Prerelease:Star Fox Adventures/2001

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Star Fox Adventures.

Spring

Move to GameCube

Around 2001, the Nintendo 64 was close to discontinuation due to only a handful of titles being released in that year. Had it continued development for the Nintendo 64, it would not have been a profitable move. Due to drastic hardware changes, the game's code had to be completely rewritten which would later result in a myriad of developmental issues. It was also originally planned to be a GameCube launch title at this point in development, but 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 to Fall 2002.

During this iteration's development, Rare were in negotiations with Microsoft and planned to drop their deals with Nintendo. Development ended up being rushed to get it out onto the GameCube before Rare eventually moved to Microsoft. The hurried development toward the end caused several things, such as the battle with Scales, to be cut out of the game.

Released Concept Art

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  Concept art of a dinosaur design.

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  Concept art of another dinosaur design that was presumably scrapped.

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  Concept art for Krystal's staff that has a slightly different design.

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  An earlier design of Krystal that is a mix between her final design and her Dinosaur Planet one. Her cat features are still very noticeable but now she has a small tuff of hair on her head.‎

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  Another look at the earlier design. ‎

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  A slightly later design with a dress that more closely matches the final, the tail is still different however. ‎

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  Early concept art of the world map ‎where some Dinosaur Planet names of locations are still used.

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  An early shot of the main cast with Krystal's early design included. ‎

(Source: NintendoSoup)

May

B-Roll Footage Compilation 1

These clips came off an old 2001 VHS from NGC Magazine (UK) despite claiming to be from Spaceworld 2001, it is actually B-roll footage of a build seen in E3 2001. The one that was playable at the event differs quite a lot from this one however, so this section will be split up to cover both builds.

• In 0:15, the area that looks similar to the Test of Knowledge has enemies that are removed and the items to match the worlds they were from is missing.
• Fox uses Krystal's old running animation from Dinosaur Planet.
• Thorntail Hollow is very different, with much more pine trees, generally empty looking environment, and early models for the Thorntails inspired by Diddy Kong Racing.
• A completely different placeholder looking HUD is used, which also has an icon for Fox.
• Fur effects have not been implemented yet.
• Snowhorn Wastes looks very barebones in this footage with only a basic layout that resembles the final.
• Tricky can be seen in Cloudrunner Fortress. In the final game, Tricky doesn't appear in Cloudrunner Fortress at all.
• 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 that only has basic movement implemented.
• Rob can also be seen in a pre-rendered video, having an earlier less golden design than the final one and has a "Location confirmed" line that got scrapped from the final release.

B-Roll Footage Compilation 2

A compilation of footage from the E3 B-Roll build from various sources at the event. Has some extra footage but most of it is mainly extensions off of existing clips seen in the first B-Roll build footage.

• At the beginning, preliminary views of the mission select screen can be found, a planet chunk of what looks like Cloudrunner fortress is seen which looks really different from the final model. You can also briefly see what looks like the planet chunk of Dragon Rock, which also looks really different from the final model.
• In the second clip, an early model of General Pepper can be seen which looks much less detailed than the final one.
• At 0:20, Fox appears to be walking in one of the sections of the Sharpclaw race in Cloudrunner Fortress, something that is impossible to do in the final game.
• In the next clip, another shot of ThornTail Hollow can be seen where the background looks incomplete and there's a couple placeholder objects on the ground.

Playable Demo - Cloudrunner Fortress and Dark Ice Mines Boss

To do: Check for more differences.

A compilation of a few IGN gameplay videos about the game made at around E3's time that covers the playable demo build. According to leftover development text found in the SFA Kiosk demo, only ThornTail Hollow, Cloudrunner Fortress, and the Dark Ice Mines boss would be normally playable for the E3 demo.

• The biggest defining difference between the two builds is the HUD, where the playable demo has a different portrait for Fox that looks to be a model render of him compared to the hand drawn style of the other build and the health bar looks more polished.
• There seems to be a couple more Sharpclaws in Cloudrunner Fortress compared to the other build.
• When you defeat an enemy, it's fade animation is identical to N64 Dinosaur Planet.
• Fox's item pick up animation seems to be carried over from Krystal's pick up animation from Dinosaur Planet.
• In the second clip, the staff impact effects look more polished compared to the other build.

Other Playable Demo Footage 1

Other footage of the E3 playable demo that shows smaller more miscellaneous things about the demo.

• At 0:19, the E3 level select screen can be seen where Slippy has exclusive mission dialogue for this build that is still found left over in the SFA Kiosk demo.
• When using the Sharpclaw disguise, a short cutscene will play and there's also a placeholder Krystal icon for the disguise.
• ThornTail Hollow looks very different compared to the B-Roll version as it looks closer to the final game.
• At the end an ominous scene of Drakor is shown, whether this implies he still had a bigger role in the game at this point is unknown.

Other Playable Demo Footage 2

A compilation of other E3 playable demo footage that's for Cloudrunner Fortress and ThornTail Hollow, which shows a good numbers of differences compared to the B-Roll build.

• In the first clip, an earlier version of the Cloudrunner Queen cutscene can be seen where it not only has early dialogue that relates to Scales wanting the Queen to surrender instead of look for Fox like in the final, but the animation, sequencing, and camera shots are mostly identical to the N64 Dinosaur Planet version of the scene.
• Once Fox is captured, there's no scene of him realizing his staff is gone yet.
• The prison room looks a bit different as the switches look to be simple levers at this point.
• Scarabs don't glow and there's no counter for them when you pick them up.
• It's revealed by interacting with one of the Thorntail inhabitants that the place was still called SwapHollow at this point like in Dinosaur Planet.
• The Thorntail also doesn't have any animation and refers to the Warpstone as the "Swapstone" at this point, making it a Dinosaur Planet leftover.

August

Trailer

Despite the title of this video claiming to be a trailer for E3, this is around the time of Spaceworld 2001, though it also appears there's clips from the E3 build too at 0:27 and 0:46, and it appears there were more significant changes in this build:

• The font used in this footage is different.
• During the Krystal staff retrieval scene, Early dialogue is used and Krystal's head doesn't appear at all.
• The Queen Earthwalker illness scene also has early dialogue.
• The HUD now looks much closer to the final game with the portraits completely removed, though it is blue instead of red in this build.
• The skyboxes are slightly brighter than the final version.
• When finding Krystal's staff, the flame effects are missing.
• Snowhorn Wastes from the E3 build at 0:46 looks much closer to the final game than the B-Roll E3 build.

Showfloor Footage

To do: More differences to be documented.

A decent amount of footage of the Spaceworld build on the showfloor. It mainly consists of ThornTail Hollow gameplay but there's plenty of differences to note.

• During the Krystal staff retrieval scene, Krystal speaks in English as opposed to the Dino language in the final.
• At 3:44, a different earlier version of the Queen Earthwalker illness scene is shown, text for the early scene can still be found leftover in the final game.