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

 

[chrisrlink]

sucks n64 emulators are spotty at best otherwise i'd get it (no n64or flashcart here

 

[TomTheDragon]

Alt64. Vanilla 1.28 didn't work for me. But some people is reporting that it works so idk.

I tested both and Alt64 was even worse for me (only black screen), but there are many versions and forks of Alt64. Could you maybe tell what version of Alt64 you used and with which settings?

 

[abilaunken]

I think i will wait for a proper fixed version. I have the starfox adventure but never played , so im thinking in playing that on my ultra hdmi n64 and later on the gamecube to see what was the changes.
But i m really want to know if someone can fix the game at a point we can play to the finish first before invest all that time playing the prototype and than the gamecube game.

 

[jnl1]

Yes, a fixed version is sure the way to go, as sad as it is. But I tried playing for nearly 2 hours, the game crashed 3 times and then my savestate (playtime 30 minutes!) got destroyed by the "endless falling bug", although at the beginning it worked.
I used the normal ed64plus os 1.28a and save forced to flash.

 

[8BitWonder]

Put together a deblur patch for ED64 if anyone else is interested in using it.

Original vs Deblur:


Made for SHA-256:
F8CAE52C3DF720604D89056F313B9BD77A6C3822191C7A8C59CD3A8C9B3A05F4

^ This is the SHA-256 after patching the original ROM (SHA-256: 22830780902F51AEA442825C574B88D404CCF30D726219E4B000EDC64BCC60A6) to bypass Rare's dev-ROM protection, and is outlined here.

Edit: Added an xdelta for folks that want an alternative patch format than aps.

 

[Reynardine]

I had the same thing happen to me on switch but I tried it on sixtyforce and it’s running perfectly so far.

Quess we'll have to wait until emulator compatibility with this game improves or perhaps someone fixes/patches the crashing problems in the game.

What I'll try now is starting a game on another emulator on PC until I get past that crashing cutscene and then importing my savefile back into mupen. I'm eager to see more of this game.

After watching RareThief's 1 hour gameplay footage again I realized that all of the shadows are missing in mupen64plus-next. The game looks a lot more impressive on real hardware, that's for sure. The missing shadows take away much of the atmosphere.

 

[segashack]

Did anybody get it to work on WiiU yet?

I tried with the following in Wii U's vWii:

Wii64 Rice : Game Didnt Start
Not64: Froze at File Select Screen
Wii64 Beta 1.1: Somewhat playable but game stutters a LOT, glitchy file select screen, top left shows your character model the entire time.

Never looked into Wii U retroarch or if that even has an N64 core but it's safe to say neither of these methods are worthwhile. A VC inject may be a good thing for people to test out.

 

[Deleted User]

I tried with the following in Wii U's vWii:

Wii64 Rice : Game Didnt Start
Not64: Froze at File Select Screen
Wii64 Beta 1.1: Somewhat playable but game stutters a LOT, glitchy file select screen, top left shows your character model the entire time.

Never looked into Wii U retroarch or if that even has an N64 core but it's safe to say neither of these methods are worthwhile. A VC inject may be a good thing for people to test out.

Hrmm did you try as an inject? It's got about 50% compatibility. But if you've never done it takes following a tutorial and overwriting a different n64 rom, changing the icon etc...not too easy.

 

[segashack]

Hrmm did you try as an inject? It's got about 50% compatibility. But if you've never done it takes following a tutorial and overwriting a different n64 rom, changing the icon etc...not too easy.

I have not. Been a while since I read up about injects, but isn't the idea that you need to find a similar game to use that was on the VC service? Not sure where to start with Dinosaur Planet.

 

[Jv5_Guy]

i just got it to work with alt 64, it uses flash yes , but the cic needs to be at 6101 , tv needs to be NTSC , rating common , country NTSC and it boots, game will still crash at certain points

 

[Edgarska]

I haven't played that much, but so far it seems like it's almost the same as the final version, just with the obvious N64 limitations, but I'm glad they delayed it for the Gamecube because those controls are pretty bad.

 

[Deleted User]

I have not. Been a while since I read up about injects, but isn't the idea that you need to find a similar game to use that was on the VC service? Not sure where to start with Dinosaur Planet.

I think it just needs to be the same size but it's not guaranteed to work and sometimes have to try different roms. Been a long time for me too. Good chance it wouldn't work anyway.

 

[Reynardine]

I haven't played that much, but so far it seems like it's almost the same as the final version, just with the obvious N64 limitations, but I'm glad they delayed it for the Gamecube because those controls are pretty bad.

The biggest difference I noticed is that Krystal has a bigger role here. She's not just a throwaway plot device like in the Gamecube game. It seemed awkward to me that the Gamecube version opens with that character and then she gets trapped and is never playable again.

I'm also happy that the characters talk in English instead of a fantasy gibberish language. Also the original soundtrack is in it, many tracks ended up on the cutting room floor which is a shame because they're pretty well done.

 

[Spider_Man]

tested using pj64 and plays ok, kepts getting a black error screen with a bunch of code.

tested using ED64 and still got the same problem.

 

[Luke94]

Is this thread locked? Anyway I can't wait to play official at least tech demos of EarthBound 64.

 

[Edgarska]

tested using pj64 and plays ok, kepts getting a black error screen with a bunch of code.

tested using ED64 and still got the same problem.

It runs fine for me on Mupen64plus, I'm using the one that comes with gui from m64p, except that the newest update that is supposed to have fixes specifically for dinosaur planet breaks the game and makes so hits don't register on enemies for me.
The previous version from february 10 works fine, but it runs a lot slower.

 

[VootCaboot]

Wow, this truly is history, huh? I wouldn't mind tracking this down to see how it runs on hardware!

 

[Spider_Man]

So did I... The protagonist was a fox called Saber.

I'm extremely surprised to see an N64 build of the game with Fox McCloud. I wonder if it greatly differs from the latest pre-Starfox build of the game?

Really need to check out the ROM asap, I always dreamed of playing the original Dinosaur Planet (and now that it's here I'm a little bummed it might be more of beta of Starfox Adventures).

Wrong, as he actually calls himself fox mccloud in the beta.

Ive seen little difference from videos of fox play.

 

[Jonna]

Wrong, as he actually calls himself fox mccloud in the beta.

Ive seen little difference from videos of fox play.

Except for every single other thing referring him to Sabre, including the UI itself.

 

[VmprHntrD]

So unless it's in another thread or I missed it, is this not running well on the Everdrive 64? I've got the Ultra ED64 which basically was re-labeled the X7.
I've tried it twice so far, first it crashed after breaking the first crate I could and when it was doing the first item(egg) pickup sequence. Second time was after Scales got off the ship and it started to pan along the side with the fire out, and it locked with the music continuing as normal.

Saw this quote: "Yeah it works. Had to edit my Everdrive 64's save file (rename the rom "Dinosaur Planet" and add the line "DP=5 (Dinosaur Planet)" to your "save_db.txt" file in the Everdrive directory on the SD card) to get it to work."

I did that, so if that's just to get it running or to save, good, I mean it will do that. But is it supposed to bomb all the time?

I've been hoping for years I'd get another crack at this game as I was in the industry long ago and I was at E3 in 2000 and got my experience on the floor there with the mid-year build which didn't have Fox yet. This is a pleasure and disappointment if it's basically for now unplayable though I do understand it is being worked on.