Star Fox Adventures
Review by Trent Dickerson
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Several years ago, a game entitled "Dinosaur Planet" was being developed by Rare for the N64. The game was supposed to include brand-new characters and mind-blowing graphics, with gameplay similar to Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Fans rejoiced at the thought of the public's love of the Hylian hero and the public's love of dinosaurs somehow being combined. Fast forward a few years, and Rare announces at E3 Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet for Nintendo's GameCube. Gamers were confused at the thought of how the typical Star Fox shooter game could take place on a single planet. The answer was simple: Rare was not developing a shooter game, but an adventure game with a vast world with many different dungeons filled with various creatures and enemies, which is exactly what they claimed the original Dinosaur Planet for N64 to be. Unfortunately, what no gamer expected, was that Star Fox Adventures would turn out to be the first and last game developed by Rare for Nintendo GameCube before being bought out by Microsoft.
The game starts out with a blue fox-like creature named Krystal who has responded to a distress call on the Dinosaur Planet which is mysteriously exploding pieces of the planet into outer space. After trying a daring rescue, Krystal is in fact captured and imprisoned. At about the same time, Fox McCloud and his Star Fox team receive a message from General Pepper concerning the trouble on Dinosaur Planet. Fox and friends immediately accept the mission and rush off to the planet. Almost immediately after arriving on the planet, Fox McCloud learns of General Scales and his tribe the SharpClaw have taken over the planet. And if Fox does not prevent General Scales from fulfilling his evil plans, Dinosaur Planet will explode and destroy the entire Lylat System.
The main point of the game is to collect the four SpellStones that General Scales has stolen and hidden. The SpellStones absorb the energy from within Dinosaur Planet and hold it together. And in order for the planet to come back together, Fox must return the SpellStones to their appropriate Force Point Temples. However, the SpellStones are useless if the bringers of life are not returned as well. The bringers of life, also known as the Krazoa Spirits, were hidden when the EarthWalker tribe was attacked by the SharpClaw. When Fox obtains a Krazoa Spirit, the spirit will enter Fox's body and it will stay there until Fox returns it to the Krazoa Palace. With both the SpellStones and the Krazoa Spirits returned to their rightful places, only then when the Dinosaur Planet come back together. However, only one person on the planet knows the deadly secret of what will really happen if the Krazoa Spirits rejoin, and that person is dead...or is he?
Throughout the game, you will encounter several different types of dinosaurs and their tribes. There is of course the SharpClaw tribe who are a type of dinosaur-humanoid, which is run by the evil General Scales. Then there is the EarthWalker tribe of triceratops, who are in fact the most powerful tribe on the planet...or at least they were before Scales came along. The EarthWalkers were kind of like the peace-keepers between all the tribes. Then there is the ThornTail Tribe of ankylosaurs who originally presided in Dragon Rock, until they were forced to leave when General Scales began experiments there. The mysterious LightFoot tribe of velociraptors live in the swamps and are rarely seen and often avoided because of their suspicious spiritual beliefs.
Then there is of course the CloudRunner tribe of pterodactyls. The CloudRunners and EarthWalkers are natural enemies and spread rumors about each other, but ever since Scales ruined the planet, the two tribes have been united in the war against the SharpClaw. The HighTop tribe of brontosaurs are huge and were the original inhabitants of Cape Claw, until they were forced out when the SharpClaw made it one of their bases. Then there is the SnowHorn tribe of wooly mammoths who originally presided in the SnowHorn Wastes until the SharpClaw forced them into slave labor in the DarkIce Mines. Last but not least, is the deadly RedEye tribe of tyrannosaurus rexes. These flesh-eating dinosaurs were originally under control by the EarthWalkers until General Scales set them free into Walled City, the EarthWalker's village.
Throughout the game, Fox really only has one weapon, his Magical Staff that he receives inadvertently from Krystal. However, if he searches high and low, he can find some very powerful upgrades for it such as the FireBlaster and the Ground Quake. Most of these upgrades are rarely used for attacking enemies, but rather used to solve puzzles in the various dungeons. Fox also has an EarthWalker companion throughout the game as well, Prince Tricky. While Tricky may be annoying at times, the truth is he is an invaluable part of the game since he is used to solve many puzzles. Unfortunately, Tricky cannot attack enemies and always stays at a distance shouting encouragement to you.
Okay, so now since you know basically the entire background plot, now onto how well the game actually plays. For the most part, the game was smooth with few slow downs. Most of the slow downs took place in the FMVs, but I'll excuse that since that's where they usually happen anyways. Most of the environments Fox McCloud travels in are very fluid. The button configuration is easy to figure out right off the bat. A is the attack button, B cancels a function, the C-Stick is kind of like an inventory menu, as it contains collected items, Tricky's commands, and staff upgrades. X is to roll, Y is used to set a specific staff upgrade to, and R defends. For the most part, I basically have no problems with the gameplay of SFA. The game's mechanics are almost exactly like Ocarina of Time's, the game that raised the bar on the standard for adventure games. The only thing that kind of annoyed me was the auto-lock on feature. For instance when you are fighting a group of enemies, instead of allowing you to lock-on to one enemy and switch to another if you want, the auto-lock on feature locks on to one enemy and will not switch to another enemy until you defeat the first one. But despite the annoyance, I got used to it fairly quick.
The graphics of the game are probably the most valuable and probably the most horrible thing about the game at the same time. Let me explain. The game itself is one of the most beautiful games graphically on the GameCube, ranking up there with Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader and Resident Evil. The game has beautiful and lush environments, made with a very vivid palette of colors. Most of the creatures in the game aren't blocky until they get up close. Luckily, Star Fox Adventures is enabled with Progressive Scan, which fixes this problem. The real-time lighting effects and the water and wind effects and awesome. The way Fox wades through water and the way the wind hits the trees in the game makes it very realistic-looking. Rare also added an amazing little graphical effect with Fox McCloud's fur. You can actually SEE his fur move as wind hits it and so forth. There aren't a lot of FMVs in the game, which I appreciate, since most of the time a lot of FMVs can ruin the fun of the game. Okay, so now to explain why the graphics department is so bad. The fact that Rare delayed the game about 5 or 6 times proves a lot went into this game, but unfortunately not enough. Several times throughout the game I experienced a graphical glitch in the game. Most of the time it happened while I was fighting a group of monsters, but sometimes it happened if I jumped from a really high point. The glitch was that I was like seeing through Tricky and he ran around while I fought. The glitch did not interfere with the mechanics or the speed of the game, it simply interfered with how I saw things that were going on.
The sound of Star Fox Adventures is excellent. Some of the background music for each environment is kind of plain, while others are top-notch. Like any game, the music plays an important role in a game. For instance if you are in a dungeon and must fight a group of SharpClaw, the music will change to a more "battle-like" music, then will change back to normal when you have defeated the creatures. In my opinion, I'd have to say the background music for the boss battles are the best in the game. The sound effects are appropriate for all actions in the game. The voice-acting in the game was done very well and was appropriate for each type of dinosaur. It should be noted though that at the beginning of the game, everybody speaks in Dinosaur Language and you will have to read the subtitles until Fox comes along. Probably the only annoying sound in the game is Tricky's constant talking while you traverse the world that is Dinosaur Planet.
In conclusion, I can probably describe this game with two words: rip off. The game is basically exactly like Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in almost every aspect. I mean, I can literally tell you that if you take Link out of OoT and replace him with a humanoid fox with a staff, that's basically Star Fox Adventures right there. Really the only thing SFA has going for it that Ocarina of Time did not have is the occasional flying missions. But despite the rip off appeal, and although the game may be rather short, it has tremendous replay value due it's rich and intriguing storyline. I should note that if it wasn't for the graphical glitch I mentioned earlier, I would have given this game a much higher score. Because of the fact that Rare delayed this game 5 or 6 times makes this glitch inexcusable. Also, I just cannot get over the fact of how stupid the names of the tribes are in SFA. I mean, "EarthWalker", "CloudRunner", how dumb is that? For as many years as Rare worked on this game and as inventive as I know they are, I know they could have made up something more creative than that. My only theory is that they made those up at the last minute. Either that, or the buyout deal was offered from Microsoft to Rare much earlier than any of us thought and as soon as Rare decided Star Fox Adventures was going to be their last Nintendo game, the developers got lazy and pushed most of their efforts into developing Xbox games. I can only hope that this was not the case.
My Score: 8.8 out of 10
Advantages: The first game where Fox McCloud steps out of his Arwing, beautiful graphics, great sound, tremendous replay value
Disadvantages: The first and last Rare game for Nintendo GameCube, several graphical glitches, really stupid tribe names, no multiplayer
