One of Star Fox Adventures' most infamous scenes is within the final Krazoa Shrine at Krazoa Palace where Fox McCloud is about to engage in combat with General Scales, seemingly the game's antagonist and final boss, only to be suddenly interrupted by Andross' spirit, who forces Scales to give the last Krazoa spirit to Fox, abruptly ending the fight. Per admitted by developers of Star Fox Adventures during a February 2008 edition of Rare's Scribes, Scales was meant to have a proper boss confrontation, but this was scrapped entirely due to the impending Microsoft buyout that was announced in September 2002, forcing the team to focus on only the Andross boss fight.

However, looking further into Dinosaur Planet and Star Fox Adventures' development cycle, one can see a more complex story going on in regards to the notion of General Scales having a 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.

However, the leaked December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet features no such boss fight for Krystal's final visit to the Desert Force Point, instead having a cutscene where Krystal, Scales and Kyte are teleported outside of the temple after the former places the final SpellStone. Krystal plummets into a nearby pond safely, but Scales falls onto a rock and breaks his back, completely incapacitating him. 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 Dinosaur Planet was being transitioned into Star Fox Adventures over on GameCube, unused voice clips and also hints found within the 2002 E3 kiosk indicate that Rare planned on revisiting Scales having a boss fight by essentially doing 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. The voice lines reveal that Falco Lombardi would actually appear earlier than in the final game and assist Fox in taking out Scales and his galleon. After Scales' defeat, Fox would land in Krazoa Palace and partake in the Test of Sacrifice, which is where the General Scales "boss fight" occurs in the final game.

Curiously, the 2002 E3 kiosk shows that the dev team had later hoped to include a 1-on-1 fight on-foot against Scales. The fight is very incomplete and Scales is strangely smaller in size than usual, but he will actually attack the player in this version instead of simply walking towards Fox and assuming a fighting stance. He has a number of unique attack animations which aren't used in the final game, though these attacks don't connect with the player. He can be attacked without immediately activating his defeat cutscene here, and will block most of the player's attacks and recoil when an attack is successfully landed on him. His health doesn't seem to decrease, so there doesn't appear to be a way to end the fight.

The SpellStones and Force Point Temples served a difference purpose lore-wise in Dinosaur Planet than in Star Fox Adventures. After their huge intergalactic war with the Kamerians, the Krazoa, too weak to return to their home planet, settled on the world that would become known as Sauria (or Dinosaur Planet), which apparently housed the richest supply of magic in the universe. From there, they would create the Force Point Temples to concentrate this magical power, helping the Krazoa to sleep and heal as they would soon enter stasis for the next billions of years. The dinosaurs on Sauria would then use the Force Point Temples to power their world.

Right around the time the last great Kamerian war dragon fell onto Dinosaur Planet, a special group of dinosaurs known as the SpellStone guardians were formed. Each guardian were a given a SpellStone to protect, and this secret would be passed down from generation to generation. If the planet were in trouble, the Guardians were to take the SpellStones to the Force Point Temple and shut them down using their power, preventing any magic energy extraction.

A Kamerian, Drakor, was aware of the remains of his ancestor lying on Dinosaur Planet. He secretly invades and helps General Scales and his SharpClaw take over the planet by providing them powerful weapons and technology, which allows them to take over the Force Point Temples and begin extracting all of Sauria's magical energies and condensing it into the Kamerian heart within Dragon Rock, which would in turn revive the Kamerian warrior and let Drakor enact ultimate revenge against the Krazoa who dwelled there. Thus, Sabre and Krystal were to find and activate the six SpellStones to shut the Force Point Temples down and prevent Drakor from extracting any more magical energies from the planet.

Going by the condensed story and also leftover DP data found within Star Fox Adventure's files, the original idea was for there to be five SpellStone guardians:

• Garunda Te, the leader of the SnowHorn Tribe.
• Shabunga, the Willow Grove mutant.
• The leader of the ShadowHunter Tribe from BlackWater Canyon.

And two additional unknown guardians found with in the Walled City and CloudRunner Fortress.

However, by the time of the December 2000 build, it seems that this was already reduced to four guardians; Garunda Te and Shabunga retained their guardian status, but there were only two others: the King EarthWalker (or "Albada") and the BoneHead (or "Gradabug" as he's called in Star Fox Adventures) imprisoned within CloudRunner Fortress. Going by unused voice lines, the ShadowHunters were rewritten to be scavengers living in BlackWater Canyon who happen to come across the SpellStone and initially claim it as their own, and it would seem that Krystal and Kyte were to use the Tree of Souls to activate the area's SpellStone in place of a proper guardian. For Krystal's final SpellStone, the two head to Krazoa Palace to discover that it already has disappeared, due to several tears in time and space occuring because of the huge quantity of magic energy being extracted, and thus Krystal and Kyte have to visit both the past and future to acquire it before it disappears.

In Star Fox Adventures, this was also completely rewritten. The Krazoa were still said to have constructed the Force Point Temples and SpellStones, but their purpose was to now prevent the powerful dark magical energies within Dinosaur Planet from continually pushing the world apart. As General Scales had invaded the temples and took the SpellStones back to the sacred lands that they were originally forged in (DarkIce Mines, CloudRunner Fortress, Walled City, Dragon Rock), this undid the seal and broke away the four lands away from the world. In place of the SpellStone guardians were the SpellStone GateKeepers, who were meant to protect the aforementioned sacred lands. They were, respectively:

• 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 was to find these GateKeepers, utilize their powers to open the way to the floating lands and retrieve their respective SpellStones and return them to the Force Point Temples to get the planet back together again. This was all very likely done as a way to justify there being Arwing stages in the established Dinosaur Planet gameplay framework, as otherwise Fox would just spent almost the entire game on-foot.

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.

The WarpStone, despite living on a planet filled with dinosaurs, is infamously somehow incapable of warping them, hence why Tricky can't accompany Fox to Krazoa Palace.

In the Japanese version of Star Fox Adventures, the WarpStone, whose Japanese name is ワープ魔人 (Wāpu majin) or Warp Demon, offers a different explanation of why he can't warp Tricky through Japanese subtitles:


Essentially, it's not that the WarpStone can't teleport dinosaurs like Tricky, it's just that they're merely afraid of being warped.

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.

One of the Krazoa shrines in Star Fox Adventures, the Test of Fear, features the only in-game appearance of a mysterious dromeosaur-esque race known as the "ShadowHunters".

The ShadowHunters had a larger role in the original Dinosaur Planet. Krystal, accompanied with a LightFoot guide in place of 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 come across them in an area called BlackWater Canyon, which was said to be the dinosaur's sacred burial grounds, and the home of the Tree of Souls, which was said to return the magic energy of a dinosaur into the planet after their death. The ShadowHunter Tribe were the protectors of this place, with their leader being one of the SpellStone guardians, who agrees to give Krystal his SpellStone, only for his jealous son to run off with it, leading to Krystal and the LightFoot to chase after him. Eventually this leads to the ShadowHunter being trapped within the rib cages of a giant skeletal monster, which would act as the boss fight of BlackWater Canyon. After Krystal and the LightFoot defeated it, the ShadowHunter would realize that they were really trying to save Dinosaur Planet, and gave them the SpellStone, which would then be activated by the ShadowHunter leader.

BlackWater Canyon appears in the leaked December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet, but is notably devoid of any actual design work or puzzles. The voice lines from the ShadowHunters found in this build seem to indicate a different story from what was presented in the Condensed Story; instead of a SpellStone guardian father with a jealous son, they're portrayed as brothers who live as scavengers in BlackWater Canyon, who come across the SpellStone and claim it as their own, only to come across Krystal as well as Kyte, who would accompany her to BlackWater Canyon in place of the alformentioned LightFoot tribe member. One of the ShadowHunters siblings is willing to hand over the SpellStone, but the other seems to run off with it, which leads to Krystal and Kyte chasing after him, which leads to them encountering a ghostly apparition of Kyte's mother, the Queen CloudRunner (who was killed by General Scales back in CloudRunner Fortress) who encourages them on and warns them about the angry spirits within the area, presumably referring the aforementioned skeleton monster boss (that does not appear anywhere in the leaked build). After they retrieve the SpellStone, they seem to use the Tree of Souls to activate it in place of a proper SpellStone guardian.

BlackWater Canyon would be removed entirely in the transition to Star Fox Adventures, but it seems that Rare still had substantial plans for the ShadowHunters, as an unused briefing from Peppy Hare says this:


Which seems to indicate that earlier on in SFA's development, Rare had considered having the ShadowHunters fill in the role intended for the HookClaw tribe (who had already been cut by the time of the December 2000 Dinosaur Planet build) as the secondary carnivorous antagonist of the Walled City. This of course was scrapped in the final game, where only the RedEye tribe is present.

The senior animator of Star Fox Adventures, Michael Cawood, had mentioned on his website that when animating the Test of Fear, his goal for it wasn't well defined, and he didn't have enough time or resources to request additional assets and thus had to improvise. Fortunately for him, he had access to a library of animations for the ShadowHunters that had originally been planned as enemies in the game but had never got around to being implemented past the animation stage, very likely referring to when they planned as enemies encountered in SFA's iteration of the Walled City.

Funny enough, despite having such a minimal role 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 (presumably because the GCN models were not given an official render, due to them being a last minute addition after initially being scrapped).

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.

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 (known as "Gradabug" in Star Fox Adventures).

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.

Despite the English version of Melee using Star Fox Adventures' voice cast in the game's Corneria and Venom stages, the Japanese version uses all of the original Star Fox 64 voice actors. Shinobu Satouchi, Hisao Egawa, Kyoko Tongu and Tomohisa Aso all reprise their roles as Fox, Falco, Slippy and Peppy respectively. The former two's voice clips are also used for Fox and Falco as fighters even abroad.

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.

Fichina, the ice planet that was introduced in Star Fox 64, is infamously erroneously called Fortuna in the English version of the game. Fortuna was previously the name of the jungle planet from Star Fox on SNES filled with monstrous and primordial creatures. It was also infamously dubbed "the Dinosaur Planet", years before the Star Fox series would incorporate another Dinosaur Planet with Star Fox Adventures.

However, looking through leaked SF64 files from the Gigaleak, there does seem to be evidence that Nintendo dubbed Fichina as Fortuna for most of SF64's development, only to change the name to Fichina at the tail end of it. Almost all of the source code refers to it as Fortuna, and the internal file system has “FO” appended to all of the stage’s assets. The image file Nintendo provided for the stage name to be translated is also labeled FO_E_FO. With the decision to rename it to Fichina seemingly being a last minute one, it's possible Nintendo of America were not brought up to speed by Nintendo's Japanese branch of this lore change when they were originally localizing SF64.

Nonetheless, Nintendo has since firmly established Fichina and Fortuna (as it was in the SNES game) as being their own distinct planets, with both appearing together in Star Fox: Assault and Star Fox Zero. Strangely, in the former game, Fortuna's Japanese name フォーチュナ (Fōchuna) was slightly modified to フォーチュナー (Fōchunā), which would translate into "Fortuner" in English.

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 Assault was actually informally announced in May 2002, several months before its predecessor, Star Fox Adventures, would actually hit store shelves.

In May 2002, Namco and Nintendo announced that that they would be collaborating on several GameCube games, one of which being a new Star Fox game in the same vein as Star Fox SNES and Star Fox 64. Nothing else was revealed except for a tentative logo (dubbed at the time as "Star Fox GC") and poster, and the fact that it would be developed by the same team within Namco who worked on the Ace Combat series. This turned out to be not true, as the final game was developed by different Namco employees at the time, with Tsuyoshi Kobayashi as the producer, Toshiyuki Nakanishi as the All-Range Mode director, and Yutaka Yoshida as the Battle Mode director.

The Aparoids are unique in Star Fox's rogue gallery in that they're the only main enemy forces, at least within the official game canon (which includes "Farewell Beloved Falco", the manga interlude between Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures) to have absolutely no connections or ties to Andross whatsoever:

• In Farewell Beloved Falco, Captain Shears, despite being affiliated with the Cornerian army, was revealed to be a turncoat seeking to revive Andross through cloning.

• In Star Fox Adventures, General Scales and the SharpClaw were revealed to be the unwilling pawns of Andross' ghost, who manipulated them as well as Fox to revive himself using the power of the Krazoa.

• In Star Fox Command, the Emperor Anglar and his Anglar Army are revealed to be bioweapons created by Andross in secret within Venom's acidic oceans.

In particular, the Aparoid Queen is the only final boss in all of the Star Fox series to either not just be Andross again (Star Fox, Star Fox 2, Star Fox 64/Star Fox 64 3D, Star Fox Adventures, Star Fox Zero), nor a creation of his (Star Fox Command).

Outside of Tricky, the two dinosaur species from Star Fox Adventures that reappear (as corpses infected by the Aparoids) in Star Fox Assault's Sauria mission are of the ThornTail and HighTop tribes.

Strangely, while the ThornTails are mostly faithful enough to their Star Fox Adventures models, the HighTops differ, primarily in skin pattern and coloration, being presented as green in Assault as opposed to yellow/beige in Adventures.

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.

The English manual and prologue for Star Fox Adventures implies a bigger backstory for Krystal, in that she's the sole remaining survivor of her doomed home planet, "Cerinia", and that she's been roaming the galaxy in search of answers for the truth of her family's death, until she receives a distress call from Dinosaur Planet. With how the manual states that Krystal "may finally be drawing closer to the truth" behind her parents' and planet's destruction, it seems Rare was loosely implying that Andross, who turns out to be the real villain of Star Fox Adventures and thus the culprit behind Dinosaur Planet's woes, was responsible for Cerinia's destruction. Krystal even says "It's you!" right before Andross imprisons her in the crystal at the top of Krazoa Palace.

However, it would seem the Japanese localization for Star Fox Adventures would completely eschew this backstory, removing all mention of Cerinia and as well as Krystal's dead parents. The Japanese prologue was even heavily simplified to this:


The Japanese website even states that "it is not known what her purpose is", which flies directly in the face of Rare's original story for her, that explicitly states that she was searching for the truth of Cerinia's destruction. To add more insult to injury, there isn't even any Japanese subtitle presented when Krystal gets knocked into the crystal by Andross in Krazoa Palace.

Curiously, the Japanese localization of Star Fox Adventures also heavily emphasizes Krystal having telepathic abilities, much more so than in the English version. This is noteworthy because neither Star Fox Assault or Star Fox Command, the next two story follows up to Star Fox Adventures that were developed and written in Japan, made any sort of mention of Cerinia. Star Fox Assault however would hugely emphasize her telepathic abilities, and its manual even describe Krystal the same way the Japanese version of Star Fox Adventures does, just as "a mysterious telepathic woman". This also applies to her trophies in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U that once again make no reference to Cerinia. It's very clear that the developers and writers behind Assault, Command and Smash Bros. in Japan were using the Japanese version of Star Fox Adventures as a reference, as opposed to the English version.

All in all, it would seem Nintendo of Japan had their own differing vision of what Krystal's character was from Rare, that being mostly just as a telepathic woman with a mysterious background, as opposed to Rare's original backstory of her being the lone survivor of her kind.