While spelled differently, it's pronounced the same as "Klanadack", which makes it seems like it was meant to be Galdon or Galadon's name before it was repurposed for the RedEye King in this particular build.

DarkIce Mines, the first SpellStone area in Star Fox Adventures, was another area that was more complex in design in earlier iterations of the game than in comparison to the final release. The leaked December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet showed that the lower underground mines portion of DarkIce Mines was meant to have an extra set of puzzle rooms on the right side of the map that would wound up connecting back to the waterfall room. These extra areas were also present in the E3 2002 kiosk for Star Fox Adventures, suggesting that they were very late cuts, very likely as the development team was being crunched to get the game out in time of the Microsoft buyout in late 2002, similar to what happened with Dragon Rock.