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A Brave New Prehistoric World
As the 1990s drew to a close, developer Rareware was working on a new action-adventure N64 game called Dinosaur Planet. It would star Krystal and Sabre, two anthropomorphic foxes, who were on a quest to save the Dinosaur Planet from the clutches of the evil General Scales. When Nintendo took notice of the game, Shigeru Miyamoto was quick to point out Sabre’s resemblance to Fox McCloud. Dinosaur Planet ended up being delayed and reworked by Rare as a GameCube title within the Star Fox universe.
The end result was Star Fox Adventures, which came out for the GameCube in late 2002. It picks up years after Star Fox 64 and details the Star Fox team’s journey to planet Sauria to save the dying world. The game was a major departure from the previous two titles; it was mostly an action-adventure game with on-foot exploration and puzzle solving. Adventures borrows heavily from Zelda: Ocarina of Time in its mechanics, and features large, distinct levels in a somewhat open and living world.
The game is often looked at as the black sheep of the series due to the disparity of its gameplay from the other titles. However, while Adventures deeply strayed from the Star Fox roots, it still kept the flavor of the characters alive. The game also introduced Krystal into the series, where she has remained as an important character ever since. Placing the game in the series might have been a bit of a stretch, but it’s a fun game nonetheless. Sadly, Star Fox Adventures would be the last game Rareware would ever release as a dedicated Nintendo developer, as the company was bought by Microsoft the same year.
