Video Game / Star Fox Adventures

Star Fox Adventures is a video game produced by Rare (the last on a Nintendo home console before leaving for Microsoft) for the Nintendo GameCube, and the oddball in the Star Fox series. Originally an unrelated Nintendo 64 title called Dinosaur Planet, the game contains very little of the shooting and spaceship-piloting that the series was known for, relegating these aspects to mini-games between large chunks of action-filled adventuring gameplay.

The Star Fox crew (this time consisting of Fox McCloud, Peppy Hare, Slippy Toad, and ROB the Robot) intercepts a distress call from the mysterious Dinosaur Planet (later renamed Sauria) and set out to investigate (in hopes of finally getting enough income to pay for the sorry state of the Great Fox thanks to Fox having declined working for the Cornerian Army eight years ago). There, they discover a world inhabited by sentient dinosaurs and other strange creatures, and learn that the planet is suffering under the tyrannical rule of the villainous General Scales. Under the prospect of a hefty pay needed for the maintenance of their ship (the effects of which are seen in Star Fox: Assault with the newer, sleek designs) offered by General Pepper, Fox accepts the mission to explore the planet and save it from destruction. This is the game that introduced Krystal to the series.

For those who are curious about the game's original incarnation as Dinosaur Planet, a site with a summary of the plot, screenshots and videos of gameplay can be found here. The ROM is available here.

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This game contains examples of:

• Absurdly Short Level: Unlike the first five Krazoa Shrines, which are reasonably lengthy mini-dungeons which are ventured through by Fox to find Krazoa Spirits and pass their respective tests in order to earn them, the sixth and final Shrine (located in Krazoa Palace, like the first one) only consists of one chamber with a square combat arena. When Fox walks onto its center, General Scales challenges him in a fight. It doesn't even qualify as a Boss-Only Level because, as soon as Fox tries to land the first hit, Andross commands Scales to hand the Krazoa Spirit to Fox, and then surrender to the now-reformed SharpClaws. The Shrine is then cleared and Fox warps back outside.
• Achilles in His Tent: Falco quit Star Fox before the events of the game, but he comes back at the very end to help Fox in the Final Boss. The final cutscene has him officially re-joining the team.
• Alien Non-Interference Clause: What prevents Fox from going crazy using his advanced weaponry? The best explanation the game can give is Pepper saying the mission is about saving the planet, not "blowing it up." Never mind that a blaster pistol is not that destructive.
• All Animals Are Dogs: Tricky plays fetch, responds to "Heel" and "Stay" commands, and spins around a few times before nodding off when idle.
• All There in the Manual: Falco's departure from the team is never mentioned in-game until his return during the final boss battle, only in the manual, and the reason for said departure was only explained in the Japan-only tie-in comic Farewell, Beloved Falco. Addtionally, the name of Krystal's homeworld, Cerinia, is only mentioned in the manual as well. Less notable offenders are the various minor enemies in the game whose names are only mentioned in strategy guides as well as the species of Gradabug, the CloudRunners' chief engineer: according to the Nintendo Power strategy guide, he's a member of a tribe called the BoneHead.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Tricky has some alternate color schemes that are pretty loud.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: The beginning of the game has you controlling Krystal for a brief bit, before you control the real main character, Fox McCloud.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: At the end of the game, the SharpClaws respond with cheers when General Scales dies, and Fox defeats Andross to save Dinosaur Planet.
• Aquatic Sauropods: Downplayed with the HighTops, which are a tribe of Apatosaurus. The first one encountered is at Cape Claw standing with his feet in the water. The second one encountered is held captive at Dragon Rock which is a desert-like environment, but he has no trouble moving about.
• Arduous Descent to Terra Firma: Prior to the events of the game, General Scales removed the Spellstones from the Force Point Temples, leading to an energetic overflow in Sauria and the geological removal of some of its landmarks. These landmarks now orbit the planet as if they were satellites, and many dinosaurs (SnowHorns in DarkIce Mines, the eponymous inhabitants of CloudRunner Fortress, EarthWalkers in Walled City, and various dinosaurs of different species in Dragon Rock) are stranded in them without being able to return to the planet. Over the course of the story, Fox retrieves the Spellstones and puts them back to the Temples, though he later discovers that he also has to retrieve all Krazoa Spirits, which at the end are being used by Andross for his revival, so the segmented mainlands can descend back to the planet and reunify it and by extension the Saurian societies.
• Artificial Stupidity: Because you can't hurt the Red Eyes when you first meet them, they are made extra stupid and will only attack you if they see you in their patrol paths.
• Attack Its Weak Point:
  • The first boss from can be attacked, but you can't truly harm him not matter how much you whack his tail with a stick. In fact, he's so tough, he can only be hurt from within. Do enough damage so he gets annoyed and eats you, so you can attack it from inside.
  • There's a normal, area-specific enemy that can only be hurt on a spot on its back. Circle-strafe all you want; it'll keep up. You have to hit it with a Ground Quake to make it turn around so you can hit it on its back.
• Attack the Injury: During the Galdon boss battle, after Fox gets Eaten Alive and makes Galdon spit him up by attacking the Spellstone in his stomach, Galdon gets a slit on his throat. Whenever his wound opens wide when he starts breathing in for his fire breath attack it can be blasted with fire from Fox's staff.
• Attack the Tail: During the start of its battle, Galdon has to be hit in the tail.
• Background Music Override: The theme of the FireCrawlers is capable of overriding any other theme, including the barrel chase theme (as seen when Fox rides an EarthWalker in Dragon Rock and then approaches a FireCrawler). This also happens when Fox approaches a RedEye in Walled City, because they borrow this theme.
• Bad Boss: At one point, General Scales uses one of his own troops as a shield for blasters.
• Bag of Sharing: What little you can collect as Krystal (such as a Bafomdad) will be passed onto Fox.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: This happens twice with General Scales:
  • The first example is in CloudRunner Fortress, when Fox catches up with Scales in the dungeon's vault; just as the protagonist readies the staff to fight his enemy, Scales tells the Sharpclaws following him to flee with the second Spellstone Fox is looking for. Since Scales knows Fox is looking for it, this buys him time to teleport away, forcing Fox to instead pursue the Sharpclaws (who are driving Speeders to flee, as does Fox) in a Wolfpack Boss battle.
  • Near the end of the game, you've barely begun fighting General Scales when the real final boss has him give up the Krazoa Spirit (killing Scales when he resists). He doesn't reveal himself until after the last Krazoa Spirit is in place — it's Andross.
• Barbaric Battleaxe: The warmongering and antagonistic SharpClaw Tribe arm themselves with maces and double-headed axes.
• Barrage of Bats: Shortly after Fox places the third SpellStone in its place, a plague of Bloops (reptilian bats that live in Sauria) comes from the underground network of ThornTail Hollow to torment all the dinosaurs living around. Fox has to get rid of all of them under a time limit (represented by the collective Life Meter of the affected dinosaurs), and doing so rewards him with an upgraded Wallet of Holding.
• Battleship Raid: While riding a CloudRunner, Krystal has to disable the offensive power of the soaring galleon piloted by General Scales, as well as the propeller in the back, in order to ambush it safely. Notably, this is how the game begins.
• Battle Theme Music: While most bosses usually have their own respective battle themes, Drakor is unusual in that he instead borrows the dramatic track that is first heard during the bat plague sequence in Thorntail Hollow (which occurs after Fox puts in its place the Spellstone that was guarded by the previous boss, King RedEye). As for regular enemies, all of them share a common theme except for particularly menacing creatures (which instead share a more suspenseful theme).
• Big Bad: General Scales, before he was thrown aside in favor of Andross.
• Big Damn Heroes: In the Final Boss fight, Falco saves Fox as he's seconds from being eaten.
• Big Fancy Castle: CloudRunner Fortress is one of these◊. It's a palatial building that serves as the game's second dungeon, and is the homeland of the CloudRunner tribe. It even has Magitek and an extensive gold mine underneath it.
• Bioweapon Beast: Drakon is a dinosaur mutated into a Draconic Humanoid killing machine by General Scales.
• Bleak Level: Dragon Rock is a large, open wasteland with relatively few enemies, but still has an eerie, oppressing atmosphere. To a lesser extent, Moon Mountain Pass, which has an eerie, alien atmosphere.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The game got an acceptable French translation, but two errors stand out for being visible even if you don't understand English:
  • Early in the game, after Fox falls into some water, a dinosaur greets him with a line whose two only intelligible words are "hot spring". "spring" was translated as if it was the season.
  • Late in the game, a dinosaur offers to take Fox within striking range of some defensive turrets, but since their range is greater than Fox's, asks him to "protect [me] from their fire" and not blindly shoot at them. It was translated as if the turrets were either equipped with flamethrowers, or on fire themselves.
• Block Puzzle: The game frequently has block puzzles, and Fox not only can push or pull them, but also move them sideways, which actually makes the puzzles more flexible to solve. Specific examples include:
  • After feeding a SnowHorn twice in SnowHorn Wastes, a block floating in a geyser will fall so Fox can use it. He has to take it to an edge he can't reach otherwise.
  • In Cape Claw, one room locks you in and some blocks move, releasing poison gas in. The "challenge" is to move the blocks back before the gauge empties, or you start losing health. Once you do it, the door opens, and the air becomes breathable again. And the point of that exercise? It also releases the Queen Cloudrunner, who is needed to forward the plot.
  • The Ocean Force Point Temple has two block puzzles in which you must maneuver a block by Fire Blasting it. If it hits an exterior wall, you have to start over; getting it where you want it to go involves making it run into the internal walls.
  • The Walled City has a pair of block puzzles in a pit. There are four blocks. Your job is to push the blocks around until they run into the floating sun or moon symbols (depending on which side of the city the puzzle is on). Of course, this is the kind of puzzle where the block keeps going until it hits something. If one hits the wall, the puzzle resets. And inside one of the structures, there's a T-shaped groove in the floor, with a block at each end. Your job is to move them around so that all the blocks have the face with the moon symbol facing out.
• Blow That Horn: One of the items Fox finds in DarkIce Mines is the Dinosaur Horn, which can be blown while standing on special pads to trigger special effects. In DarkIce Mines itself, for example, it summons a SnowHorn so Fox can traverse a misty snowy field. In SnowHorn Wastes, he has to blow the horn onto multiple pads under a time limit as a sacred test to unlock a Krazoa Shrine.
• Bonus Feature Failure: There are Cheat Tokens which do a few things when you drop them into the well in the maze under the Warpstone. Whilst some of them are amusing and even helpful, most are underwhelming. Two of these stand out:
  • The Dino subtitle, which allows you to see the subtitles in Dino, the game's substitution cipher. However, it doesn't replace "[Dino Talk]" with what is actually said, and the subtitles are actually significantly wrong in spots. And it's not even included in the European/Australian version, so there's a Cheat Token that does absolutely nothing.
  • Playing the game in black and white. Yes, the player can unlock an option to do what one can accomplish by adjusting one's TV set/monitor without the extra effort (unless they completely lack tech savvy beyond dealing with game consoles).
• Boom Stick: This is one of the many functions of Krystal's staff, though considering you can't move while using it you get the feeling Fox would have preferred his blaster.
• Boss Subtitles: Galdon and Drakor are the only bosses in the game introduced this way. The others, including Andross who is the Final Boss, merely rely on Boss Warning Siren to be introduced.
• Braving the Blizzard: The blizzard at some areas of the DarkIce Mines is so strong that Fox flat out refuses to step there. You have to recruit a mammoth to carry you through it.
• Broke Episode: The game as a whole is one for the Star Fox team. The team hasn't collected any fees for a while, and thus the Great Fox is barely functional and they're down to one working Arwing. And even there, Fox has to scrounge fuel for after the initial flight down.
• Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: The warmongering and antagonistic SharpClaw tribe arm themselves with maces and double-headed axes.
• Bubblegloop Swamp: LightFoot Village is a misty bog inhabited by the reclusive LightFoot tribe of dinosaurs. It is where one of the Krazoa Spirits lies hidden.
• Bulletproof Human Shield: When Fox confronts General Scales in the treasure room of the CloudRunner Fortress, the latter picks up one of his soldiers to protect himself from Fox's fire.
• Button Mashing: There are two tests of strength where the objective is to mash the ever-loving crap out of the A button. The first takes place in Lightfoot Village, and the second in a Krazoa palace some time after it. You better have fast fingers or a turbo controller for the Lightfoot test, as it is hard.
• Buy or Get Lost: The shopkeeper in ThornTail Hollow tells you to "hurry up and choose something, or get out!"
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": The game uses dinosaur terminologies similar to those in The Land Before Time, including "EarthWalkers" for Triceratops, "Snowhorns" for Woolly Mammoths, and "RedEyes" for Tyrannosaurus. The "Dumbledang Pods" are also cocoa fruit.
• CamelCase: The names of the various dinosaur tribes, and by extension the places named after them, are written this way. This also extends to other things, such as the SpellStones for the sacred stones that stabilize the planet's energy, or even the FireFlies (a word that is typically not written in camel case in English).
• Cap: The game has an inventory cap on a few items:
  • The cap on Scarabs (the currency) that increases three times over the course of the game, from 10, to 50, to 100, to 200.
  • Tricky has 5 GrubTubs' worth of energy, and Fox can carry up to 15 around with him to feed Tricky as needed, for a total of... 19 (because even though it only consumes one GrubTub of energy for him to perform a skill, he needs at least two within him to perform.
  • Fox can carry up to 7 Bomb Spores.
  • He may only carry 1 BafomDad (read: 1-Up) until he buys a holder which increases the capacity to 10. Instead of pseudo-collection like with most capped items, however, he just passes through it when he can't carry any more. He may collect it later as needed... if that situation ever arises.
• Cardboard Prison: At one point in the game Fox gets captured by the SharpClaws and is thrown in a dungeon. To escape all he has to do is push a stone block in the wall out of the way and sneak past the sleeping guard.
• Cash Gate:
  • The shop mixes this with standard plot advancement by selling items necessary to continue the adventure for large quantities of scarabs, each of which requires a larger capacity than Fox originally has. He gets the larger scarab bags while going through the plot normally.
  • The game also features Bribe Claws, bad guy dinosaurs who will let you pass only if you pay them enough scarabs. However, there are only two in the entire game, you only have to pay them once, and you can completely avoid paying the second one thanks to a nearby rocket boost.
  • You must also pay a fee to open the gate in Light Foot Village that leads to Cape Claw.
• Cat-and-Mouse Boss: The RedEye King. Beating him involves hiding in holes in the wall, picking up a bomb, and then stepping on a switch in the floor that would cause electricity to literally burst out of the walls and zap him with an electric charge.
• Cave Behind the Falls: The small waterfall in Thorntail Hollow can be bomb spored for some Fuel Cells and a couple of health items. Later, in Cape Claw, an item needed to open a door is hidden in a chamber you reach by swimming through a cavern beyond the waterfall. You can only get there by turning the waterfall off.
• Chainmail Bikini: Krystal wears skimpy, tribal "armor" that leaves quite little to the imagination, as it's just a bra and a Loincloth that doesn't cover her belly.
• Chasing Your Tail: The first part of the battle with the Boss Galdon in DarkIce Mines involves chasing its tail in order to strike it a few times. Later, the battle against the Boss Redeye involves you fleeing from it and feeding him explosives.
• Chekhov's Gunman: You know that one grumbling ThornTail in ThornTail Hollow who doesn't want to talk to Fox? Yeah, he's Dragon Rock's gatekeeper and he's feeling down because his friends were sent there as prisoners.
• Citadel City: The aptly-named Walled City is a wide, geographically encased citadel where the Earthwalkers live, and besides using the surrounding plateaus as its walls it also has artificial walls further inside to protect the sacred pyramids; it is where Fox can find the third Spellstone and a hidden Krazoa Spirit much later on.
• City Guards: The two BribeClaw will let you pass — for the rest of the game — in exchange for 25 scarabs. The second one, though, can be bypassed using a Staff Power. If you do this, the BribeClaw will behave as though you had bribed him, and will therefore let you past every time you approach. You only need to pass him once, however, if you know what you're looking for.
• Color-Coded Elements: The four Spellstones are color-coded according to which of the two Force Point Temples they are to be taken to: Orange for the Volcano one and blue for the Ocean one.
• Convection, Schmonvection: The Volcano Force Point Temple and the hot areas of DarkIce Mines contain lava, with visible heat distortion in the air around it, none of which is harmful to be near, but which causes damage for as long as Fox stands on it.
• Cosmic Deadline: The second half of the game is much shorter because of this. After a lengthy set of introductory tasks where the only Plot Coupon retrieved is the first Krazoa Spirit (by Krystal), Fox starts looking for the Spellstones and later the Krazoa Spirits. The first two Spellstones and the next two Krazoa Spirits take a while to find. The other two Spellstones and three Krazoa Spirits are gotten in a more rushed way. The very last Spirit, in fact, is supposedly earned after defeating Big Bad General Scales, until Andross interrupts the battle, orders Scales to give Fox the Spirit and, when the latter places it in its spot in Krazoa Palace, a sudden battle between Fox and Andross ensues. And then the game ends.
• Cosmic Keystone: General Scales manages to snag the four SpellStones that keep the planet together. Its initial effect is to push four chunks of land away from the planet, but there are concerns that the planet could explode. You don't need to worry about that happening, however; you can Take Your Time.
• Covers Always Lie: In no moment in the game do Peppy and Slippy fight alongside Fox against enemies, and Krystal never gets to meet Fox until the final moments.
• Crate Expectations: Crates in Sauria tend to be of the "contains one food item" variety. A couple are completely empty.
• Crystal Prison: After Krystal finally discovers the evil force behind the distress signal, Andross imprisons her within a crystalline prison suspended in the air.
• Cub Cues Protective Parent: Fox finds a baby Lightfoot, and stops to talk to it. Tricky is uncomfortable with the situation, and with good reason: Fox is immediately pounced by several Lightfoot, though not for being near a Lightfoot baby. They're more concerned with accusing him of stealing the Fire Gem a Lightfoot tossed him to avoid being shot at. The baby was bait.
• Cutscene Boss: General Scales appears, challenges Fox to a fight, and is promptly tossed aside.
• Cutscene Incompetence:
  • There's a scene where Fox confronts General Scales, and is quickly brought down by a few drones even though the staff can project a nigh-impenetrable force field.
  • Fox is faced with the Big Bad in a cutscene and takes ten shots at him with his fire-blasting staff. He misses all ten shots at point-blank range. He even fails to hit the Mook that the Big Bad attempted to use as a Human Shield. This coming from an Ace Pilot, and if dialogue is an indication, a crack shot with personal weapons as well.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: Fox walks over towards a defeated T. rex boss to obtain a Plot Coupon. As he picks up the said item he realizes that the boss isn't dead. As the T. rex lunges out at him Fox jumps 10 feet in the air, does a backflip while pulling out his staff, and stabs the boss through the head. However, in the gameplay segments Fox cannot backflip or even jump that far, and you can't use your staff in midair.
• Cypher Language: Dino language, which only requires substituting one letter for another except for names of people or locations.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: If you have a GameCube, and you enjoy action-adventure games of a persuasion similar to The Legend of Zelda, heed this advice: playing Star Fox Adventures right after playing Beyond Good & Evil (or vice versa) is very unwise. Why?
  • The action-adventure-game-standard forward roll is X in SFA. In BG&E, X is mapped to item use, and B is a forward roll.
  • The Z-button enters first-person view in both games. However, to fire a projectile attack in first-person, you press B in BG&E. In SFA, you press Y.
  • In BG&E, R is "run." In SFA, R is "stop dead in your tracks (to shield)."
  • You select items and change the one you have set with the C stick in SFA. In BG&E, you use the D-pad.
  • Finally? In SFA, your NPC partner controls are mapped to a menu. In BG&E, they're hard-coded to the Y button and context-sensitive. While you can set a partner command to the Y button in SFA, it remains the same, regardless of context. The Y button in SFA can also be used for items (which are always set to X in BG&E).
  • The final battle against Andross is a Call-Back to Star Fox 64 but what will trip veterans of the series up is that, for whatever reason, his vacuum breath attack is evaded differently. In 64, you used your breaks to avoid the attack, but in this game you have to use the boost and barrel roll. This often leads to players who think they're being clever with the Call-Back only to instead get eaten by the attack on the first attempt and not understanding why.
• Deadly Gas: There's gas in a few places that make Fox fall over in his Oxygen Meter runs out, and you have to restart the sequence:
  • There's a sort of switchback that you have to travel through each time you want to go between Thorntail Hollow and Moon Mountain Pass, hopping on pillars that rise and sink to get across to the updrafts that push you out of it.
  • In Cape Claw, there's a room with four blocks around a central support. When you step on a certain point, the door shuts and the blocks move away to the corners of a square, and you have to drag and push all of them back to stop the poison.
  • The Power Room in Cloudrunner Fortress is filled with gas until you place the three Power Gems on their pedestals. At least you can leave if you need to.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Anytime you're in an Arwing, including the final battle with Andross, you can be destroyed without losing lives. In fact, if you know you missed too many Gold Rings to open the forcefield, actively wrecking your craft is faster than waiting until you arrive at the end of the course and are told you didn't get enough. In ground mode, losing more lives than you have BaFomDads to counteract it is at least theoretically possible.
• Decoy Protagonist: Krystal is playable for a brief period at the beginning. She gets captured afterward, and stays that way for the rest of the game.
• Deflector Shields:
  • There are two mazes involving force fields, which basically behave like near-invisible walls (there's a little sparkle to them). One is found in a room after you activate the Quake Pad in the center, and the force field makes up the inner walls of the maze. Your challenge is to get to the exit before time runs out. Another maze also has regular walls, but force fields block your way to the end when you activate the Quake Pad. You have to turn off each one at a switch or by shooting a Blast Board, and most switches are blocked somehow. Again, a timed challenge.
  • Floating robots commonly have shields. The ones in Dragon Rock require you to use an Earthwalker horn to disable the generators, and the one in the Krazoa Palace has the unusual disabling method of shooting colored gems through color-changing flames.
• Demoted to Extra: Falco is notably absent for most of the story due to a falling-out with Fox prior to the game, only showing up to rescue and assist Fox during the Final Boss. Krystal and Drakor are also this compared to their roles in the original Dinosaur Planet. The former was the Deuteragonist and the latter the Big Bad, but in this game, the former became a Damsel in Distress and the latter a late-game boss with no voice lines.
• Deliberately Monochrome: One of the Cheat Token prizes is the ability to view the game through a monochrome filter.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: One of the bosses you face is a dinosaur mutated into a flying, armored dragon, a fair bit of the scenery and Scales' weaponry have draconic motifs, and at least three tribes are capable of breathing fire.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: The second visit to Ocean Force Point. The SpellStones are all retrieved by the time that visit ends but the planet still needs the Krazoa Spirits to assemble its satellite parts together again.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Fox McCloud's first meeting face-to-face with Kyrstal sends him into a shock for a minute before Peppy's calling knocks him out of it.
• Distress Call: Krystal reaches Dinosaur Planet by following one.
• Distressed Damsel: Krystal spends most of the game trapped in a crystal.
• Dolled-Up Installment: This game was originally going to be Dinosaur Planet, and starred a younger Krystal and a wolf named Sabre. Nintendo noticed some similarities to their Star Fox franchise, and gave Rare the idea to turn their game into a part of that series (possibly to keep Rare, who were being bought out by Microsoft, from porting the game, or to increase sales using the Star Fox brand). Sabre was replaced with Fox and Krystal was given a maturity lift to match.
• Down the Drain: The Ocean Force Point Temple is an aquatic-themed dungeon focused on pipelines, pressure, and lots of other fun stuff. It's not an actual sewer, being a rather pretty temple, but this is the closest place for it.
• Do You Want to Haggle?: Fox can haggle item prices with the shopkeeper, but if he goes too low too many times, he'll stop haggling and refuse to pay less than the original price.
• Draconic Humanoid: Drakor, the boss of Dragon Rock, is a dinosaur mutated into a form resembling a humanoid dragon, complete with wings.
• Dressing as the Enemy: After a certain point in the game, Fox gets a Sharpclaw disguise, which, although it allows him to activate certain pads, pick up certain objects, and not get attacked by real Sharpclaw or the floating drones, leaves him unable to use Krystal's staff. He can, however, get close, disengage the disguise, and maybe strike before the enemy can react. If the enemy sees him change, he will simply walk toward Fox, pushing him around instead of attacking, or, in Scales' case, posing threateningly while he waits for you to press A.
• Dug Too Deep: In the lowest pits of the Darkice Mines lurks the Galdon. Reaching there is not a pretty experience, but it's necessary to do so and challenge the monster in a boss battle to retrieve the first SpellStone.
• Dumb Dinos: The game averts this as far as herbivorous dinosaurs (and pterosaurs) are concerned. The carnivores are presented as more vicious, most notably the Redeye Tribe, which do not talk and are driven by more animalistic instinct.
• Dungeon Crawling: The game has both Krazoa Palace and the two Force Point Temples. In terms of gameplay, the four satellital regions of Sauria (DarkIce Mines, CloudRunner Fortress, Walled City and Dragon Rock) are explored like dungeons, but they're more into Dungeon Town territory.
• Dungeon Town: The satellital regions orbiting Sauria. Unlike the Force Point Temples and Krazoa Palace, they are thematically based on what were originally non-dungeon parts of Sauria that got separated from the planet after General Scales removed the Spellstones from the core chamber the Force Point Temples are connected to. But Fox has to tackle them in dungeon fashion because it's there where the Spellstones themselves are now placed, and are also guarded by bosses.
• Dynamic Loading: The game is liberal in its use of winding corridors, one of which is actually a maze, and vertical-movement speed bumps. A few of them create a revolving-door type mechanism which provides the player a shorter walk at the expense of having to proceed all the way through.
• An Economy Is You: The Thorntail Hollow shop in does sell things that the locals would consider food (Dumbledang Pods and Grubtub Fungus), though both are available for free from the trees and standing around on the ground. It's just as well, then, that the entrance seems designed to keep out Thorntails and Earthwalkers.
• Empty Room Until the Trap: The gas chamber in Cape Claw. Made worse by Fox audibly choking.
• Eternal Equinox: The game applies this to both the main planet (Sauria) and the satellite regions that were separated from it. The flow of time is perfectly circadian in-game no matter where you are.
• Evil Egg Eater: Right at the start of the quest for the third SpellStone, Fox is tasked by a grieving dinosaur mother in ThornTail Hollow to defend a nest from egg stealers swarming it during a time limit.
• Exact Words: Scales threatens Garunda Te and Belina Te with genocide against the SnowHorns if they don't allow him to return the SpellStone to DarkIce mines. He kept his word when he spared the race from extinction. However, he never said that he'd let them go free, either, and thus forced them to work at the mines.
• Expy:
  • Tricky shares the name of a triceratops that appeared in another rare game, Diddy Kong Racing. Both species of dinosaurs are of the same suborder but Tricky is a Centrosaurus, as he only has one horn.
  • The Sharpclaw may not seem like it at first, but they are expies of the Kremlings from Donkey Kong Country, another game by Rare. Like the Kremlings, they are humanoid reptilian pirates and conquerors who serve as the main villains of the game. Relatedly, General Scales is a much more blatant expy of King. K Rool/ Captain K. Rool from the earlier Donkey Kong Country games. Like K. Rool, Scales is a well-built, green-scaled humanoid reptilian pirate and conqueror.
• Exploding Barrels: The fuel barrels, which detonate upon heavy impact or when they come into contact with open flame.
• Fantastic Racism: EarthWalkers and CloudRunners don't get along too well. That's why Tricky won't go to their fortress. (Or, more precisely, won't leave the Arwing when you go there; why he boarded when there was an explicit option to stay home is a mystery.)
• Fantasy Gun Control: General Pepper forbids Fox taking a Blaster or any other kind of advanced weaponry to Dinosaur Planet since he is ostensibly on a peaceful mission.
• Faux Action Girl: Krystal gets captured very early on and isn't rescued until the very end of the game.
• Fetch Quest: Taken to great lengths. At one point you need to recover cogs to get a bridge to work. Most items in the game are held over Fox's head as he stares at it in awe (a trait borrowed from the 3D Zelda games), and the bridge cogs are no exception. Each bridge cog, as you collect them. There's also the retrieval and proper placement of the Krazoa Spirits, as even after Fox retrieves all Spellstones (the primary Plot Coupons) he still needs to find the remaining Spirits to save Dinosaur Planet, and this indeed lasts until the very last part of the game when the Final Boss is revealed. The trope in this game is lampshaded by Penny Arcade.
• Fictionary: The Dino language, which is just simple letter substitutions. See here.
• Floating Continent: Dinosaur Planet has been broken into continent-sized pieces that are now floating around the exposed core. You have to put them back together like gargantuan puzzle pieces.
• Flying Face: Andross, just like in the previous Star Fox games. Only this time, his natural face is fused with the face of a Krazoa Statue, meaning that both sides of his body (front and back) have a face each.
• Forced Tutorial: The game starts with a tutorial area featuring Krystal, including having to destroy the propellers of a ship while having unlimited hit points and unlimited ammunition. The game also has a cutscene every time you acquire a new item, giving a description of the item (even if you get the same of item more than once through the game).
• Foregone Victory:
  • Krystal's "battle" against the galleon right after the first Cutscene is unlosable; any hits you take simply result in screeching by the CloudRunner. No health is lost. There's no health meter until you're actually on board, as a matter of fact. You do, however, have to attack.
  • When you finally confront General Scales near the end of the game, the fight ends immediately and he gets Hijacked by Ganon the moment either of you manage to land a hit.
• Foxy Vixen: The game marks the debut appearance of Krystal, a scantily-clad Nubile Savage with a Sexophone theme. In later games, she ditches her tribal clothing for a more futuristic, form-fitting outfit that really draws attention to her chest.
• Free-Sample Plot Coupon: When the EarthWalker tells Krystal about the importance of retrieving the Krazoa Spirits, the Krazoa Shrine that guards the first of them is opened, and is only a few steps away from them.
• Frictionless Ice: There are two puzzles of this kind involving blocks in the Ocean Force Point Temple. The catch is that the "surface" is not ice, but misty air.
• Funny Animal: Fox and Krystal fit this trope, as do the other Star Fox pilots.
• Gambit Roulette: Andross's plan to revive himself. As explained at the end, he learned of the power of the Krazoa spirits on Dinosaur Planet, as well as Krystal's ability to channel their power, so he then proceeds to have her trapped a crystal so that, as Fox returns the other spirits, their power can be channeled through Krystal to revive him. So he has to manipulate General Scales into pushing Krystal into the Krazoa Spirit's breath's path, which traps her in a crystal capable of catalyzing the channeling process, and more importantly somehow know that Krystal would arrive on the planet.
• Gameplay Roulette: Tne addition to being action-adventure, the game also goes through the usual rail shooter when Fox travels between Dinosaur Planet and its satellital regions, in which gameplay adds elements of Dungeon Crawling (this is also true for the Force Point Temples and Krazoa Palace, located in the main planet).
• Gas Chamber: At one point in Cape Claw, you enter a chamber where noxious gas is freed, and you have to push blocks around to cover the gas sources while an Oxygen Meter starts emptying. Doing this will not only free Fox, but also the imprisoned CloudRunner Queen.
• General Ripper: General Scales is riding right in the middle between this and Colonel Kilgore, being a quasi-nazi dinosaur trying to Take Over the World with an M.O. of Rape, Pillage, and Burn (and occasional enslavement via You Said You Would Let Them Go).
• Genre Shift: This game - and this game alone - shifts Star Fox from a space combat focused series to an action RPG in the vein of the 3D Legend of Zelda games. Whenever you travel from one continent to the next, the game briefly becomes a space-based on rails shooter, but the gameplay in that vein is very minimal compared to the franchise's origins.
• Gentle Giant Sauropod: The HighTop tribe consists of sauropod dinosaurs. Fox encounters two of them, both of which help him during his travels in Cape Claw and Dragon Rock.
• A God Am I: Andross calls himself "the mighty Krazoa God" after he gains the power of all Krazoa Spirits.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: If Fox returns to the Ice mountain and hops on the Sharpclaw Speeder and races the Sharpclaws again, both of them treat it as a game, despite the fact that the Sharpclaws will presumably beat him to death if Fox fails the first race.
• Grail in the Garbage: A rare character-based example: The seemingly mute dinosaur in ThornTail Hollow, located next to the underground caverns south of the area, is the fourth Gatekeeper, giving access to Dragon Rock.
• Green Hill Zone: ThornTail Hollow is a grassy, serene plain with only a few hazards. It doubles as a Hub Level, as it provides access to the other area of the game (be it by way of on-foot routes, the Warpstone, or Fox's Arwing).
• Gusty Glade: Krazoa Palace combines this trope with Temple of Doom. Large eolic devices are installed through the palace, and using those of the central chamber is how you move from one floor to another.
• Hailfire Peaks: The DarkIce Mines starts in a Lethal Lava Land area before transitioning into a bigger Slippy-Slidey Ice World, and then finally moving back to a lava cavern. There's also Krazoa Palace, which has a Temple of Doom architecture (complete with dangerous setpieces like flamethrowers and a very dark room) combined with Gusty Glade elements.
• Hammerspace: All the items Fox carries are almost entirely unseen on his person until he uses them. Even the ones shown to be far bigger than him (just they somehow shrink in size until he uses them, like the cog). Krystal's staff is a subversion because it is visible that the staff can shrink down in size and is seen sticking out of Fox's pack.
• Heart Container: Fox's Life Meter is increased automatically by one heart after a boss is defeated.
• He Knows About Timed Hits: Some of the EarthWalkers at Krazoa Palace tell Krystal how to go into Head View, how to roll, and how to sidestep; and The Warpstone tells Fox to press the Control Stick to go to one of the three places he makes it possible to go to, or to press B so he can go back to sleep.
• Heroism Won't Pay the Bills: In the eight years since Andross' defeat, they've become extremely strapped for cash, and their weapons and technology have fallen into a state of disrepair. The main reason Fox agrees to go to Dinosaur Planet to help out is because of the paycheck General Pepper offers.
• He Was Right There All Along:
  • General Scales' cloaking device serves this purpose three times: once during the Krazoa Test of Fear and twice in Krazoa Palace.
  • The final boss of the game is hiding behind the big Krazoa statue on the roof of Krazoa Palace.
• High-Altitude Battle: Not as frequent as in the other games in the series, due to the shift in gameplay, but it's still present. The Final Boss is fought in outer space like most usual Star Fox bosses, while the confrontation between Kystal and the aerial galleon piloted by Scales, impossible to lose to since the player will have unlimited life energy at that point, takes place in the skies of Sauria.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Andross ends up hijacking General Scales, and his power is the main reason why Scales managed to amass so much power and influence to become the tyrannical ruler of Sauria in the first place. You even have to beat him the same way as in Star Fox 64. The hints foreshadowing Andross' return are scarce (due to the game's difficult development cycle), but they exist.^{Namely (SPOILERS)...}During the game's prologue, Andross kidnaps Krystal, who manages to see the perpetrator's identity shortly beforehand (it obviously wasn't Scales, as he stayed in his galleon after Krystal confronted him). Later in the game, Andross (still as a spirit) watches over Fox's progress in one of the Krazoa tests (Fear). And one of the Cheat Tokens, when deposited into the well of the Maze, hints that Andross is still present in some way in the Lylat system.
• Hint System: Talking to Slippy on the pause menu will give you a hint from him regarding where to go or what you have to do. This doesn't work when you're driving the Arwing in a flight mission, however, which also means you're on your own when facing Andross in outer space during the Final Boss battle.
• Hold the Line: A mother ThornTail tasks you with keeping any of her eggs from being carried to any of the creatures' entrances/exits within a period of time. You fail if any of them reach an exit, but if the time runs out, all stolen eggs are dropped, the creatures leave, and you get a necessary power. Dropped eggs slide to the center, and are invulnerable to your flailings with the stick.
• Holler Button: Shortly after you find Prince Tricky, he runs off; after you deal with all the Sharpclaw in the area, he'll teach you the Heel command, which calls him to you if he's capable of getting there. This is primarily useful if you told him to Stay on the wrong spot, or if he's busying himself growling at enemies when you want him to execute a Sidekick Skill.
• Hotter and Sexier: Krystal's mere existence is all it takes for this trope to be in play. According to an interview, Shigeru Miyamoto had long wanted to add sexier elements to the Star Fox series, and Krystal was redesigned from her fairly modest Dinosaur Planet incarnation in a saucier Vampirella-inspired design with this in mind.
• Hover Bike: Hovering bikes are used by the villainous SharpClaw tribe. The game features a few racing sections in which Fox commandeers one (including one where he has to pursue three riders who try to get away with a Water SpellStone).
• Hub Level: ThornTail Hollow serves as the hub of the game world (Sauria), with paths going to many places on the planet's surface, a Warpstone to send you to two other places, and the Arwing to take you to the satellite regions (which were originally part of the planet itself before the Big Bad destabilized them).
• Hub Under Attack: During the storyline, the dinosaurs of ThornTail Hollow start getting attacked by Egg Snatchers, making Fox have to get rid of them all. The area doesn't have too many other enemies and threats other than Bloops, who aren't really a problem, and the few SharpClaw mooks Fox fights near the game's beginning.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Krystal and Fox can eat Dumbledang Pods and Pukpuk eggs (said by the description to not be dinosaur eggs) for health. With each health container divided into four sections, they can restore up to 2 and 4 sections, respectively. The former can be knocked out of trees, and both can be found in containers, as enemy drops, and, if you're really desperate, in the store. But if you're buying them, you're probably really hurting for health.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: The only limits on what you can carry are on scarabs and bafomdads, both of which can be upgrade by buying bigger bags for them. Krystal isn't playable long enough to accumulate much of an inventory, but you still have to wonder where she carried that large brass key when she's wearing nothing more than a loincloth and a bikini top.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Krystal, who does from being a Damsel in Distress after the game's prologue to a member of the Star Fox team (as well as Fox's Love Interest) by the game's ending, guaranteeing her presence in later Star Fox games.
• I Got You Covered: Falco eventually comes around and does this while Fox is fighting the Big Bad.
• I Knew There Was Something About You: Upon his first arrival in ThornTail Hollow, Fox comes across an EarthWalker that stays fully silent when spoken too. When the stone golem hints there's more to his silence, Fox proclaim this phrase when he confronts him.
• Impending Doom P.O.V.: In the prologue just as Krystal is releasing the first Krazoa Spirit, a mysterious being is watching her close by, moments before attacking and trapping Krystal. The same being would later spy on Fox during the test of fear before revealing himself as Andross to force Scales into surrendering the last spirit to revive himself.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: At the CloudRunner Fortress, Fox manages to confront Scales and starts shooting Fire Blasts at him. Despite being about 10 feet away, Fox misses ALL ten shots and Scales flees.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: There is a certain room in a cave that requires you to pointlessly trek a longer path around the room even though the entrance and exit to the room are mere few feet away from each other, all because a small amount of short grass stands between them. This room, as well as every other similar room in the game, is used to allow the game time to load the next area.
• Interface Spoiler: Players can quickly spot that you'll eventually come back to the Walled City later, because when there the first time you can clearly see two areas you can't actually get in to.
• Interspecies Romance: Tricky's mother and father are a Protoceratops and Centrosaurus respectively.
• Item Get!: Though it's longer and more awkward than many of those in The Legend of Zelda games. Spoofed by VG Cats.
• It May Help You on Your Quest: Many of the "rewards" you get for heroing may as well have been some random trinket the NPC found lying on the ground, and in several cases that's exactly what it was. They are, of course, all immensely and immediately vital to your progress.
• Just Eat Him: Galdon eats Fox. It doesn't end well for him.
• Killed Off for Real: Andross apparently dies in this installment - for good.
• Kill Enemies to Open: Some barriers look like red vortexes with a skull in the middle and a number of little "spirits" orbiting around them, which indicates how many enemies you need to kill to open them.
• King Mook: King RedEye, the third boss. This green-colored T. Rexpy is a giant version of the RedEyes that lurk around the pyramidal temple in Walled City.
• Lady of Black Magic: Krystal, who owns the Magic Staff Fox finds later; she doesn't get to use it in-game except during the cutscene prior to the Final Boss battle, but she does in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. She's one of the only magic users in a primarily sci-fi setting capable of using a versatile array of offense and defensive spells with her staff, while being a graceful and sensual Foxy Vixen. She bucks a few trends regarding team dynamics, as she's the protagonist's love interest and despite her Team Mom position, is the youngest of the Star Fox team.
• Lampshade Hanging: During Queen Earthwalker's Infodump, specifically the part where she tells Fox that the SpellStones and Force Point Temples were built to stop the planet from tearing itself apart. Fox comments on the weirdness of such physics. Finally, when it seems Fox is ready to continue his mission, the queen stops him to give him a key the Sharpclaws dropped earlier, causing an annoyed Fox to quip, "Can I just get on with it?"
• Leap of Faith: A variation occurs in DarkIce Mines, as the reward is not in the pit, but across a bridge of light that appears when you jump off the edge of this gap that's too big to jump across, in accordance with the instructions on a nearby sign.
• Lethal Lava Land: Certain parts of the DarkIce Mines are like this (particularly underground), while the rest is covered in snow and ice. A more full-fledged case is the Volcano Force Point Temple, which is located beyond Moon Mountain Pass and has many lava pits as well as hot setpieces like fire geysers and pistons that periodically spit fire. Lastly, the battlefield where Fox confronts Drakor in Dragon Rock is an underground foundry, though lava is cosmetic here as Fox's vehicle (a mobile hovering platform) keeps him safe from it.
• Level-Map Display: The game requires all maps pertaining the game's locations (including dungeons) to be purchased in the shop of ThornTail Hollow before they can be shown on-screen. The map can be zoomed in and out in a gradual manner.
• Lighter and Softer: Than both the original Dinosaur Planet and Star Fox 64. Compared to the former, it has a brighter atmosphere and tone to the environments, a more upbeat soundtrack and a much simpler and more lighthearted story with plenty of levity, while compared to the latter, there are much more fantastical elements, the conflict is localized to one planet as opposed to spanning the entire galaxy and it has more intentional humor.
• Live Item: There are several of these:
  • There's a species of blue fungus that sleep at night, but hop around during the day, trying to get away from you if you try to pick them off the ground. To collect them, you have to smack them with Krystal's staff first. It's interesting to note that Rare had always wanted to feature "hard-to-collect collectibles" in their games, and the Jinjos originally meant to be like this in Banjo-Kazooie, but the idea didn't see the light of day until this very game.
  • There are also the Bafomdads, little four-eared rabbits that are found all over the place and serve the same function as Zelda's fairies and are found and collected like the fungus. Except they don't run from the player and you don't have to beat them into submission (instead you have to dig most of them out).
  • The FireFlies, which are green luminiscent insects used to light up dark areas, move around until Fox collects them.
• Living Currency: You'll find yourself prying up boulders for scarab beetles often, so you can spend them at the shop or for bribes. There's also a game at the shop where the Shopkeeper releases the green scarabs you bet into a cave with an equal number of black beetles and challenges you to capture all the green ones without touching a black one, double or nothing.
• Lizard Folk: A of the inhabitants resemble this trope to an extent.
• Long Song, Short Scene: "Dark Ice Landing Strip", which plays only in the entrance area of DarkIce Mines, an area that a competent player can get through in around 10 seconds.
• Love at First Sight: What happens to Fox when he first sees Krystal. And judging by the way she looks into his eyes when he saves her from falling to her death at the end of the game, it's implied the same is true for her.
• Low-Tech Spears: The LightFoot tribe are based on stereotypical natives, and are notably the only dinosaur tribe who uses spears, with the also weapon-using SharpClaw tribe preferring spiked clubs and axes.
• Luke Nounverber: The game mixes this with CamelCase to name certain locations, since these are named after the dinosaur species (the ones named with camel case themselves) that inhabit them: ThornTail Hollow, SnowHorn Wastes, CloudRunner Fortress, LightFoot Village.
• Mad Eye: The FireCrawlers have these.
• Magic Staff: Krystal's staff, which Fox recovers and uses since General Pepper ordered him to leave his blaster behind. The Telescoping Staff can be used pummel enemies, and also possesses various powers needed to navigate the planet.
• Male Gaze: The camera tends to focus on Krystal in ways that accentuate her mostly exposed body.
• Mammoths Mean Ice Age: The main inhabitants of the snowy regions of Dinosaur Planet are a tribe of woolly mammoths called the SnowHorns.
• Mana Meter:
  • The Staff Energy Meter indicates how much energy Fox has available for the Staff Powers. It is refilled by collecting Magic Gems, and it has three upgrades that can be found in the world.
  • Tricky has a meter that tells how many Grubtubs' worth of energy he has available for the Sidekick Skills that require it. It is refilled by feeding him Grubtubs.
• Mascot Mook: The Sharpclaw Tribe is the most common source of enemies you'll find in the game, as they're the dinosaurs who are directly under the command of General Scales. The bigger ones have a pale skin and use a shield to deflect many of Fox's attacks with the Staff. Near the end of the game, all Sharpclaws turn against Scales once they discover that his increased power wasn't from himself, but from Andross.
• Mayincatec: The setting of the game is a mix of this and Prehistoria, Dinosaur Planet having distinct Central/South American influences to it, most notably seen in the architecture of places like ThornTail Hollow, CloudRunner Fortress and Walled City and the clothing and jewelry worn by several NPCs, plus much of the soundtrack.
• Meaningless Lives: You're bound to find far more Bafomdads than you will ever need (assuming you somehow need any), and besides that you'll find far more of the little gerbils than you can carry.
• Mini-Dungeon: As far as the order of exploration of places goes, the game inverts this trope as the main dungeons (the satellite regions of Dinosaur Planet, as well as the Force Point Temples) are always accessed and completed before the mini-dungeons (the Krazoa Shrines). The reason is because, during his quest, Fox alternates between looking for the SpellStones and looking for the Krazoa Spirits; so whenever he finds a SpellStone and puts it where it belongs, his next objective is to find a Krazoa Spirit and take it back to Krazoa Palace, so proceed then to the next SpellStone and repeating the process. This is the reason why the last thing pending before facing the final boss is to retrieve the remaining Krazoa Spirits.
• Mixed Animal Species Team: In the ending of the game, Krystal, a vixen who is also Fox's love interest, joins the team.
• Money for Nothing: Aside from a few plot-important items and a Broken Bridge or two, scarabs are pretty meaningless. About the only item for sale that's not easy to come by on its own are FireFlies, but you rarely need those and they're not technically necessary anyway.
• Ms. Fanservice: Krystal, considering not only how the game portrays her, but also how stunned Fox is when she sees her the first time. Not only is her outfit revealing, but her theme music is a cheesy saxophone. In the game's ending, ROB comments on Fox's arousal while seeing her arrival into the Great Fox.
• Monster in the Ice: Galdon starts out frozen when you enter his arena until you have Tricky thaw him with the Flame command.
• Mook Chivalry: SharpClaw soldiers will, regardless of number or strength, engage you one at a time.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Upon arriving at Cape Claw, Tricky briefly stops for a moment when he senses the Queen Cloudrunner watching them from afar while trapped in her prison.
• My Greatest Failure: The final Gatekeeper (the Thorntail who has been unwilling to talk to Fox for a long time) attempted to defeat Scales himself, but his attack failed and his friends were imprisoned in Dragon Rock.
• My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: When Krystal shows up to say thank you to Fox at the end of the game, ROB's sensors indicate that Fox's temperature has suddenly started rising.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: The SharpClaw Tribe, right down to the concentration camps for all of Scales' enemies as well as the implied threat of genocide and various war technologies the SharpClaws had that were implied to be extremely advanced for the dinosaur's time. Considering who Scales is being manipulated by, it's not really much of a surprise.
• No-Gear Level: CloudRunner Fortress has Fox get imprisoned and his magic staff (the only piece of equipment he has, but which contains the staff powers he has gained thus far) taken off him in one stage. The stage thus revolves around sneaking around the prison to get the power needed to get it back by fooling the guard into thinking you're his replacement, so he'll leave.
• Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits: The bottomless pits are not only nonlethal, but harmless. In fact, falling into one refills your life meter. You are merely deposited at an invisible checkpoint, sometimes near where you fell in. Some lava pits are the same, for all practical purposes, but others let you run around on the lava at the expense of eating your health. Basically, if you can get out of the pit using the game mechanics afforded you, it's a lot more dangerous to fall in in the first place.
• Nonstandard Game Over: Quite a few for failing certain missions. While most are simply "oh well" alternate scenes, some of them can be pretty mean to Fox. One of the later ones (namely the result of failing to defend a HighTop from enemy attacks at one point in Dragon Rock) consists of Tricky whimpering and nuzzling up to Fox's lifeless body. The game resets to an earlier point after such cutscenes and does not take away a Bafomdad, however.
• Noob Cave: The bottom of the ThornTail well serves as this.
• Nubile Savage: Krystal. Her outfit consists of a metal bikini top, loincloth, assorted jewelry, and tribal tattoos, one of which is placed directly above her butt.^note Manipulating the camera to certain angles reveals what could be either white fur or a thong underneath her loincloth. Doing the same in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate clearly shows that she isn't wearing any underwear. Generally, it's believed that all Cerinians had a similar dress sense.
• Oddball in the Series: Even ignoring the total Genre Shift in terms of gameplay to Zelda style, the game's roots as a Dolled-Up Installment shine brightly, as the story and environment is much more mystical and fantastical compared to previous entries, with little of the more war-centered storytelling to be found.
• Official Couple: As of this game's ending, there have been very strong hints that Fox McCloud would end up with Krystal. In Star Fox Command, depending on the ending, they can either end up as this trope, or break up permanently.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Tricky is an ally example. Run too far ahead of him? He's around the next corner. Had to climb to proceed? He'll catch up. He cannot teleport across large pits with flame jets and moving platforms for some reason, however.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Andross seems to really have lost it by the time he's revived, seeing how he mentions that he intends to destroy the Lylat System shortly after revealing himself to Fox. Originally, he was simply content with ruling the Lylat System. It's also implied that he's the reason why Krystal is the last Cerinian left.
• One-Time Dungeon: DarkIce Mines and CloudRunner Fortress are the only satellital areas in Star Fox Adventures that get sealed off after you defeat their respective bosses and retrieve their Spellstones. Fox can hang around their Arwing landing sites (as long as you replay their associated Arwing shooter levels), but that's it. The good news is that there's nothing missable (like Energy Cells or Cheat Tokens) in them, if only because none of the satellital regions have optional collectibles anyway.
• Only in It for the Money: Throughout the game, Fox constantly whines that he's not being paid enough to save the planet. At one point, he has to be talked out of leaving because he doesn't care that the planet hasn't been saved by simply rescuing a prince.
• Only the Pure of Heart: Only those pure of heart may enter the Krazoa Shrine.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Though he keeps his American accent pretty straight most of the time, Fox has a tendency to lapse into British pronunciations.
• Palette Swap: By playing fetch with Tricky, you can change his color scheme around. They all look the same, they're just different colors, ranging from the muted to the garish.
• Palmtree Panic: Cape Claw, located past the LightFoot Village. It is home of a friendly HighTop dinosaur who asks you to retrieve his missing gold bars, and various unfriendly SharpClaws who hold a CloudRunner captive. This place is also home to the Ocean Force Point Temple, where the two Ocean Spellstones (located elsewhere) have to to brought back.
• Party of Representatives: Each of the four Gatekeepers who protect the lands where the Spellstones were forged represents a major race of the dinosaur society in Sauria: Garunda Te is a SnowHorn (mammoth) and is the Gatekeeper who opens the way to DarkIce Mines, the Queen CloudRunner (pterodactyl) is the Gatekeeper who opens the way to CloudRunner Fortress, The King EarthWalker (triceratops) is the Gatekeeper who opens the way to Walled City, and the silent ThornTail (Nodosaurus) whom you can see isolated from his fellows in ThornTail Hollow is the Gatekeeper who opens the way to Dragon Rock.
• Pass Through the Rings:
  • Every time you go from the planet to a chunk, the flight corridor has ten Gold Rings to fly through. Only one chunk requires you to pass through all of them to get there (namely to access Dragon Rock), but whenever you do, you gain bonus points for that flight.
  • Regarding on-foot areas, there are two cases where Fox must pass through rings of sparkles. At CloudRunner Fortress, Fox must use pillars, other structures, and floating crates to jump through a series of rings along a path over water. And at the Walled City, rings appear in the stream around the central land mass, the object being to swim or otherwise pass through them. Both instances are a race against time, but in the second case, passing through a ring gives you a few more seconds.
• Physical God: Andross takes a dip into this trope by using the Krazoa spirits to imprison Krystal and gradually drain her life force, making him powerful enough for the spirits to consider him their god during the game's events; by the time Fox runs into him during the game's closing moments, he's seemingly capable of destroying the entire Lylat System.
• Planetary Romance: In contrast to the other games in the series, Adventures takes place on a singular planet inhabited by sentient dinosaurs, and relatively few straight sci-fi elements. It does have satellital areas (previously separated from the planet) that stand in for offworld destinations, however.
• Platform-Activated Ability: The Rocket Boost Pads are small, sparkling square pads that are littered through Sauria. Once Fox learns the appropriate skill, he can plant Krystal's staff onto these pads to imbue energy that will make it (and Fox) move upward to reach a high spot. Also, in specific parts of DarkIce Mines and (after retrieving a lost item and giving it back to a character) SnowHorn Wastes, there are gray-colored round pads onto which Fox can stand in order to play a Dino Horn and trigger a special action, whether to summon a SnowHorn for a ride or make another pad to play the Dino Horn there and begin a sequential race that eventually opens the path to a Krazoa Shrine; the Dino Horn cannot even be played anywhere else, so its uses are ultimately limited.
• Plot Coupon: The SpellStones (4) and the Krazoa Spirits (6). The SpellStones are needed to stop the ongoing instability of planet Sauria's internal energy, while the Krazoa Spirits are needed to put back the regions of the planet that separated from it as a result of the instability.
• Point of No Return: Once you've collected the fifth Krazoa Spirit in the Walled City shrine, going back to the planet will instantly drop you off at the Krazoa Palace and final boss. The game doesn't even give you any warning.
• Precursors: It's implied that the Krazoa Spirits are these. Considering Clarke's Third Law, and the fact that the game is set in a science fiction universe, it's quite plausible they are. In the original Dinosaur Planet concept, they were.
• Prehistoria: Sauria is inhabited entirely by dinosaurs, meaning that the game's entire setting is prehistoric. Despite this, the dinosaurs are sapient and, except for the SharpClaws, ShadowHunters, RedEyes and FireCrawlers, very friendly.
• Primal Fear: The Galdon boss fight in DarkIce Mines requires you to get eaten twice by Galdon - an Eldritch Abomination-type creature. Upon being swallowed, you get treated to a "wonderful" view of the creature's insides, all whilst you wade around in some sort of stomach-fluid, pummeling a uvula-type appendage, until you're ejected from it's body. See it here.
• Puzzle Boss: King RedEye can only be damaged by tossing explosive barrels at him. To do this, it's necessary to stun him by landing the electric dose from the corridors' terminals with the right timing, at the moment his head is passing by.
• Puzzle Reset: The sliding-block puzzles in Walled City and Ocean Force Point Temple, specifically the ones where a simple shove sends them sliding like they're on ice, only require that a block hit a wall in order for the puzzle to reset.
• Raptor Attack: During the Krazoa Test of Fear, Fox gets attacked by ShadowHunters ^note name revealed by an unused briefing by Peppy, a tribe of small, carnivorous dinosaurs that bear resemblances to Velociraptor. Though their lack of killing claws, a third finger, and feathers seem to suggest they are something else other than dromaeosaurids.
• Reality Has No Subtitles: When playing as Fox before the translator device is ready, any Dino Talk^note not the growls; the English-based substitution cipher that sounds like it could be words is rendered "Dino Talk". It's not until after the chase sequence in the summit area of SnowHorn Wastes when the device is ready for use. When playing as Krystal or hearing her later as Fox, the Dino speech in those cutscenes is subtitled.^note It makes sense in both cases, but for different reasons: As Krystal, the player is supposed to know what she and the characters interacting with her are saying, because they all understand each other by knowing the language; as Fox, even though Krystal's speech is heard in Dino, the subtitles are still in English thanks to the translator device, as the information she's providing is key for the player to understand how to use the Staff. The growls are subtitled, as that's a representation of what Slippy does in the cutscene with the Queen: he tells Fox what they're saying.
• Record Needle Scratch: This happens when Fox first sees Krystal. The moment he sees her, he starts gawking at her beauty. As his mind slowly comes back, he briefly talks to himself about what an idiot he's being for being so distracted, then he is snapped out of it by Peppy, who reminds him he still has a job to do. When it happens, the Sexophone music playing in the background cuts out with a scratch.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The four dinosaurs that pace along each side of the Walled City's central structure and attack you if you draw near, and the one huge dinosaur underground that serves as the boss for that part of the mission, are known collectively as the "RedEye" Tribe, and they all have red eyes.
• Rescue Romance: Fox rescues Krystal. Later games have them as a couple.
• Respawning Enemies: Happens very often, usually only a few seconds after you've defeated the enemies in the first place.
• The Reveal: Andross has been manipulating General Scales and Fox to run around and obtain the Krazoa Spirits in order to revive himself. In addition, it was Andross who trapped Krystal after she released the first Spirit.
• Ribcage Stomach: Galdon has one. How he manages to puke Fox out twice with that roomy and rigid a stomach is anyone's guess.
• Schizo Tech: Scales and the rest of the SharpClaw are running around with steel weapons, artillery, and hoverbikes. The CloudRunner fortress is powered by Magitek. The LightFoot tribe seems to thrive on Bamboo Technology. And at least one member of the ThornTail tribe is utterly fascinated by the "metal bird" you fly around in.
• Sexophone: Features when Fox first sees Krystal, and when she goes to the Great Fox at the end of the game.
• Shell Game: The first Krazoa test — the one that Krystal takes — involves a Krazoa spirit going into one of six large urns, which then shuffle around a few times before you have to guess where it is. You have to find it three times, and the urns shuffle two more times each time, and the pool of possible moves gets more complicated each time, but it's never particularly hard if you keep your eyes on the one you saw it go into.
• Shout-Out: The moment when Fox is eaten by Galdon heavily resembles the scene when Kay gets eaten by the Bug in the climax of Men in Black. Galdon even resembles the Bug.
• Single-Biome Planet: Played with. The four satellital areas of Sauria (DarkIce Mines, CloudRunner Fortress, Walled City and Dragon Rock), while all single-biome, are actually parts of the planet that were separated from it when General Scales removed the Spellstones from the two Force Point Temples, and they return to their original locations during the game's ending. Sauria itself, meanwhile, has a variety of biomes even without the missing pieces, so it simply averts the trope.
• Sixth Ranger: Krystal starts off as the lone wolf Decoy Protagonist before Fox takes over the player character role. After he rescues her during the game's climax, Krystal joins the Star Fox team out of gratitude (among other things), and by Star Fox: Assault an elderly Peppy resigns to Mission Control status while she takes up Peppy's position as Fox's third wingman.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: There two cold areas: SnowHorn Wastes and part of DarkIce Mines. There's not a lot of slipperiness in the former (although the Krazoa Shrine accessible from there does have a slippery floor), but they do have places where ice blocks your way, and the water eats away at your health as long as you stay in it. The latter also has a big lava zone, thus it's also a Hailfire Peaks dungeon.
• Songs in the Key of Lock: Despite its strong inspiration in The Legend of Zelda games, the trope only occurs once in this game. After Fox retrieves the Gold Fruit to its owner in SnowHorn Wastes, he initiates a test where he has to play the Dinosaur Horn while standing on pads located strategically in key parts of the region, and do so before time runs out (it's recommended to clear the associated paths before starting to save time later). Once he succeeds, the gate to the next Krazoa Shrine opens.
• Sound Test: The game has one available from Slippy's part of the main menu once you pay a certain Well for its Cheat Token and drop it into the maze's well. The tracks have no names displayed, not even numbers.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The music that plays when the gas chamber in Cape Claw activates is surprisingly calm and peaceful for the frantic timed block-pushing sequence that it really is.
• Stock Dinosaur Archetypes: Sauria's residents consist of dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and wooly mammoths with human-level sapience and intelligence for the most part. The ceratopsian EarthWalkers serve as the planet's royalty and display a sense of authority for their kind and to other races. There are also the thyreophoran ThornTails, small theropod-like LightFoots, sauropods in the form of HighTops, and pterosaurs who go by CloudRunners who are all usually friendly and willing to aid Fox in their quest to stop the villainous SharpClaws who are essentially humanoid carnosaurs and tyrannosaurs. One of the very few non-sapient dinosaurs is the tyrannosaur-like RedEye tribe that is prone to attacking anything they get their eyes on, as are the raptor-looking ShadowHunter tribe.
• Stuff Blowing Up: If it's not Bomb Spore Plants, it's cannons. If it's not cannons, it's heavy machinery that explodes when they malfunction. If it's not that, it's the bomb barrels. If it's not that, then it's whatever that gets in the way of the aforementioned hazards. Except the dinosaurs.
• Supermodel Strut: At the end of the game when Krystal shows up in Star Fox's ship, she enters the command room while doing a purposeful strut, complete with swaying hips, a Male Gaze camera shot of her rear and Sexophone music.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: Krystal's staff (which Fox takes shortly after he arrives to Sauria) is the main way in which Fox interacts with his environment. He can use it as a blunt killing stick, a basic blaster, an ice blaster, a mini-earthquake maker, an impromptu switch, a basic lever, a mini-rocket, a Mook disguise, and a magic door key.
• Technicolor Eyes: The side effect of having a Krazoa Spirit inside of you gives you a shade of purple constantly twisting. It's kind of creepy on Fox, who's stuck with a serious expression in-game.
• Tele-Frag: It is rare but possilble for the bat enemies in certain locations to respawn inside a cave wall. This causes them to be eternally stuck in the spawning animation, and never be replaced.
• Temple of Doom: No less than four: Volcano Force Point Temple, Ocean Force Point Temple, Walled City, and Krazoa Palace. The former two are where the Spellstones have to be taken back, and rely more on puzzles than traps or obstacles. Walled City is a more open-ended location, as its design is based to put into test whoever wants to claim the Spellstone and later a Krazoa Spirit (though, due to the wrongdoings of General Scales, it will also be necessary to defeat the RedEye Tribe for the former Plot Coupon). Krazoa Palace is where all Krazoa Spirits have to be deposited, and it's there where Krystal remains imprisoned due to Andross, who plans to return to physical life.
• Temporary Platform: There's a room you have to cross to get to the door. The middle of the room is tiled. Before you activate the switch, the tiles stay put, but the door is closed. You have to throw the switch to open it, but this also makes the tiles temporary; you can stay on them a couple of seconds before it starts to drop. Making matters worse, three gates come up. These drop and rise in a pattern. You can stand in the safe area before the tiles while waiting for the first to drop, but waiting for the second and third involves moving from tile to tile, hoping the gate would drop before you did.
• Terrifying Tyrannosaur: The RedEye tribe are tyrannosaurs which are driven by the animalistic instinct to hunt, led by an absolutely gigantic king.
• Timed Mission: As you return from dropping off a Krazoa Spirit, the sole female Thorntail in the game can be heard making noise. Turns out some evil creatures are stealing her eggs. Ensues a Hold the Line mission where you have to keep them from exiting with any of the eggs for 100 seconds. Inexplicably, when their time runs out, any creature with an egg drops it and flees.
• Time-Limit Boss: Fox has to catch, and get rid of, the three SharpClaw Riders that are trying to flee away from him in the underground vault of CloudRunner Fortress before the fuel of his vehicle runs out. They're the ones holding the second SpellStone (the others are held by larger, non-wolfpack bosses). In the other chase sequences, Fox drives a vehicle with unlimited fuel.
• Title In: Being an action-adventure inspired by the Zelda games, it identifies the area you're arriving with a display of its name on the screen. Thanks to Dynamic Loading, no cutscene is necessary for the areas located in Sauria.
• Tough Armored Dinosaur: Averted with the ThornTails, a tribe of peaceful and harmless nodosaurs, but played straight with the FireCrawlers, a tribe of angry mutated ankylosaurs fought in Moon Mountain Pass and Dragon Rock who breathe fire and have a ton of health.
• Translation Convention: Both played straight and averted. During Krystal's prologue, everyone was speaking in the Dino language instead of English, with the subtitles translating what they are saying. In Fox's chapter, any attempt to talk to the dinosaurs will have them speaking their native tongue (the translator Slippy invented was not quite ready yet) until Fox met up with Tricky.
• T. Rexpy: The SharpClaws are anthropomorphic, human-sized versions of tyrannosaurs, although curiously enough General Scales appears to be an Allosaurus. The RedEye tribe, and especially their boss, are more traditional variants.
• Uncertain Doom: After General Scales releases the final Krazoa Spirit he collapses in pain and is then surrounded by three Sharpclaw soldiers who take his belt. It's unclear if Scales was killed by the Krazoa Spirit or if he was just unconscious and the Sharpclaws used his incapacitation to liberate themselves. In any case, Star Fox: Assault mentions that the Apparoids wiped out the Sharpclaw clan meaning if Scales wasn't already dead after Adventures he's almost certainly dead after Assault.
• Underground Level: Once the speeder bike in the Darkice Mines passes a certain point, the rest of the level is cave. There's also the underground field of Thorntail Hollow, where Fox has to look for white mushrooms (White Grubtubs, a special variant of the more common Blue Grubtubs) to cure Tricky's mother.
• Unexpected Shmup Level: Most of Dragon Rock is a series of these, including the boss.
• The Unfought: Despite being built up as the Big Bad, a bos fight with General Scales never occurs, with him being suddenly upstaged by Andross just before he's about to fight Fox.
• Unique Enemy: There's exactly one flamethrower Sentinel, appearing only in the second visit to the Krazoa Palace, and four RedEyes, which only appear in Walled City and don't respawn when killed.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Krazoa Palace, the same place Fox has visited repeatedly to put back the Krazoa Spirits he retrieves, also ends up being the final destination of his adventure, as the Final Boss is revealed to have been hiding there all along (though you fight him in space).
• Vent Physics: Happens in the Krazoa Palace due to the numerous air vents, since the dungeon itself is themed around Gusty Glade. And some doorways in the Cloudrunner Fortress feature them, too.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can shoot many of the friendly dinosaurs or otherwise get them caught in cross-fire or hurt them on purpose because they won't move from the site of a Bomb Spore Plant spot or away from a mook, but while they'll react they won't actually be harmed and can't die. Tricky is also susceptible to this, but if he's harmed enough and knows the Flame command, he can attack back if he's got the stamina.
• Video-Game Lives: There's an item called the BaFomDad, which works like an optional extra life: die with at least one in your inventory, and it'll ask you if you want to use one; if you do, you come back to life right where you stood. There's only one to collect in Krystal's part of the game, and it doesn't carry over to Fox's part. Fox himself can only carry one until he gets a BaFomDad Holder, which lets him carry ten. The game has many more, but if you have ten already, you can't pick them up; they stay there until you try with nine or fewer.
• Villain Decay: General Scales becomes this by the end, thanks to him getting shafted by Andross. Andross has this problem too: in all prior games he was a threat to the entire Lylat system by way of having a massive, interplanetary army and navy at his beck and call... here, he's by himself, and gets killed by Fox practically as soon as he appears.
• Wallet of Holding: At first, Fox can only carry up to 10 Scarabs (the only wallet he has is that of his own clothes), but after helping a character in SnowHorn Wastes he receives a Scarab Bag that allows him to store up to 50. As the game progresses, he'll get subsequent larger wallets to carry up to 100, and then to 200.
• We Will Use WikiWords in the Future: The names of the dinosaur races and, by extension, their places of residence, use CamelCase.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: During Krystal's tutorial stage, she finds a CloudRunner in a cage on Scale's ship and tries to rescue it. She is tossed overboard and goes directly from there to the distress signal. Neither the ship nor the fate of the caged CloudRunner is ever mentioned again. In the original Dinosaur Planet, the CloudRunner's name is Kyte, and she plays a much bigger role in that game, being Krystal's equivalent of Tricky and the princess of the CloudRunners.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: For some bizarre reason, Andross suddenly gains a Caribbean accent in this game... or rather, some weird combination of Caribbean and Birmingham accents.
• Where It All Began: The game ends where it begins: Krazoa Palace.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: There is a brief moment of silence as Fox tries to process why the hell the prince is called Tricky.
• Wolfpack Boss: The second Spellstone, instead of being guarded by a large or powerful creature, is in the hands of a trio of SharpClaw Riders whom Fox must pursue through the large, underground vault of CloudRunner Fortress (General Scales gave it to them so he could escape from Fox). Unlike in the standard chase sequences, Fox must hurry in taking them down, because his vehicle's fuel is finite, so it also qualifies as a Time-Limit Boss.
• Wizard Needs Food Badly: Tricky becomes this if overused and underfed. He'll outright refuse to do anything if he isn't fed enough GrubTubs and his meter is allowed to drop.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: When Fox is about to fight General Scales, Andross deems that the latter is no longer useful to his plans. As such, he has Scales give Fox the final Krazoa Spirit.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: The game pulls it twice, though the second time isn't that far from the end. The first time, Fox figures that all there is to bringing the planetary chunks back together is... saving the queen's son. Not too shabby. Later, the placing of the four Spellstones does bring the planet back together long enough for him to prematurely declare the mission accomplished, only to find that it's not, and he discovers that those Spirits he's been collecting and releasing are actually important to the mission. Lastly, when he brings back all Spirits: Andross hijacks them to consumate his revival, thus forcing the Final Boss battle. Interestingly, the would-be "princess" to be rescued (Krystal) remains captive in the same place at all times (Krazoa Palace), and during the game's climax, Fox pursues his nemesis while she unsuccesfully shoots at the latter from the ground, but being otherwise safe after her rescue.
• Zero-Effort Boss: General Scales' galleon. It is impossible to die during this fight, no matter how many times you get hit. General Scales himself is this, largely because his boss fight doesn't exist.

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