"...the main problem of Adventures, it has no idea who to appeal to."
However, Star Fox Adventure is an interesting case, seeing as it was never a Star Fox game to begin with. During the early stages of development, Star Fox Adventures was actually called Dinosaur Planet, and didn't have Nintendo's futuristic fox, but rather had other characters, with its main character strongly resembling Fox. So, why was this changed? Well, this was not Rare's choice, but our own favourite man of Nintendo, Shigeru Miyamoto. After reviewing the content for Dinosaur Planet, Miyamoto suggested changing Dinosaur Planet into a Star Fox game and they did. The game was originally being developed for the Nintendo 64 and it looked great, however, development was switched to the Nintendo GameCube once Miyamoto meddled with the game. Nonetheless, many people find it difficult to even label it a Star Fox game.
The plot, to begin with anyway, follows a blue female fox called Krystal. She's following a distress signal from a place called Krazoa Palace. On her way, she comes across an airship that decides to attack her, as it seems to be a hybrid of a dinosaur and a pirate ship. As a result, she loses her magical staff, which holds incredible powers, by the way. When she defeats the ship, she decides to go aboard. She then meets General Scales, the main antagonist of the game, who throws her off the ship. However, she is saved by a CloudRunner, a type of dinosaur in the game. She finally reaches Krazoa Palace, where several EarthWalker dinosaurs have been defeated. After wandering through the Palace, she comes in contact with a Krazoa Spirit, which must be taken to a certain spot to be stored away in the Palace and resides in her until you reach said spot. However, once the spirit is stored, Krystal is put in a – ironically – a crystal.
After that ordeal in the Krazoa Palace, you finally get to see what we all wanted to see – Fox McCloud! The crew – minus Falco, who isn't around – is on a course for Dinosaur Planet, after General Pepper informs him that he now has a new job to investigate the planet while unarmed. Dinosaur Planet is on the edge of Lylat System and it seems to be falling apart – literally. Fox, of course, finds the plot device known as Krystal's magical staff and knows how to use it fairly quickly. He comes across the EarthWalker Queen, who tells you that her son has been taken by SharpClaws, underlings of General Scales. Fox sets out to find the EarthWalker Prince, also known as Tricky. When you finally save Tricky and bring him back to the Queen, she reveals why the planet is falling apart. It is then your job to return Dinosaur Planet to its original state and defeat General Scales.
As soon as you set foot in Star Fox Adventures, you may realise something – you're on the ground. Yes, you were just in the air, but now, you're on the ground. This is when the average Star Fox fan would put down the control and simply ponder "Why? Why are they doing this?" This is when you realise that this Star Fox game doesn't really represent Star Fox at all, but rather The Legend of Zelda. This, however, was not Miyamoto's decision, but rather Rare. Judging from footage you can see of the original development of the game, Dinosaur Planet was set out to be similar in Zelda, but have the Rare charm – yet this charm vanished when Star Fox came into the picture. It should also be noted that there isn't even much flying in Star Fox Adventures at all, you're mainly on the ground and most of the time you wish that you were always flying in the Arwing, but no, you have to play a Zelda-esque game that somewhat tarnishes what Star Fox was in the first place.
With Star Fox Adventures being like a Zelda game, this means that the ground combat is also similar, but when you start to actually fight something, you start to wonder why the actions your performing wasn't in a Zelda game. When using the staff in combat, Fox is far more aerodynamic than our elf-boy. There are several combinations of attacks and it gives the player several ways to defeat their enemies. On top of that, when fighting an enemy, you can also see their health, meaning that you know when you're going to take them out. Some attacks completely nail an enemy, while others are more safe and cautious. Fox can also flip around; giving you the ability to dodge attacks and you may also block the attacks with your staff or with a magical shield that's infused with the staff.
Speaking of the staff, over the course of them game, you acquire abilities for the staff some of them that you use nearly constantly, such as the fireball and some that you use if you want to exterminate enemies, such as the freeze-thrower. You acquire other great powers, such as a booster ability that you use in certain spots and a miniature earthquake that is used for fighting larger enemies that you encounter later in the game. You're also given an ability to disguise yourself as a SharpClaw, somewhat of an odd ability that's imbued in an ancient staff. It's a great ability if you want to escape conflict or if you want to beat the as fast as possible. However, while disguised, you can't fight, so be careful about what you do.
In order to continue going through the game, you must get to the broken off sections of the planet and find what broke it off in the first place. How do you get to them, you may ask? Well, you do what any Star Fox fan would want to do – fly! These are the sections that you would want to play over and over again, but they actually get in the way of what you're supposed to be doing.
The flying sections are fun and engaging, but over the course of the game, you find that they actually get in the way of what you're actually supposed to be doing, which is kind of an odd thing. When we're still given the authentic experience of the franchise as a whole, we just see it as an annoyance. There's no challenge to these sections either, unless you're quite careless. The flying sections of the game reminds you of why you like the series in the first place, but when it's in the way of what you should be doing, you'd just wish it would show an animation of the Arwing flying to the planet. Another thing that seems so odd is that in order to go to another planet, you must acquire a certain amount of power cells, which even puts you off the road you're supposed to be following.
Another oddity of Adventures is the Shop System. Yes, there's a shop in this game and over the course of the game, you'll find that you'll need it less and less. There aren't many moments when you need the shop, but it seems to be there when you've acquired too much money and will just give you something to do. The currency of the game is in scarabs – yes, those insects that you'll usually see associated with Egypt. While the shop system seems to be something you won't use much, it does have some useful items, such as maps to areas you will go to. Something that is interesting about buying things is that you can bargain with the shopkeeper to purchase the item for a cheaper price. You can also gamble, but this also seems like such a waste, but if you have nothing else to do, you might as well do it.
Over the course of the game, you'll find that Tricky becomes useful, using him to dig holes in the ground to find objects that replenish your health or revive you from where you currently are. Other than that, he's useful for solving puzzles, making him stay on buttons that you need to complete said puzzle or use his fire breath. The puzzles of the game are also quite annoying, but they're short and easy, meaning that you won't have to constantly keep performing the same mundane tasks. However, this continues to remind the player that you're basically playing a Zelda game and to be honest, a Zelda game like this would be great, but we're playing a Star Fox title, not a Zelda title.
Krazoa Spirits are also eccentric to the plot and you will come across a few of them during the game. Once you deliver your first one as Fox, he will see Krystal in the, well, crystal and see that he's taken a liking to her and to free her, he must find all of them. So, once you find a Krazoa Spirit, you'd think you have to do something cool to acquire it, but you actually have to go through a couple of puzzles in order to get it. While this doesn't seem like as hassle at first, you'll find that these puzzles become boring and, like the flying sections, they interrupt the general flow of the game. These puzzles range to finding it in a barrel, like a Mario Party minigame or a quick time event, like God of War. Both ways, this break the games flow and when you lose, you have to go back through the rooms you went through to get to the Spirit. It's even possible to die on these sections and that makes the situation even more tedious than it already was.
At the end of each broken part of the planet, you have to fight a boss, just as you would in Zelda and to be fair; this is when the game starts to get really engaging. Each boss looks awesome, especially the first boss, which looks like an insect-dinosaur hybrid that is truly intimidating. Boss battles are great fun and these are the notable sections where Tricky isn't used because he's essentially useless in these sections. One noteworthy boss is one that you fight in the air, within possibly the largest underground section in videogame history. You have to apply your skills from the section you just completed into this boss battle, which is odd, seeing as past boss battles give you time to apply your newly found abilities. Regardless, the Boss battles are great fun and will keep the player engaged throughout the fight.
Now, despite being a Zelda clone, Star Fox Adventures did bring in some very interesting elements, such as riding a Jet Ski on snow to take down SharpClaws by running into them, making them explode into pure nothingness. The music is also very nice, especially when you're in combat or against a boss. The voice acting is relatively decent and the Dinosaur language seems interesting, but is however downplayed thanks to the Google Translate system General Pepper gives you. The story, while nothing spectacular, keeps the player from complaining about the boring Star Fox plot of old, which is basically "Kill Andross, save planet". What Rare tried to give us is a new Star Fox experience, but it was overly considered to be the game that killed the franchise altogether.
In the end, Star Fox Adventures is a relatively decent game and it tries to appeal to an audience that wants a wider variety of gameplay from the Star Fox universe, but all this game tells its audience is to play the older titles to give you the true Star Fox experience. The flying sections are unfortunate to play because the feel of the Adventures is simply tarnished by it, and if little ground sections were put in the older titles, they would tarnish the feel of those games and that's the main problem of Adventures, it has no idea who to appeal to. As Rare's last effort on a Nintendo home console, this doesn't feel like that game we longed for, but it's a good game regardless. Perhaps one day Rare will come back to Nintendo and perhaps one day, Star Fox will get the game he needs to revitalise the series.