Lost media is an interesting phenomenon. When a game goes unreleased, it’s always hard to say what will happen to whatever was made of it. Sometimes it’s saved away to be rediscovered one day, and sometimes it’s lost forever.Rareis one studio that’s cancelled a fair few projects over the years, so there’s lots of opportunity for lost media. In fact, just this month, a crucial piece of gaming history came to light.Rarefans discovered that a collector in Sweden had a near-finished copy ofDinosaur Planet,the original Rare IP that went on to becomeStar Fox Adventureswith Nintendo’s help.
Some fans ofStar Foxmight not even realizeDinosaur Planetever existed. The truth is thatStar Fox Adventurescompletely overrode Rare’s plans for an original title for the Nintendo 64.In the originalDinosaur Planet,there was no spacefaring to be found. Instead, the main protagonists Sabre and Krystal were the heroes adventuring on the titular planet. Using a mechanic called the SwapStone, players could switch control of Sabre and Krystal when they so chose. In the place of sci-fi, there was fantasy; Sabre’s father was a wizard named Randorn.Dinosaur Planetmade it deep into development before Nintendo encouraged Rare to rearrange the title into aStar Foxgame.
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Dinosaur Planet’s Transformation
Dinosaur Planethad something very important in common withStar Fox:its characters were anthropomorphic animals. Sabre was male and particularly fox-like. At the time ofDinosaur Planet’s development, Nintendo owned a major share of Rare, who worked asa second-party developer for Nintendo. Naturally, that meant Nintendo would sometimes take a look at Rare’s projects. Former Rare developers say that Shigeru Miyamoto sawDinosaur Planet’s characters and thought that they looked a lot likeStar Foxcharacters. Thus, the idea was posed to rebrandDinosaur Planetas aStar Foxgame.
The team behindDinosaur Planetwas reportedly pretty conflicted. Rare was proud of its original setting, and a ton of work had already been put into the game. As the leaked version of the game makes clear,Dinosaur Planetwas nearly ready for an N64 releasewhenStar Foxgot involved. However, the developers realized that theStar Foxname would be great for branding, and acquiesced to Nintendo’s idea. Although Krystal stayed in the game and remains a canonicalStar Foxcharacter, Sabre was replaced with Fox McCloud. The game’s plot and setting were heavily rewritten to fitStar Foxlore, and Arwing segments were added to channel the traditional gameplay of theStar Foxfranchise.
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The Resulting Game
Many of the same principles used to makeDinosaur Planetwere used to convert the game intoStar Fox Adventures.It still took a lot of inspiration fromThe Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time,which was still a pretty fresh success on the N64, but tried tobring those ideas to the GameCube. Lots of echoes ofDinosaur Planetstill remained inStar Fox Adventureswhen all was said and done. Fox’s dinosaur companion Tricky was inDinosaur Planetand survived the transition. However, other characters like Randorn naturally disappeared, made obsolete by theStar Foxstoryline.
Unfortunately for Rare and Nintendo, the result wasn’t quite what they were hoping for.Star Fox Adventuresreceived praise for its graphics and for updating the designs ofStar Foxcharacters for the GameCube era. However, critics and fans generally agreed that it wasn’t quite aStar Foxgame. Its adventure elementsfelt too much likeZelda,and the spacefaring elements were too sparing to really capture the kind of gameplay that madeStar Foxfamous.Star Fox AdventuresandDinosaur Planetmay not have a perfect legacy, but they’re definitely important and interesting to think about.Dinosaur Planet’s fate is a great case study for the effects parent companies can have on games and what happens when developers have to rewrite a game just when they thought it was done.
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