Golden Plains was another of Krystal's stages in Dinosaur Planet that was cut in the transition to Star Fox Adventures. It was an open desert area that Krystal and Kyte would have to trek through in order to reach the Desert Force Point Temple. It would be home to other interests, such as the spell page for the Portal ability required to open the way into the Desert Force Point, another jetbike race, and as well as Krystal's final Krazoa shrine test, the Test of Knowledge.

Golden Plains featured a unique mechanic in that Krystal's energy would be drained by visiting this area during the day because of the extreme heat, hence why the SpellStone guardian previously encountered at CloudRunner Fortress (who appears in Star Fox Adventures under the name of "Gradabug") warns her to instead travel at night when the sun is gone.

Golden Plains was removed in the final Star Fox Adventures, but some of its elements would remain: the Desert Force Point Temple was reworked into the Ocean Force Point Temple and would be now accessed through Cape Claw. The Ocean Force Point would even inherent Golden Plain's original background music. The Test of Knowledge would be moved over to the top of the temple in the Walled City and fittingly enough would be Fox's final true Krazoa test, although one more was planned in place of the General Scales "boss fight" in Krazoa Palace.

What exists as ThornTail Hollow in Star Fox Adventures was originally called SwapStone Hollow in Dinosaur Planet. It more or less functioned the same as it does in SFA, serving as the hub for Sabre's adventure, connecting his stages such as SnowHorn Wastes, Walled City, Diamond Bay, Willow Grove and Dragon Rock. It was where he'd utilize his namesake SwapStone, Rocky, to transport to Warlock Mountain to deposit Krazoa spirits.

ThornTail Hollow retains most of the same layout, but has noticeable differences: the shop that was originally situated underneath the SwapStone (now WarpStone, as the character swapping mechanic was dropped with Krystal's co-protagonist role scrapped) is now its own distinct establishment settled in the middle of the map. The winding series of tunnels right by the Swap/WarpStone has been replaced by the Mother ThornTail egg mini-game. The areas it was originally connected to such as Willow Grove, Walled City, Diamond Bay and Dragon Rock were either entirely removed or split off the mainland Dinosaur Planet in orbit. ThornTail Hollow also now leads into Moon Mountain Pass on the right side of the area, and what originally led to Willow Grove in the bottom left now leads into LightFoot Village.

What exists as LightFoot Village in Star Fox Adventures was originally merely a subarea in a greater location known as SwapStone Circle in Dinosaur Planet. This was essentially Krystal's equivalent to Sabre's SwapStone Hollow, acting as a hub for her adventure and thus connecting together her stages such as Cape Claw, BlackWater Canyon, Discovery Falls, Golden Plains and Moon Mountain Pass. It was also where she'd utilize her namesake SwapStone, Rubble, to transport to Warlock Mountain to deposit Krazoa spirits.

In the transition to Star Fox Adventures, when it was decided to scrap Krystal's co-protagonist role, thus leaving Fox as the only playable character outside of the prologue, Krystal's stages were either removed entirely or given to and reworked for Fox. SwapStone Circle as such would be heavily revamped, expunging the SwapStone element and heavily expanding the LightFoot Village mini-area into its own full distinct location. Similarly to Dinosaur Planet, the area would link to Cape Claw. It's worth noting that within the game files, LightFoot Village is internally called "SwapCircle", as ThornTail Hollow is similarly internally called "SwapHol", referencing their original names.

In Dinosaur Planet, Krystal and Kyte were tasked by the LightFoot to lit their ancient beacons that had gone out. Doing this in turn would reward them access to Discovery Falls. This quest would appear in the final Star Fox Adventures, but re-contextualized as the ThornTails in ThornTail Hollow asking for Fox and Tricky for help in reigniting their beacons, and doing so rewards them a key that let them access Moon Mountain Pass, as well as the Volcano Force Point Temple.

One of the enemies Sabre and Krystal would encounter in Dinosaur Planet were these robotic Scorpion-like automatons, typically found in Krazoa-build strongholds such as the Force Point Temples and Cape Claw. While removed in the final Star Fox Adventures, they could still be found hidden within the E3 2002 kiosk version via hacking.

Found within the files of Star Fox Adventures is an unused audio track for the WarpStone's introduction cutscene, which also includes verbal dialogue. This was clearly an earlier version before Rare had done a voice-acting retake.

Most notably, the music that plays in the background is a remnant from Dinosaur Planet, from the scene where Krystal first arrives in SwapStone Circle and thus meets her respective SwapStone, Rubble. In the final Star Fox Adventures, music performed by bagpipes is played instead in this particular cutscene.

The floating planetoid representing CloudRunner Fortress on the world map screen in Star Fox Adventures very clearly resembles its original, rockier iteration from the Nintendo 64 version of Dinosaur Planet, as opposed to its remodeled look in the final Star Fox Adventures.

In the original Dinosaur Planet, Krystal would come across a pachycephalosaurid dinosaur at CloudRunner Fortress, who is revealed to be one of the SpellStone guardians, who also gives Krystal the Illusion spellpage to bypass the SharpClaw guards within the dungeon. In-game hints and task summaries reveal him to be of the "BoneHead" tribe.

This individual would appear in the final Star Fox Adventures, with his role slightly rewritten as the chief engineer at CloudRunner Fortress (The Queen CloudRunner took over his original role as the SpellStone Gatekeeper for this area). Talking to him in a cutscene will reveal his name to be "Gradabug". While not mentioned anywhere in-game, the Star Fox Adventures Nintendo Power guidebook reaffirms him belonging to the BoneHead tribe.

Contrary to popular belief, General Scales was never actually intended to be the primary antagonist and final boss of Dinosaur Planet, even before the transition to Star Fox Adventures, which jammed in Andross in the climax. That role would belong to Drakor, who appears in the final Star Fox Adventures as a turret boss in Dragon Rock.

Drakor's original backstory was that he belonged to an ancient race of alien dragons known as the Kamerians, that existed in the early days of the universe along with another race known as the Krazoa. The two races had a big intergalactic war with each other that nearly destroyed the galaxy and it ended above orbit of what would eventually be known as Sauria, the Dinosaur Planet, with the Krazoa narrowingly winning. One of the last great war dragons was killed in battle and its body fell onto the planet's surface, and it became something of a god figure to Sauria's dinosaur inhabitants who spawned right around the same time.

Drakor, recently banished by his people who deemed him a threat to their society, became aware that the Kamerian dragon, now reduced into a heart, was on Sauria, so he invaded and helped General Scales and the SharpClaw by providing them advanced weapons and technology so that they could take over the planet and also its Force Point Temples, as they planned on channeling all of Sauria's magical energies and pumping it into the Kamerian heart within Dragon Rock, which would revive it and allow Drakor to destroy the planet and gain ultimate revenge on the Krazoa, who still dwelled there in stasis lock.

The twist was that, despite obviously his methods involving genocide and conquest, Drakor was actually trying to save the galaxy in his own way: The Krazoa themselves were also revealed to be actually extremely evil. As they go back in time to the time of the Great War in Krazoa Palace, Krystal and Kyte discover that the Krazoa were the ones who started the Great War against the Kamerians, because the latter didn't wish to be ruled by them and their god, the "Quan Ata Lachu". They manipulated Sabre and Krystal into finding each of the Quan Ata Lachu spirits hidden away in their shrines/test and depositing them at Warlock Mountain, planning on aligning the Majestic Eight planets their home world Animus and Dinosaur Planet belong to, promising that it will bring "peace" to the universe, when in reality they want nothing more than to set it into flames and remold it into their image/liking, spreading disease, terror and chaos as they please.

The final Star Fox Adventures game saw all of this scrapped in favor of Andross as the main antagonist. Drakor would be repurposed as a subordinate of General Scales, a mutant bioweapon that dwells within Dragon Rock as the guardian of the one of the SpellStones Fox (who similarly replaced both Sabre and Krystal as the main playable character) must collect. The Krazoa were more or less condensed into the Quan Ata Lachu spirits Fox must also collect, and also essentially replaced the Kamerian Heart as the deities the inhabitants of Dinosaur Planet worship.

As mentioned before, Andross' spirit would fulfill Drakor's original role as the manipulator behind General Scales and the SharpClaw's uprising, and would also fill in for the Krazoa's role, posing as one as he manipulates Fox into finding the Krazoa Spirits in promise of rescuing Krystal from her prison atop of Krazoa Palace (which was reworked from DP's Warlock Mountain), all of which results in his resurrection as the game's final boss.

Star Fox Adventures was at one point called "Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet". This name referenced both original incarnations of the game, Rare's "Dinosaur Planet" and also Nintendo EAD's "Star Fox Adventures" that was in development around the same time; both ended up being merged into the same project, hence the original title, though sometime before release, the "Dinosaur Planet" subtitle was dropped, leaving the final game named as just Star Fox Adventures.

Curiously, when looking at Star Fox Adventures save data on a GCN memory card, it actually includes its original "Dinosaur Planet" subtitle. This also carries over to the Wii's GameCube data card management menu.

Many fans today recognize Star Fox Adventure's Shopkeeper's name as "Shabunga". However, the game's development team never intended the Shopkeeper character to have a name, even as far back when it was still Dinosaur Planet.

"Shabunga" was initially the name of a cut NPC character from Dinosaur Planet, a mutant creature that Sabre/Fox and Tricky would come across in an area known as Willow Grove, the bridge between SwapStone Hollow (ThornTail Hollow in SFA) and Dragon Rock, which was becoming a strange and mutated land as a result of General Scales' and Drakor's actions within the latter area, which was also mutating its inhabitants. As such, Shabunga, and supposedly other mutants according to the Dinosaur Planet condensed story (though none appear in the leaked December 2000 build) were cast off and sealed away within Willow Grove by the ThornTails that lived in SwapStone Hollow, frightened by their now warped appearances.

This mutant character was said to be an alchemist and also one of the SpellStone guardians, and thus was required to revitalize General Scales' Kamerian Belt (or "Krazoa Star" as Shabunga puts it), to allow Sabre and Tricky to enter the mutated wasteland Dragon Rock unharmed, and would later be required activate the SpellStone acquired from defeating Dragon Rock's boss, the Kamerian Heart.

With Willow Grove removed in the final game, Shabunga would appear in SFA as an enemy type known as the "FireCrawler" that appears in Moon Mountain Pass and also all over Dragon Rock. His role as the SpellStone GateKeeper of Dragon Rock would then be given to a generic quiet ThornTail that resides in ThornTail Hollow.

Curiously, SFA's Nintendo Power guidebook and also official English website would both re-appropriate the mutant's name to the Shopkeeper, claiming his name to be "Shabunga", despite the actual game just merely referring to him as the Shopkeeper. It turns out there's a reason for this: looking at the Japanese localization for Star Fox Adventures, it appears that NCL did indeed repurpose the "Shabunga" name behind Rare's back for the Shopkeeper as he's called that both in-game and also all over its ancillary material. For example, in the Japanese version of SFA, the ThornTail Store is renamed to シャブンガの店 (Shabunga no mise), which translates to Shabunga's Shop in English.

Another notable example is when Fox is talking to the Blue SnowHorn in SnowHorn Wastes; in the English version, the latter has this to say:


Retranslating the Japanese subtitles in the Japanese version of the game, however, reveals:


It would seem that whoever wrote the Nintendo Power SFA guide was given the memo about this.

Star Fox Adventures began development as Dinosaur Planet, which originally began development as a direct sequel to Diddy Kong Racing, starring Timber the Tiger (who himself was intended as the main character of DKR when it was Pro-Am 64, before Donkey Kong characters were incorporated into it). It was pitched as an adventure/racing hybrid where Timber, equipped with a rucksack, little fingerless gloves, and a baseball cap would go back in time and team up with a younger version of Tricky, a boss from the first DKR. Wizpig, the main antagonist and final boss of the first Diddy Kong Racing, was also involved. It would seem a working title for this iteration of the game was "Dino Island", going by several posts on former Rare employee Ed Bryan's Twitter account.

Eventually it was decided to rework the concept into an entirely new original IP with no story connections to DKR and two new main characters, named Sabre and Krystal, and also make it a full-on action-adventure game directly inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. DP/SFA's various racing segments are said to be remnants of the original DKR successor concept, and while he retained the name of the DKR boss (something Rare seems to regret), Tricky would wind up becoming his own distinct character. Several files within DP/SFA's data also mention Timber, obviously a remnant from when he was the star.

Sabre and Krystal were in turn eventually replaced by Fox McCloud as the main playable character when the game was rebranded into what we know today as Star Fox Adventures, though Tricky would remain as his sidekick and Krystal would remain as a main character.

Star Fox Adventures primarily takes place on a planet filled with dinosaurs known simply as "Dinosaur Planet". It would return or be referenced in future games like Star Fox Assault and Star Fox Command, as well as "Star Fox Zero - The Battle Begins", a promotional anime released to commemorate the release of Star Fox Zero, but it would instead be referred to with a different name: "Sauria".

It turns out Rare had always intended Dinosaur Planet's real name to be Sauria, as leaked voice clips from the implied climax of the original Nintendo 64 Dinosaur Planet feature the Krazoa mentioning the name as they begin the alignment of the "Majestic Eight" planets to wreak havoc on the universe using the power of their god, the Quan Ata Lachu. An edition of "Ask Uncle Tusk" on Rare's old website revealed Dinosaur Planet's name to be Sauria as well.

While merely referred to as the King EarthWalker in the final Star Fox Adventures, voice clips from Dinosaur Planet on the Nintendo 64 indicate that he was intended to have a name: "Albada". Both the Queen EarthWalker and Sabre have voice clips that refer to him as such.

Dinosaur Planet was originally meant to have eight collectible Krazoa spirits, four for Sabre and four for Krystal, and each of these spirits would be obtained by each character finding various Krazoa shrines found throughout their respective maps, each containing a challenge or trial testing their abilities or even character. Sabre would partake in the Tests of Strength, Skill, Magic and Sacrifice while Krystal would partake in the Tests of Combat, Character, Fear and Knowledge.

In the final Star Fox Adventures game, this was cut down to only six Krazoa spirits and shrines for Fox to find, with only five of them even being proper tests, those being the Tests of Skill (renamed to Observation), Combat, Fear, Strength and Knowledge. The final "test" is a rather anti-climatic "boss fight" with General Scales, which is interrupted by Andross forcing Scales to hand over the last Krazoa spirit. Unused voice clips and also hints found within the 2002 E3 SFA kiosk, as well as comments from SFA developers on Rare's scribes, indicate that the dev team planned on General Scales having a true boss fight: essentially a rematch against his flying galleon like in the game's prologue, though instead of playing as Krystal flying on the CloudRunner, it'd likely would have been Fox in his Arwing.

As such, looking at internal files for SFA (as well as its E3 2002 kiosk), Rare had also intended on there being one final true test: the Test of Sacrifice, which fittingly enough was Sabre's final test in Dinosaur Planet and its overall final spirit in general. In both versions of the game, it would have involved Sabre or Fox having to "sacrifice" themselves in order to save an apparition of Tricky. Unused hint texts found within the E3 2002 kiosk heavily imply that Fox would have partaken in the Test of Sacrifice right where the General Scales encounter is today, before he freed Krystal from her prison at the top of Krazoa Palace and also before fighting Andross, who he unknowingly resurrected by releasing all of the Krazoa spirits. The music track that was (as revealed by the leak Dinosaur Planet N64 ROM) intended for the Test of Sacrifice even appears as an unused track found within SFA's sound test, and there's also unused voice clips of Tricky begging Fox for help that very likely pertain to this test. Both of these indicates that this was a very late cut.

Internally, the General Scales "boss fight" shrine is referred to as "nwshrine", which adds up considering that the Test of Sacrifice was meant to be found by Sabre at the Northern Wastes (now now as SnowHorn Wastes) in Dinosaur Planet.

One of the most notable cuts in terms of characters going from Dinosaur Planet to Star Fox Adventures was the character of Randorn the Wizard.

Randorn, along with his two children Sabre and Krystal (biological and adopted respectively), all came from a planet named Animus that comprised of two warring tribes: the Wolvens (that Randorn and Sabre belonged to) and the Vixons (which Krystal belonged to). As the leader of the Wolvens, Randorn had another older son (thus Sabre's older brother) that he sent into battle against the Vixons, only for him to end up killed. Overwhelmed with grief and guilt, Randorn abandoned his tribe and Sabre, and proceeded to go on a murderous rampage, destroying any and all Vixon tribes he came across with his magic.

That was, until he came across an orphaned six year Vixon child. Realizing the monster he became, and also feeling guilt about killing her parents, he adopted the child and named her Krystal, raising her as his own daughter. After several years of exploring the woods together, Randorn and Krystal would eventually come across a hidden temple with a technological device known as the "communication chamber", and from there they received an SOS from the King EarthWalker from a world known as Dinosaur Planet, asking for their help against General Scales and the SharpClaw who have begun to take over the planet. Wishing to atone for his past transgressions, Randorn ordered Krystal to find his son Sabre and then jumped into the swirling vortex that teleported him to Dinosaur Planet, where he battled General Scales only to get mortally wounded, now only barely being kept alive by the magical energies of Warlock Mountain. He leaves Sabre and Krystal behind a message, saying that they must come to Dinosaur Planet and rescue Prince Tricky of the EarthWalkers and Princess Kyte of the CloudRunners from the SharpClaw, who plan on making their respective tribes fight and blame each other.

For the rest of the game, he would reside at Warlock Mountain, and the player would visit him every time they had to return with a Krazoa spirit, sometimes giving advice and also magic energy in case the player is running out. According to the leaked condensed story, the player would eventually have to make a choice to save the dying Randorn by planting MoonSeeds in special locations. If they do, he'd be brought back to health and have a "special surprise" for Sabre and Krystal. There doesn't seem to be any sign of this feature in the leaked December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet, possibly indicating that this was scrapped.

The aformentioned December 2000 Dinosaur Planet build, which already was beginning to incorporate Fox McCloud as a replacement for Sabre into the game, suggests that Rare actually at least experimented with keeping Randorn in the game even with the new focus on Star Fox, down to creating new voice overs and rewriting the dialogue to suggest that Randorn was previously friends with the McClouds, even expressing guilt over not going along with the original Star Fox team to their investigation of Venom that led to James' death at the hands of Andross and Pigma (Randorn even directly mentions the latter, claiming that he suspected he was a traitor all along). Concept art recently provided by the game's director, Lee Schuneman, would provide further backstory and context for this draft of the game: Randorn and Krystal were rewritten as Cornerian agents that got trapped on Sauria and General Pepper made a request for Fox and his team to rescue them, and Fox then reveals that Randorn was both Fox and James' mentor, teaching them everything they knew about flying and fighting.

Unfortunately, Randorn would end up being removed entirely in the final Star Fox Adventures game.

DarkIce Mines, the first SpellStone area in Star Fox Adventures, was another area that was more complex in design in earlier iterations of the game than in comparison to the final release. The leaked December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet showed that the lower underground mines portion of DarkIce Mines was meant to have an extra set of puzzle rooms on the right side of the map that would wound up connecting back to the waterfall room. These extra areas were also present in the E3 2002 kiosk for Star Fox Adventures, suggesting that they were very late cuts, very likely as the development team was being crunched to get the game out in time of the Microsoft buyout in late 2002, similar to what happened with Dragon Rock.

In Star Fox Adventures, the boss of Walled City is known simply as the RedEye King. However, the leaked December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet indicates that he was meant to have a name: "Klanadack".

Oddly enough, earlier on, after the battle with Galdon (or "Galadon" as he's called in the December 2000 build) in DarkIce Mines, when Sabre/Fox and Tricky return to Garunda Te with the SpellStone, he tells them he forgot to inform them about the "CLANNAD-ack" and how he managed to freeze him in a waterfall a few years prior, obviously referring to Galdon/Galadon. While spelled differently, it's pronounced the same as "Klanadack", which makes it seems like it was meant to be Galdon or Galadon's name before it was repurposed for the RedEye King in this particular build.

Star Fox Adventures has (to say the least) a pretty infamous scene where Fox McCloud, upon visiting the rooftop of Krazoa Palace for the first time, sees the imprisoned and unconscious Krystal and becomes immediately infatuated with her at first sight, all while romantic saxophone music plays in the background.

According to the game's composer, David Wise, the saxophone music was a satirical tongue-in-cheek reference and nod to the Love Theme from the film "Blade Runner", which was composed by Vangelis. The music itself is a remix of the theme that was originally composed for Discovery Falls, an area from Dinosaur Planet that was cut in the transition to Star Fox Adventures, and thus can now be heard in Cape Claw in the final game.

The SpellStones and Force Point Temples served a difference purpose lore-wise in Dinosaur Planet than in Star Fox Adventures. After their intergalactic war with the Kamerians, the weakened Krazoa settled on Dinosaur Planet (Sauria), which housed the universe’s richest magical energy. To heal and enter stasis for the next billion of years, they built the Force Point Temples to concentrate this energy, which the dinosaurs later used to power their world.

Following the fall of the last great Kamerian war dragon on Sauria, the SpellStone Guardians were formed to protect the SpellStones. If the planet was threatened, these Guardians were to place the SpellStones into the Temples to shut down magic extraction. Drakor, a surviving Kamerian, plotted to seek vengence against the Krazoa and revive his ancestor using Sauria’s magic by aiding General Scales and the SharpClaw with advanced tech, enabling them to take control of the Temples and funnel the energy into the Kamerian heart at Dragon Rock. Sabre and Krystal’s goal was to retrieve and activate the SpellStones to stop this.

Early concepts included five guardians:

• Garunda Te, the leader of the SnowHorn Tribe.
• Shabunga, the Willow Grove mutant.
• The leader of the ShadowHunter Tribe from BlackWater Canyon.
• Two unknown guardians found with in the Walled City and CloudRunner Fortress.

By the December 2000 build, this was reduced to four:

•Garunda Te
•Shabunga
•King EarthWalker (aka "Albada")
•A BoneHead (or "Gradabug" as he's called in Star Fox Adventures) imprisoned within CloudRunner Fortress

By this point, the ShadowHunters were rewritten as mere scavengers within BlackWater Canyon, and Krystal was to use the Tree of Souls to activate the area's SpellStone instead. Her final SpellStone at Krazoa Palace would require time travel, as it had disappeared due to several tears in time and space occurring because of the huge quantity of magic energy being extracted.

In Star Fox Adventures's version of the story. The Krazoa still built the Temples and SpellStones, but now to prevent dark magic from tearing the planet apart. General Scales stole the SpellStones and returned them to the lands they were forged in (DarkIce Mines, CloudRunner Fortress, Walled City, Dragon Rock), breaking the planet into floating pieces. The Guardians became “GateKeepers,” charged with opening portals to these lands:

• Garunda Te, retaining his role from Dinosaur Planet.
• The Queen CloudRunner, taking over the BoneHead/Gradabug's intended role.
• The King EarthWalker, retaining his role from Dinosaur Planet.
• A generic quiet ThornTail, taking over Shabunga's intended role.

Fox’s mission was to locate the GateKeepers, use their power to reach the floating lands via the Arwing, retrieve the SpellStones, and return them to the Temples to restore the planet. These changes were likely done to justify including Arwing segments in the otherwise adventure gameplay framework established by Dinosaur Planet.

The music track that currently plays in Dragon Rock in Star Fox Adventures was originally intended for the Walled City in Dinosaur Planet.

Dragon Rock originally just featured eerie sounding ambience for background music in Dinosaur Planet. In Star Fox Adventures, Walled City now shares the same stage music with LightFoot Village.