Prerelease:Star Fox Adventures

Dinosaur Planet
The game began development as an original property for the Nintendo 64. Development started in 1999 and would continue until around the end of 2000. Had the game been completed and released for the Nintendo 64, it would have most likely come out in at least Q1 2001 (somewhere between January and March). It also would have required an Expansion Pak and be released on a 64 MB (512 Mbit) cartridge. However, sales-wise, this would not have been a profitable move. The Nintendo 64's sales were already declining by 2000 and only a handful of the titles were released in 2001 (and only one was released for North America in 2002, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3).

The engine was based on that of Diddy Kong's Racing, but with additional features such a more refined particle engine.

The E3 2000 demo was bugged to point Nintendo's employees had to reset the N64 as it crashed frequently. The game's impressive visuals also meant the game ran no faster than 15 fps. It was also demonstrated at ECTS (European Computer Trade Show) 2000 shortly before it was scrapped and redone.

It's unknown how far the game's development got before getting cancelled, but lead programmer Phil confirmed that no ending was written for the game. Oddly enough, Rare's own website for the game said the game was in its last year of development.

No builds of this iteration exist in the wild and the ones that do exist are largely inside Rare's headquarters. Rare did however release a few MP3s of the game's music, as well as screenshots and wallpaper.

Story
The game's two protagonists were Krystal and Sabre. They rescued CloudRunner princess Kyte and EarthWalker prince Tricky respectively. In the final game, Krystal is only playable for the first ~20 minutes of the game. Afterward, she is entrapped in a crystal for almost all of the game. She was to have her own sidequest, with many of her tasks being rewritten for Fox.

Like the final game, there are a series of command the player can call. To swap between the characters, the player would have gone to SwapStone Hollow.

Story Changes
The place name change known is Swapstone Hollow to Thorntail Hollow.

Drakor was originally to have a speaking role, but is silent in the actual game.

Videos
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A 55 minute video for press members was also leaked on September 2012, showing a good chunk of the game's content. The footage appears to pre-date the E3 2000 version, as Sabre is lacking lip movement when talking to the SharpClaws before the Ice Mountain race. Also, Kyte's voice at 6:25 sounds temporary and different compared to the version hidden in the SFA E3 2002 demo.

ql1cy-gTzCc Footage of the game as shown in E3 2000. It also shows several things, such as the menus used for previewing the game and a fragment of the LightFoot Village with Krystal.

Star Fox Adventures
The shift to SFA began around the same time the crew starting development on the GameCube. Miyamoto noted the protagonists were similar to Fox and wanted the game to be refocused on the Star Fox characters. The game's code was completely rewritten. Initially, the game's name was "Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet", but the Dinosaur Planet subtitle was later dropped. Due to an oversight, the memory card file uses the subtitle.

Originally, the game was to be a launch title. An assortment of development issues, such as reworking the whole game to fit within the Star Fox universe and programming Tricky, caused the game's release to be pushed back. By the time of the game's release, it was in Fall of 2002.

During this iteration's development, Rare were in negotiations with Microsoft and were planning to drop their deals with Nintendo. Because of this, development was rushed to get it out on the GameCube before Rare completely moved to doing XBox games. The hurried development toward the end caused several things, such as the Battle with Scales, to be cut out of the game.

The game's reception was largely positive, even if the gameplay was largely relegated to the adventure mode.

Videos
JZKVO_Y-lp0 These clips came off an old 2001 VHS from NGC Magazine (UK)
 * Thorntail Hollow is very different, with much more pine trees and basic models for the Thorntails
 * A completely different HUD is used, which also has an icon for Fox.
 * A minimap can be seen from 0:52 to 1:06, but it's smaller and not within a graphic.
 * After that, a very incomplete Arwing stage can be seen.

txGOMiZJwQY This video dates back to August 24, 2001 and contains a number of differences
 * The font used in this footage is different.
 * Early dialogue is used for the staff retrieval and Queen Earthwalker illness cutscenes.
 * HUD is starting to become similar to the final game, but still has a few other details such as an icon for Fox.