Forest of Illusion is on a roll, when it comes to uncovering gaming history. Their latest find is a copy of Dinosaur Planet for the Nintendo 64–a game that never saw an official release, as the project was moved to the Nintendo GameCube and eventually came to be known as Star Fox Adventures. They’ve dumped the game where it can be now be found online, preserving it forever. This build of Dinosaur Planet is dated December 1, 2000 and is playable, though the ending levels are reportedly unfinished and potentially unable to be completed without the use of cheats. According to Forest of Illusion, emulator compatibility with the game is spotty, leading to multiple instances of slowdown and graphical glitches, however it works fine on official hardware through flashcart use.

As a reminder, sharing links to ROMs is against the rules.

Forest of Illusion official Twitter account

 

[eyeliner]

I think you're mixing it the other way around. For a development team to have to make everything all those screenshots showed during the Sabre era, then scrap it all to produce this Star Fox game you're describing and we are able to play now, then to move all the assets and improve their visuals and performance for the Gamecube final version, couldn't be done in the amount of time they had. This is a build between the time Miyamoto recommended they use the Star Fox IP, and when they moved it to the Gamecube. It's Dinosaur Planet with the clothes of Star Fox, not the other way around.

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What? This build has Star Fox stuff added and it's for the N64.

You agree with me, then. This is not the true Dinosaur Planet.

 

[b17bomber]

Can anyone get this working on ed64 plus? When I start a game it's just fox falling into the void in a loop.

 

[Deleted member 323844]

Can anyone get this working on ed64 plus? When I start a game it's just fox falling into the void in a loop.

Set save type as Flash.

It works fine on Alt64 + ED64P v1 (the original crappy one with the top-loader).

 

[bjaxx87]

This is the build I'd love to see a dump of one day:

 

[Deleted member 323844]

This is the build I'd love to see a dump of one day:

It is pretty much this proto with a few changes. At least the ~hour I've played.

 

[Cyber Akuma]

I thought the game had nothing to do with Starfox until it got moved to gamecube

That's what I and everyone else thought too. This is the first anyone outside of Nintendo/Rare is hearing that Fox was in the game back in the N64 versions.

Although, it appears to have been a last-minute change. Several parts of the game still refer to him as his original name "Sabre", his player icon is still Sabre's, and the voice-acted line where he says his name was clearly re-recorded as a placeholder as it's considerably lower quality than the rest of his spoken lines that don't contain his name. He also claims he is a "knight". I wonder if it was going to originally be an alternate universe or something.

why does General Scales speak native English in the intro, this is weird

IIRC, because in the original game everyone was speaking gibberish until Fox got a "translator" from Slippy, you hear one of Tricky's lines go from gibberish to English mid-sentence as the translator comes online.

In this game these characters were supposed to be natively living on this planet, so it would make sense that they understand the native language.

Is it illegal to share a rom of something that never was released and never made any money?
It's abandoned software Well I guess it could be illegal since the company is still in business.. And they probably owns the right to this. Or something like that, I'm not a lawyer..

Technically, yes, since the IP is still owned by Nintendo/Rare. (Unclear who owns what parts, especially parts that never made it into Adventures) but really, it's not like people are going to be hunted down for releasing a 20+ year old beta unfinished copy of an unreleased game.

It is pretty much this proto with a few changes. At least the ~hour I've played.

Nah, there's some significant differences. Other than obviously Sabre still being in the game, the UI is also quite different and some of the puzzles were simplified/removed from what little I played. (E.G. In the leaked version that pressure-block puzzle right near the beginning of the game had the tower already toppled-over and you just needed to put a piece of it on the switch, in that video you see that you have to topple over the tower yourself first)

 

[Arecaidian Fox]

So cool to see a build of this finally pop up. I'm having a fun morning.

 

[RareKirby]

On switch it crashes after the big stone guy slams his arm. Can anyone give me a save file after that cutscene? Lol

 

[Cyber Akuma]

It would honestly be a lot better to use a PC emulator than Switch, I assume the switch ones are just ports of smartphone ARM emulators?

The emulator I tried that seemed to run it the best was the latest version of Mupen64GUI, last update was Feb 10, 2021.

Even the latest Bizhawk was having all sorts of graphical issues, even with the mupen core.

 

[PrinceRikei]

Game works fine for me so far on my Wii U via Wii64 with minor graphical glitches.

 

[AncientBoi]

Awwman, the poor dinosaurs. Come here dinosaurs, I got a home here for you. yeah, n you can eat that guy who dumped you in the street.

 

[DarkCoffe64]

And here I thought this would never be found, ha, amazing, ahah~
If there's something I love about videogames, is being able to play them betas and alpha, see how much the game got changed from its initial state/conception to its final release.
Let's not stop! Next... mh... how about that proto-Shantae game on the ps1, lol?
Dunno, ahah.

 

[gamesquest1]

great now Nintendo can finally release that N64 classic they have been hiding in a warehouse waiting for a bonus star fox game to throw on it

 

[Worldblender]

I got the ROM image off of Internet Archive, and it's working okay for the most part, except for minor graphical problems.
I'm using RetroArch 1.9.0 with the ParaLLEl core enabled. However, not all of the controls are not obvious to me, except for the ones given in-game. Can someone tell me the in-game controls, as I could not figure out all of them myself?

 

[Jonna]

You agree with me, then. This is not the true Dinosaur Planet.

It's a development by RARE. Nothing ever seems true - hell, for all we know, some elements from Project Dream could have wormed their way onto here.

And I love it.

 

[B.B.Link]

As a reminder, sharing links to ROMs is against the rules.

But it's an unreleased beta

 

[ut2k4master]

I got the ROM image off of Internet Archive, and it's working okay for the most part, except for minor graphical problems.
I'm using RetroArch 1.9.0 with the ParaLLEl core enabled. However, not all of the controls are not obvious to me, except for the ones given in-game. Can someone tell me the in-game controls, as I could not figure out all of them myself?

anything in particular you want to know?

 

[Worldblender]

anything in particular you want to know?

Mainly the controls, since the only controllers I have are a wired XBox One controller, and a wired Nintendo Switch controller. In particular, I'm having trouble activating the C-Stick controls on the right joystick. I also haven't reached a point where I get to save in-game yet.

I am at the part at Warlock Mountain, after having gotten the spell book and the warp crystal, but am quite stuck on how to proceed after this.

 

[ut2k4master]

Mainly the controls, since the only controllers I have are a wired XBox One controller, and a wired Nintendo Switch controller. In particular, I'm having trouble activating the C-Stick controls on the right joystick. I also haven't reached a point where I get to save in-game yet.

just press start to open the pause menu and there should be a save option right there. alternatively you could just use an emulators save state function.
c-left (or right stick left) are your spells. you scroll through them by pressing c-left again and you press a to confirm. you should then automatically be aiming whatevery spell you selected and you can press a again to shoot.
c-right are your items. again press the same button to scroll through and press a to use them.
c-down are trickys abilities. he can dig up burried items for example. you need to feed him blue mushrooms from time to time so he can keep using his abilities.


a bug that happened to me a few times forced me into using the fire spell with no obvious way to cancel out of it. the left trigger (or whatever you bound the n64 z trigger to) helped out there

 

[DodgyJudge]

I just played it with mupen 64 fz gliden64 medium with advanced setting cound to 1 i get stable 30 fps and no graphical glitch but it crash at the warp stone but still amazing.

I see alot comment saying it same as Adventure ....let me tell ya after my 20min intro i can tell you it feel like a different game what a gem.