The floating planetoid representing CloudRunner Fortress on the world map screen in Star Fox Adventures very clearly resembles its original, rockier iteration from the Nintendo 64 version of Dinosaur Planet, as opposed to its remodeled look in the final Star Fox Adventures.

While the Brain Squids that float around in Krystal's opening prologue segment at Krazoa Palace are often thought to be the only common enemies in Star Fox Adventures that she can kill (as she is otherwise stripped of her staff and imprisoned at the top of the palace for the rest of the game), it's actually possible for her to kill a SharpClaw during this segment. The player will need to grab a barrel from the hallway before the flame jet room and place it on the pressure plate in the room after the jets, letting Krystal use the barrel generator in that room for a free barrel. After grabbing that barrel, the player will need to run over to the lift, and once they're in the next hallway, they'll have to go left to the watery barrier, opposite of the Krazoa head where the player normally deposits their Krazoa spirit. From there, if the player waits long enough, a SharpClaw will patrol right by on the other side of the barrier, and from there Krystal can throw her barrel on top of him, immediately destroying him.

In the original Dinosaur Planet, Krystal would come across a pachycephalosaurid dinosaur at CloudRunner Fortress, who is revealed to be one of the SpellStone guardians, who also gives Krystal the Illusion spellpage to bypass the SharpClaw guards within the dungeon. In-game hints and task summaries reveal him to be of the "BoneHead" tribe.

This individual would appear in the final Star Fox Adventures, with his role slightly rewritten as the chief engineer at CloudRunner Fortress (The Queen CloudRunner took over his original role as the SpellStone Gatekeeper for this area). Talking to him in a cutscene will reveal his name to be "Gradabug". While not mentioned anywhere in-game, the Star Fox Adventures Nintendo Power guidebook reaffirms him belonging to the BoneHead tribe.

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.

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.

All in all, it would seem that the entire Star Fox chronology, at least as it was presented from Star Fox 64 to Star Fox Command, spans roughly 20 years.

Star Fox 64's whole backstory take place across 10 years, beginning with Andross' banishment to Venom and then James' death/betrayal on Venom five years later, and the events of Star Fox 64 taking place another five years later after that. The Japan-only "Farewell Beloved Falco" Manga, the canonical manga follow up to Star Fox 64 and prelude to Star Fox Adventures, would take place four years later, and SFA would take place another four years later after that. Star Fox Assault takes place one year after the events of SFA, and Star Fox Command was said to take place a vague 2-3 years after the events of Assault. This would amount to overall roughly 21-22 years.

Prior to his days as Star Fox's ace pilot, Falco Lombardi was originally a member of a space gang known as "FREE AS A BIRD". Katt Monroe was part of this gang as well. In a 2011 Nintendo Dream interview, Takaya Imamura revealed that when Fox was forming his new Star Fox team in the wake of James' death, he heard stories about how good a pilot Falco was as apart of FREE AS A BIRD, and visited him multiple times to try to convince him to join his new team, as he wanted to have an experienced partner due to still being unsure of himself as a leader.

Though originally mentioned in the background lore for the Japanese version of Star Fox 64, FREE AS A BIRD in its entirety would physically appear in "Farewell Beloved Falco", a canonical manga interquel set between Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures that was never localized outside of Japan.

The name "FREE AS A BIRD" is a reference to the song of the same name composed by English rock band The Beatles. This adds up as both Takaya Imamura and Shigeru Miyamoto were reportedly big fans of the band, with General Pepper's design and name also being a reference to their album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".

Star Fox, Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures are the only Star Fox titles to provide official ages for the main characters, primarily within their Japanese ancillary material. In the Original Soundtrack box released for the first game, Fox, Falco, Peppy and Slippy are said to be 25, 28, 36 and 19 respectively. Star Fox 64, being a remake of the first game, would retcon these ages and make Fox 18, Falco 19, Peppy 41 and Slippy 18.

The "Farewell Beloved Falco" midquel manga, which is set right in the middle of the eight years between Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures, also gives the original Star Fox crew ages, with Fox now being 22, Slippy 22, Falco 23, and Peppy 45.

Star Fox Adventures takes place eight years after Star Fox 64, which means that Fox is now 26, Falco 27, Peppy 49 and Slippy 26. Japanese Star Fox Adventures ancillary material also reveals Krystal's age to be 19, making her distinctly the only Star Fox character outside of the original four Star Fox members to have a known age. Going by this, she would be 11 and 15 years old during the events of Star Fox 64 and Farewell Beloved Falco, respectively.

After Adventures' release, Nintendo, specifically Takaya Imamura, made a deliberate decision for future Star Fox games to not provide any official age numbers for any of the characters. However, Star Fox Assault officially is said to take place only year after the events of Star Fox Adventures, so this would make Fox 27, Falco 28, Peppy 50, Slippy 27, and Krystal 20. Similarly, according to Takaya Imamura in a 2007 interview, Star Fox Command takes place 2-3 years after Assault, which would make Fox 29-30, Falco 30-31, Peppy 52-53, Slippy 29-30, and Krystal 22-23.

Although Wolf O'Donnell has never had any age officially listed for him, Takaya Imamura implied on Twitter that he is within the same generation of Peppy and James.

In the Japanese version of Star Fox Adventures, some of the dinosaur tribes have different localized names from their original names. For example, the CloudRunners are referred to as the クラウド族 (Kuraudo-zoku), which translates to "Cloud Tribe". The EarthWalkers are referred to as the アソーカ族 (Asōka-zoku), which strangely seems to directly translate to "Ahsoka Tribe". It's worth noting that the direct translation for "EarthWalker" in Japanese is アースウォーカー (Āsu-Wōkā); it's possible that アソーカ (Asōka) is meant to be a shortened, phonetic play on it, perhaps as the original name, directly translated, would be too difficult for Japanese audiences to pronounce.

In Star Fox: Assault's Sauria mission, Peppy curiously refers to the CloudRunner Tribe as just "the Cloud Tribe". This makes more sense when you factor in that that's what they're called in the Japanese version of Star Fox Adventures and thus was what the original script writers for Assault in Japan used as a frame of reference, and it appears that whoever was localizing the script for western audiences didn't bother to change it back to the original Rare name.

Funny enough, in Star Fox Command, Krystal pilots a spacecraft that is both shaped and named after the CloudRunners. In the Japanese version, it actually retains that name, クラウドランナー (kuraudorannā), which means that Command marks the first time Rare's original CloudRunner name was utilized in the Japanese version of these games.

Star Fox Adventures had a Circuit City-exclusive "survival kit" pre-order bonus which contained "Fox Fuel" soda, a door hanger, an air freshener for cars, temporary tattoos, and most unusual of all, toilet paper with tips for the game written on it.

Star Fox Adventures features many smaller, transitional puzzle areas between the main areas, obviously a way for the game to mask loading times to create the illusion of a seamless world. This is primarily noticeable on the mainland Dinosaur Planet itself.

One of these transitional areas, within CloudRunner Fortress, was cut between the E3 2002 kiosk and the final game, presumably because of time constraints with the impending Microsoft buyout in September 2002. It was meant to bridge the top CloudRunner Fortress map with the area where Fox would have to race against the SharpClaws on the jetbikes to acquire the area's SpellStone. Fox would enter by climbing down a series of ladders and then run through a storage room of some kind with conveyor belts, and then from there he'd encounter General Scales and some SharpClaw who are trying to steal the SpellStone.

This was scrapped in the final game, where Fox instead falls down a long ladder through a cutscene and, then after cutting to black, is then rather awkwardly plopped right in the middle of the room prior to where he encounters General Scales and the SharpClaw.

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.

Star Fox Adventures began development as Dinosaur Planet, which originally began development as a direct sequel to Diddy Kong Racing, starring Timber the Tiger (who himself was intended as the main character of DKR when it was Pro-Am 64, before Donkey Kong characters were incorporated into it). It was pitched as an adventure/racing hybrid where Timber, equipped with a rucksack, little fingerless gloves, and a baseball cap would go back in time and team up with a younger version of Tricky, a boss from the first DKR. Wizpig, the main antagonist and final boss of the first Diddy Kong Racing, was also involved. It would seem a working title for this iteration of the game was "Dino Island", going by several posts on former Rare employee Ed Bryan's Twitter account.

Eventually it was decided to rework the concept into an entirely new original IP with no story connections to DKR and two new main characters, named Sabre and Krystal, and also make it a full-on action-adventure game directly inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. DP/SFA's various racing segments are said to be remnants of the original DKR successor concept, and while he retained the name of the DKR boss (something Rare seems to regret), Tricky would wind up becoming his own distinct character. Several files within DP/SFA's data also mention Timber, obviously a remnant from when he was the star.

Sabre and Krystal were in turn eventually replaced by Fox McCloud as the main playable character when the game was rebranded into what we know today as Star Fox Adventures, though Tricky would remain as his sidekick and Krystal would remain as a main character.

Many fans today recognize Star Fox Adventure's Shopkeeper's name as "Shabunga". However, the game's development team never intended the Shopkeeper character to have a name, even as far back when it was still Dinosaur Planet.

"Shabunga" was initially the name of a cut NPC character from Dinosaur Planet, a mutant creature that Sabre/Fox and Tricky would come across in an area known as Willow Grove, the bridge between SwapStone Hollow (ThornTail Hollow in SFA) and Dragon Rock, which was becoming a strange and mutated land as a result of General Scales' and Drakor's actions within the latter area, which was also mutating its inhabitants. As such, Shabunga, and supposedly other mutants according to the Dinosaur Planet condensed story (though none appear in the leaked December 2000 build) were cast off and sealed away within Willow Grove by the ThornTails that lived in SwapStone Hollow, frightened by their now warped appearances.

This mutant character was said to be an alchemist and also one of the SpellStone guardians, and thus was required to revitalize General Scales' Kamerian Belt (or "Krazoa Star" as Shabunga puts it), to allow Sabre and Tricky to enter the mutated wasteland Dragon Rock unharmed, and would later be required activate the SpellStone acquired from defeating Dragon Rock's boss, the Kamerian Heart.

With Willow Grove removed in the final game, Shabunga would appear in SFA as an enemy type known as the "FireCrawler" that appears in Moon Mountain Pass and also all over Dragon Rock. His role as the SpellStone GateKeeper of Dragon Rock would then be given to a generic quiet ThornTail that resides in ThornTail Hollow.

Curiously, SFA's Nintendo Power guidebook and also official English website would both re-appropriate the mutant's name to the Shopkeeper, claiming his name to be "Shabunga", despite the actual game just merely referring to him as the Shopkeeper. It turns out there's a reason for this: looking at the Japanese localization for Star Fox Adventures, it appears that NCL did indeed repurpose the "Shabunga" name behind Rare's back for the Shopkeeper as he's called that both in-game and also all over its ancillary material. For example, in the Japanese version of SFA, the ThornTail Store is renamed to シャブンガの店 (Shabunga no mise), which translates to Shabunga's Shop in English.

Another notable example is when Fox is talking to the Blue SnowHorn in SnowHorn Wastes; in the English version, the latter has this to say:


Retranslating the Japanese subtitles in the Japanese version of the game, however, reveals:


It would seem that whoever wrote the Nintendo Power SFA guide was given the memo about this.

Since Star Fox Adventures was in development at the same time as Melee, the cast of that game would voice Fox (Steve Malpass), Falco (Ben Cullum), and Peppy and Slippy (Chris Seavor) within the English versions of the Corneria and Venom stages, despite both of them being based on Star Fox 64.

Concept artwork for the ShopKeeper, Shabunga, shows him to be more corpulent than compared to how he appears in the final game.

There is evidence in the game's data that General Scales was meant to have a full battle with both Fox and Falco, but it was cut from the final game.

Star Fox Adventures was at one point called "Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet". This name referenced both original incarnations of the game, Rare's "Dinosaur Planet" and also Nintendo EAD's "Star Fox Adventures" that was in development around the same time; both ended up being merged into the same project, hence the original title, though sometime before release, the "Dinosaur Planet" subtitle was dropped, leaving the final game named as just Star Fox Adventures.

Curiously, when looking at Star Fox Adventures save data on a GCN memory card, it actually includes its original "Dinosaur Planet" subtitle. This also carries over to the Wii's GameCube data card management menu.