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.

Fichina, the ice planet that was introduced in Star Fox 64, is infamously erroneously called Fortuna in the English version of the game. Fortuna was previously the name of the jungle planet from Star Fox on SNES filled with monstrous and primordial creatures. It was also infamously dubbed "the Dinosaur Planet", years before the Star Fox series would incorporate another Dinosaur Planet with Star Fox Adventures.

However, looking through leaked SF64 files from the Gigaleak, there does seem to be evidence that Nintendo dubbed Fichina as Fortuna for most of SF64's development, only to change the name to Fichina at the tail end of it. Almost all of the source code refers to it as Fortuna, and the internal file system has “FO” appended to all of the stage’s assets. The image file Nintendo provided for the stage name to be translated is also labeled FO_E_FO. With the decision to rename it to Fichina seemingly being a last minute one, it's possible Nintendo of America were not brought up to speed by Nintendo's Japanese branch of this lore change when they were originally localizing SF64.

Nonetheless, Nintendo has since firmly established Fichina and Fortuna (as it was in the SNES game) as being their own distinct planets, with both appearing together in Star Fox: Assault and Star Fox Zero. Strangely, in the former game, Fortuna's Japanese name フォーチュナ (Fōchuna) was slightly modified to フォーチュナー (Fōchunā), which would translate into "Fortuner" in English.

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 Assault was actually informally announced in May 2002, several months before its predecessor, Star Fox Adventures, would actually hit store shelves.

In May 2002, Namco and Nintendo announced that that they would be collaborating on several GameCube games, one of which being a new Star Fox game in the same vein as Star Fox SNES and Star Fox 64. Nothing else was revealed except for a tentative logo (dubbed at the time as "Star Fox GC") and poster, and the fact that it would be developed by the same team within Namco who worked on the Ace Combat series. This turned out to be not true, as the final game was developed by different Namco employees at the time, with Tsuyoshi Kobayashi as the producer, Toshiyuki Nakanishi as the All-Range Mode director, and Yutaka Yoshida as the Battle Mode director.

During the development of Star Fox Adventures, Nintendo considered re-releasing Star Fox 64 for GameCube, likely as a pre-order bonus similar to how The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was re-released with the first ever release of "Ura Zelda" or Master Quest as a pre-order bonus for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

Star Fox character designer Takaya Imamura illustrated the back boxart of Star Fox Adventures for its Japanese release. Notably, it's one of the first notable instances of Fox's head being drawn with a more stylized, Noh Kitstune mask look, as opposed to the more animalistic proportions he had in-game and also in prior installments such as Star Fox on SNES and Star Fox 64. This design has often been described by certain fans, often in a derogatory manner, as a "bellhead", due to it being somewhat shaped like a bell.

Star Fox Command would be the first time Fox would sport this head design in-game, and it would go on to influence his appearances in later Super Smash Bros. games and to a certain extent, Star Fox Zero.

The Aparoids are unique in Star Fox's rogue gallery in that they're the only main enemy forces, at least within the official game canon (which includes "Farewell Beloved Falco", the manga interlude between Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures) to have absolutely no connections or ties to Andross whatsoever:

• In Farewell Beloved Falco, Captain Shears, despite being affiliated with the Cornerian army, was revealed to be a turncoat seeking to revive Andross through cloning.

• In Star Fox Adventures, General Scales and the SharpClaw were revealed to be the unwilling pawns of Andross' ghost, who manipulated them as well as Fox to revive himself using the power of the Krazoa.

• In Star Fox Command, the Emperor Anglar and his Anglar Army are revealed to be bioweapons created by Andross in secret within Venom's acidic oceans.

In particular, the Aparoid Queen is the only final boss in all of the Star Fox series to either not just be Andross again (Star Fox, Star Fox 2, Star Fox 64/Star Fox 64 3D, Star Fox Adventures, Star Fox Zero), nor a creation of his (Star Fox Command).

In a 2002 interview with Takaya Imamura regarding Star Fox Adventures, in which he explains his reasoning for having the characters age over the eight years since Star Fox 64, Imamura had this to say:


Funnily enough, four years later, the "Goodbye Fox" ending in Star Fox Command shows Fox McCloud and Krystal settling down and having a son named Marcus, who then goes on to form an all new Star Fox team, comprising of Slippy's son, Peppy's granddaughter, and even Falco Lombardi, who takes Peppy's place as the older mentor of this new team.

Outside of Tricky, the two dinosaur species from Star Fox Adventures that reappear (as corpses infected by the Aparoids) in Star Fox Assault's Sauria mission are of the ThornTail and HighTop tribes.

Strangely, while the ThornTails are mostly faithful enough to their Star Fox Adventures models, the HighTops differ, primarily in skin pattern and coloration, being presented as green in Assault as opposed to yellow/beige in Adventures.

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 English manual and prologue for Star Fox Adventures implies a bigger backstory for Krystal, in that she's the sole remaining survivor of her doomed home planet, "Cerinia", and that she's been roaming the galaxy in search of answers for the truth of her family's death, until she receives a distress call from Dinosaur Planet. With how the manual states that Krystal "may finally be drawing closer to the truth" behind her parents' and planet's destruction, it seems Rare was loosely implying that Andross, who turns out to be the real villain of Star Fox Adventures and thus the culprit behind Dinosaur Planet's woes, was responsible for Cerinia's destruction. Krystal even says "It's you!" right before Andross imprisons her in the crystal at the top of Krazoa Palace.

However, it would seem the Japanese localization for Star Fox Adventures would completely eschew this backstory, removing all mention of Cerinia and as well as Krystal's dead parents. The Japanese prologue was even heavily simplified to this:


The Japanese website even states that "it is not known what her purpose is", which flies directly in the face of Rare's original story for her, that explicitly states that she was searching for the truth of Cerinia's destruction. To add more insult to injury, there isn't even any Japanese subtitle presented when Krystal gets knocked into the crystal by Andross in Krazoa Palace.

Curiously, the Japanese localization of Star Fox Adventures also heavily emphasizes Krystal having telepathic abilities, much more so than in the English version. This is noteworthy because neither Star Fox Assault or Star Fox Command, the next two story follows up to Star Fox Adventures that were developed and written in Japan, made any sort of mention of Cerinia. Star Fox Assault however would hugely emphasize her telepathic abilities, and its manual even describe Krystal the same way the Japanese version of Star Fox Adventures does, just as "a mysterious telepathic woman". This also applies to her trophies in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U that once again make no reference to Cerinia. It's very clear that the developers and writers behind Assault, Command and Smash Bros. in Japan were using the Japanese version of Star Fox Adventures as a reference, as opposed to the English version.

All in all, it would seem Nintendo of Japan had their own differing vision of what Krystal's character was from Rare, that being mostly just as a telepathic woman with a mysterious background, as opposed to Rare's original backstory of her being the lone survivor of her kind.

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 features many smaller, transitional puzzle areas between the main areas, obviously a way for the game to mask loading times to create the illusion of a seamless world. This is primarily noticeable on the mainland Dinosaur Planet itself.

One of these transitional areas, within CloudRunner Fortress, was cut between the E3 2002 kiosk and the final game, presumably because of time constraints with the impending Microsoft buyout in September 2002. It was meant to bridge the top CloudRunner Fortress map with the area where Fox would have to race against the SharpClaws on the jetbikes to acquire the area's SpellStone. Fox would enter by climbing down a series of ladders and then run through a storage room of some kind with conveyor belts, and then from there he'd encounter General Scales and some SharpClaw who are trying to steal the SpellStone.

This was scrapped in the final game, where Fox instead falls down a long ladder through a cutscene and, then after cutting to black, is then rather awkwardly plopped right in the middle of the room prior to where he encounters General Scales and the SharpClaw.

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.

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).

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

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.

All in all, it would seem that the entire Star Fox chronology, at least as it was presented from Star Fox 64 to Star Fox Command, spans roughly 20 years.

Star Fox 64's whole backstory take place across 10 years, beginning with Andross' banishment to Venom and then James' death/betrayal on Venom five years later, and the events of Star Fox 64 taking place another five years later after that. The Japan-only "Farewell Beloved Falco" Manga, the canonical manga follow up to Star Fox 64 and prelude to Star Fox Adventures, would take place four years later, and SFA would take place another four years later after that. Star Fox Assault takes place one year after the events of SFA, and Star Fox Command was said to take place a vague 2-3 years after the events of Assault. This would amount to overall roughly 21-22 years.

Prior to his days as Star Fox's ace pilot, Falco Lombardi was originally a member of a space gang known as "FREE AS A BIRD". Katt Monroe was part of this gang as well. In a 2011 Nintendo Dream interview, Takaya Imamura revealed that when Fox was forming his new Star Fox team in the wake of James' death, he heard stories about how good a pilot Falco was as apart of FREE AS A BIRD, and visited him multiple times to try to convince him to join his new team, as he wanted to have an experienced partner due to still being unsure of himself as a leader.

Though originally mentioned in the background lore for the Japanese version of Star Fox 64, FREE AS A BIRD in its entirety would physically appear in "Farewell Beloved Falco", a canonical manga interquel set between Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures that was never localized outside of Japan.

The name "FREE AS A BIRD" is a reference to the song of the same name composed by English rock band The Beatles. This adds up as both Takaya Imamura and Shigeru Miyamoto were reportedly big fans of the band, with General Pepper's design and name also being a reference to their album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".

Star Fox, Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures are the only Star Fox titles to provide official ages for the main characters, primarily within their Japanese ancillary material. In the Original Soundtrack box released for the first game, Fox, Falco, Peppy and Slippy are said to be 25, 28, 36 and 19 respectively. Star Fox 64, being a remake of the first game, would retcon these ages and make Fox 18, Falco 19, Peppy 41 and Slippy 18.

The "Farewell Beloved Falco" midquel manga, which is set right in the middle of the eight years between Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures, also gives the original Star Fox crew ages, with Fox now being 22, Slippy 22, Falco 23, and Peppy 45.

Star Fox Adventures takes place eight years after Star Fox 64, which means that Fox is now 26, Falco 27, Peppy 49 and Slippy 26. Japanese Star Fox Adventures ancillary material also reveals Krystal's age to be 19, making her distinctly the only Star Fox character outside of the original four Star Fox members to have a known age. Going by this, she would be 11 and 15 years old during the events of Star Fox 64 and Farewell Beloved Falco, respectively.

After Adventures' release, Nintendo, specifically Takaya Imamura, made a deliberate decision for future Star Fox games to not provide any official age numbers for any of the characters. However, Star Fox Assault officially is said to take place only year after the events of Star Fox Adventures, so this would make Fox 27, Falco 28, Peppy 50, Slippy 27, and Krystal 20. Similarly, according to Takaya Imamura in a 2007 interview, Star Fox Command takes place 2-3 years after Assault, which would make Fox 29-30, Falco 30-31, Peppy 52-53, Slippy 29-30, and Krystal 22-23.

Although Wolf O'Donnell has never had any age officially listed for him, Takaya Imamura implied on Twitter that he is within the same generation of Peppy and James.

In the Japanese version of Star Fox Adventures, some of the dinosaur tribes have different localized names from their original names. For example, the CloudRunners are referred to as the クラウド族 (Kuraudo-zoku), which translates to "Cloud Tribe". The EarthWalkers are referred to as the アソーカ族 (Asōka-zoku), which strangely seems to directly translate to "Ahsoka Tribe". It's worth noting that the direct translation for "EarthWalker" in Japanese is アースウォーカー (Āsu-Wōkā); it's possible that アソーカ (Asōka) is meant to be a shortened, phonetic play on it, perhaps as the original name, directly translated, would be too difficult for Japanese audiences to pronounce.

In Star Fox: Assault's Sauria mission, Peppy curiously refers to the CloudRunner Tribe as just "the Cloud Tribe". This makes more sense when you factor in that that's what they're called in the Japanese version of Star Fox Adventures and thus was what the original script writers for Assault in Japan used as a frame of reference, and it appears that whoever was localizing the script for western audiences didn't bother to change it back to the original Rare name.

Funny enough, in Star Fox Command, Krystal pilots a spacecraft that is both shaped and named after the CloudRunners. In the Japanese version, it actually retains that name, クラウドランナー (kuraudorannā), which means that Command marks the first time Rare's original CloudRunner name was utilized in the Japanese version of these games.