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.

One of the most notable cuts in terms of characters going from Dinosaur Planet to Star Fox Adventures was the character of Randorn the Wizard.

Randorn, along with his two children Sabre and Krystal (biological and adopted respectively), all came from a planet named Animus that comprised of two warring tribes: the Wolvens (that Randorn and Sabre belonged to) and the Vixons (which Krystal belonged to). As the leader of the Wolvens, Randorn had another older son (thus Sabre's older brother) that he sent into battle against the Vixons, only for him to end up killed. Overwhelmed with grief and guilt, Randorn abandoned his tribe and Sabre, and proceeded to go on a murderous rampage, destroying any and all Vixon tribes he came across with his magic.

That was, until he came across an orphaned six year Vixon child. Realizing the monster he became, and also feeling guilt about killing her parents, he adopted the child and named her Krystal, raising her as his own daughter. After several years of exploring the woods together, Randorn and Krystal would eventually come across a hidden temple with a technological device known as the "communication chamber", and from there they received an SOS from the King EarthWalker from a world known as Dinosaur Planet, asking for their help against General Scales and the SharpClaw who have begun to take over the planet. Wishing to atone for his past transgressions, Randorn ordered Krystal to find his son Sabre and then jumped into the swirling vortex that teleported him to Dinosaur Planet, where he battled General Scales only to get mortally wounded, now only barely being kept alive by the magical energies of Warlock Mountain. He leaves Sabre and Krystal behind a message, saying that they must come to Dinosaur Planet and rescue Prince Tricky of the EarthWalkers and Princess Kyte of the CloudRunners from the SharpClaw, who plan on making their respective tribes fight and blame each other.

For the rest of the game, he would reside at Warlock Mountain, and the player would visit him every time they had to return with a Krazoa spirit, sometimes giving advice and also magic energy in case the player is running out. According to the leaked condensed story, the player would eventually have to make a choice to save the dying Randorn by planting MoonSeeds in special locations. If they do, he'd be brought back to health and have a "special surprise" for Sabre and Krystal. There doesn't seem to be any sign of this feature in the leaked December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet, possibly indicating that this was scrapped.

The aformentioned December 2000 Dinosaur Planet build, which already was beginning to incorporate Fox McCloud as a replacement for Sabre into the game, suggests that Rare actually at least experimented with keeping Randorn in the game even with the new focus on Star Fox, down to creating new voice overs and rewriting the dialogue to suggest that Randorn was previously friends with the McClouds, even expressing guilt over not going along with the original Star Fox team to their investigation of Venom that led to James' death at the hands of Andross and Pigma (Randorn even directly mentions the latter, claiming that he suspected he was a traitor all along). Concept art recently provided by the game's director, Lee Schuneman, would provide further backstory and context for this draft of the game: Randorn and Krystal were rewritten as Cornerian agents that got trapped on Sauria and General Pepper made a request for Fox and his team to rescue them, and Fox then reveals that Randorn was both Fox and James' mentor, teaching them everything they knew about flying and fighting.

Unfortunately, Randorn would end up being removed entirely in the final Star Fox Adventures game.

Dinosaur Planet was originally meant to have eight collectible Krazoa spirits, four for Sabre and four for Krystal, and each of these spirits would be obtained by each character finding various Krazoa shrines found throughout their respective maps, each containing a challenge or trial testing their abilities or even character. Sabre would partake in the Tests of Strength, Skill, Magic and Sacrifice while Krystal would partake in the Tests of Combat, Character, Fear and Knowledge.

In the final Star Fox Adventures game, this was cut down to only six Krazoa spirits and shrines for Fox to find, with only five of them even being proper tests, those being the Tests of Skill (renamed to Observation), Combat, Fear, Strength and Knowledge. The final "test" is a rather anti-climatic "boss fight" with General Scales, which is interrupted by Andross forcing Scales to hand over the last Krazoa spirit. Unused voice clips and also hints found within the 2002 E3 SFA kiosk, as well as comments from SFA developers on Rare's scribes, indicate that the dev team planned on General Scales having a true boss fight: essentially a rematch against his flying galleon like in the game's prologue, though instead of playing as Krystal flying on the CloudRunner, it'd likely would have been Fox in his Arwing.

As such, looking at internal files for SFA (as well as its E3 2002 kiosk), Rare had also intended on there being one final true test: the Test of Sacrifice, which fittingly enough was Sabre's final test in Dinosaur Planet and its overall final spirit in general. In both versions of the game, it would have involved Sabre or Fox having to "sacrifice" themselves in order to save an apparition of Tricky. Unused hint texts found within the E3 2002 kiosk heavily imply that Fox would have partaken in the Test of Sacrifice right where the General Scales encounter is today, before he freed Krystal from her prison at the top of Krazoa Palace and also before fighting Andross, who he unknowingly resurrected by releasing all of the Krazoa spirits. The music track that was (as revealed by the leak Dinosaur Planet N64 ROM) intended for the Test of Sacrifice even appears as an unused track found within SFA's sound test, and there's also unused voice clips of Tricky begging Fox for help that very likely pertain to this test. Both of these indicates that this was a very late cut.

Internally, the General Scales "boss fight" shrine is referred to as "nwshrine", which adds up considering that the Test of Sacrifice was meant to be found by Sabre at the Northern Wastes (now now as SnowHorn Wastes) in Dinosaur Planet.

Many of Star Fox Adventures' Japanese ancillary material, such as its cover art, official guidebook, official website and even the 4koma manga, utilize renders/designs from the N64 version of Dinosaur Planet for certain dinosaur tribes, those specifically being the EarthWalkers (represented by the King EarthWalker's DP render) as well as the ShadowHunters, who even appear on SFA's Japanese cover art despite only appearing very briefly in the final game during the Test of Fear.

While merely referred to as the King EarthWalker in the final Star Fox Adventures, voice clips from Dinosaur Planet on the Nintendo 64 indicate that he was intended to have a name: "Albada". Both the Queen EarthWalker and Sabre have voice clips that refer to him as such.

Star Fox Adventures primarily takes place on a planet filled with dinosaurs known simply as "Dinosaur Planet". It would return or be referenced in future games like Star Fox Assault and Star Fox Command, as well as "Star Fox Zero - The Battle Begins", a promotional anime released to commemorate the release of Star Fox Zero, but it would instead be referred to with a different name: "Sauria".

It turns out Rare had always intended Dinosaur Planet's real name to be Sauria, as leaked voice clips from the implied climax of the original Nintendo 64 Dinosaur Planet feature the Krazoa mentioning the name as they begin the alignment of the "Majestic Eight" planets to wreak havoc on the universe using the power of their god, the Quan Ata Lachu. An edition of "Ask Uncle Tusk" on Rare's old website revealed Dinosaur Planet's name to be Sauria as well.