In this review, we hope to collect enough scarabs in the GameCube game, Star Fox Adventures. We find out how well this adventure game plays.
This game was released in 2002 and would be the third instalment in this franchise.
You start the game off as Krystal who receives a distress signal. Upon entry into Dinosaur Planet, she is attacked by General Scales from the Sharpclaw clan. During the battle, Krystal loses her staff. After the encounter, she goes down to Krazoa Palace only to find that the guards have been attacked by the Sharpclaw clan. Everything has been looted and it is up to Krystal to try and restore the spirits. Unfortunately, during her quest, she is intercepted and is unable to complete the quest.
Later on, General Pepper contacts the Star Fox team (sans Falco) and informs them that Dinosaur Planet is breaking apart. It turns out, a lot of money is at stake should they succeed, so Star Fox, Pepper, and Slippy head to the planet.
You start with no weapons, but you’ll eventually obtain Krystal’s staff. This stays with you as both a tool and a weapon throughout the game.
There are also several items you can pick up along the way. There are scarabs which are used as currency in this game. Additionally, you can collect special food eggs and fruit to restore health (egg restores one whole unit while the fruit restores half a unit). You initially start with 3 units of health (4 hits each unit), though completing major missions automatically gives you bonus health units.
You can also collect gems which restores your staff power. Red restores a small amount while the gold restores all of it. The other colours restore various amounts in between. The staff power is used when using the utilities aspect of the staff. To get these, you need to upgrade your staff at special locations.
There are also a number of item pickups you’ll find along the way. This includes bomb spores to create bomb plants, fireflies for your lantern, moon seeds, power cells to fuel your ship, and many others that you can pick up along the way to help aid your quest.
The game itself has a shop in the middle of Thorntail Hollow. In this shop, you can haggle over various items you can buy. What you can buy includes average items, special items required for your quest, and maps to help you get a better sense of the area you are in. The shop also has a minigame that allows you to earn extra scarabs through a gambling method. The gambling simply involves you re-collecting your scarabs, though, so nothing truly exciting.
In addition, you are eventually aided by a secondary character by the name of Tricky – a young triceratops character who happens to be the prince of the Earthwalker Clan. Initially, Tricky’s only apparent skill is to find items buried under soft soil. Utilize the “Find” command whenever he has a question mark over his head to unearth stuff. If the “Find” command is faded out, there is nothing to unearth.
Any time you utilize a command, you use up food. You have 6 Grubtub icons next to Tricky’s icon. This represents how well fed he is. Initially, every time you successfully execute a “find” command, you’ll use up one unit. So, collecting GrubTub mushrooms is very useful as you’ll be able to feed him up for future commands.
Another command is the “Stay” command. This doesn’t use any food, but simply orders Tricky to stay put at a certain location. This is generally useful when you have to deal with switches that need to be held down.
If you happen to, you can purchase Tricky’s ball at the shop. This initiates a game of fetch with Tricky. This also does not use up food. While this seems like a simple diversion, if you play fetch long enough, Tricky will gradually change colour. Most resources say that this has no actual impact on gameplay, but there is actually a subtle benefit to playing this mini-game. If you get Tricky to change enough colours, he’ll use less food for the “Find” command. Sadly, this doesn’t have an impact on the “Fire” command as it seems to always use one unit. Overall, this is of minor significance to the game itself as it’ll mean a very slight less reliance of harvesting GrubTub.
Later on, you’ll also obtain the “Fire” command. This command orders tricky to breath fire on various objects. How this really makes sense that you have a fire breathing triceratops does leave the imagination stretching, but that is what exists in the game.
Gradually, you’ll unlock various abilities with your staff. Initially, it is a simple fireball that allows you to shoot distant switches. Additionally, you’ll also be able to unlock mechanized baskets and adjust switches along the way with it as well.
Other abilities you’ll earn include earthquake to stun enemies and cold air to freeze certain objects.
On top of that, you’ll also get the ability to use a disguise to get through enemy territory unnoticed. Just note that this has nothing to do with the staff.
The main objectives is to collect the stones and release the spirits in Krazoa Palace. The stones ultimately hold the planet together. Restoration of the stones means that the planet will restore itself. The restoration of the spirits will also complete Krystal’s quest in the process. You’ll basically accomplish both at the same time as you move along.
For me, this game can be hit and miss. The first thing that jumps out to me is that it really feels like Star Fox was simply tacked on to the game. A lot about the plot doesn’t make sense and the writing seems to bend over backwards to try and fit Star Fox into the game itself. After reading up on this aspect of the game (given how much this is not like Rare to just tack a character into a situation), it turns out that Krystal was meant to be the main protagonist in the game itself rather than Fox. This goes a long way to explaining why Fox always seemed like an awkward fit in this game in the first place. Had Krystal remained the main character, this game would have felt much more seamless even if it means ditching the little space ship levels between levels.
Another jarring element about this game is the fact that it is far more linear. While this may seem like something that would be a bit more expected from a new company, this is Rare we’re talking about. The same company that made sprawling non-linear adventure games like Banjo Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64 made a very linear adventure game after. There are, of course, small deviations and secret areas, but this only adds small bonuses to your adventure to make future levels a little easier on you. The concept of “collect a certain number of x key objects to advance to the next stage” is gone completely. Levels are much more closed in and only feature maybe the odd alternate path parallel to the first path. While other adventure games do feature bottleneck areas to the main path, it is like this largely throughout the entire game.
The only real exceptions to this are Thorntail Hollow and Cape Claw at least that I encountered. Cape Claw is a nice change to the long hallway syndrome this game has, but Thorntail Hollow manages to confuse the player at the beginning. It isn’t necessarily clear where you need to go at first. You are greeted with an area with a number of different openings. It is very easy to go down the wrong path and when this happens early on in the game, this is not the greatest aspect of the game.
A third issue with this game is the inventory system. You use the “C” control stick to open this up and navigate between three lines (red are items, yellow are abilities, and blue are Tricky commands). This can get buggy and clunky after a while. With only a couple of options, it’s pretty straight forward. As you get more key items and abilities, navigating through it all can be a bit of a chore. You can equip the “Y” button with an ability for fast access, but you only have that one slot to work with. Additionally, opening it up will start you off at random locations in the menu on top of it all, forcing you to thumb through it to find what you need with no real predictability associated with opening the menu.
Having said that, there are certainly positives associated with this game. The use of the vehicles actually work to a pretty decent degree. They are easy to understand and are not incredibly difficult to push through. As a result, this ends up being a nice side feature in the game.
In addition to this, the progression of abilities does allow for this game to gradually open up nicely. So many areas are locked at first, but as you gain abilities, you gain access to these otherwise weirdly locked areas. I think that’s actually a nice feature in the end.
Additionally, the difficulty curve is quite pleasant. It’s not overly simply, but at the same time, the game does force you to think through what the level is like. It’s certainly possible to find hidden features the first time along the way, but at the same time, it is also certainly possible to miss areas as well. So, difficulty is about right even if it leans a bit on the easier side of things.
Overall, this is an alright game. It has decent features and has a good difficulty curve. Unfortunately, the games main protagonist seems tacked on at the last second and doesn’t really conform well to the game overall. Additionally, the item and command system is far from perfect. Also, the game is much more linear in nature, giving the impression that this is an adventure game on training wheels. It is a good experience, though a pretty flawed one at that.
Probably the strongest aspect of this game is the graphics. For a game that was released so early on in the GameCube’s life cycle, this game is actually quite visually impressive. During a year where it felt like the Playstation 2 would actually (unlike the original Playstation) catch up to the capabilities of Nintendo with the likes of Ratchet and Clank and the first Sly Cooper game, this game shows that the Nintendo side of the gaming world still holds its own quite well. The effects of fur and water are particularly noteworthy, showing off how much graphics are improving as time goes on. So, a great effort overall on this front.
Audio is decent. The music features a nice orchestral sound with some traditional sounds utilized to naturally fit with the Dinosaur Planet theme throughout the game. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I heard anything that is especially noteworthy. Still, the sound effects work quite well and the voice acting do make up for the slack left behind by the music. So, a solid effort here.
Given the kind of games Rare has made in the past just a few years earlier, you almost get the sense that burnout is starting to set in. This effort, compared to many previous efforts seen on the N64, just seems like a weak followup to some of the other huge successes Rare has accomplished in the past. With this game, you get a fairly linear adventure game with only the odd deviation from the main path here and there. The item and command system isn’t the greatest and Fox just never seems to fit in with how the game ended up playing out. It has a good progression and some good features otherwise, but is a comparatively weak effort with other games made in the past. Graphics are still great and the audio is a decent effort. An overall decent game, but not the quality I was expecting from a company with such an impressive track record.
Overall
Furthest point in game: Freed myself in the Lightfoot Village.
General gameplay: 17/25
Replay value: 7/10
Graphics: 8/10
Audio: 3/5
Overall rating: 70%
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
