A fully playable build of Rare’s unreleased Nintendo 64 game, Dinosaur Planet, has made its way online courtesy of Twitter user Forest of Illusion, who managed to obtain a copy of the 1999 title from a private game collector in Sweden. Dinosaur Planet is best known for being the precursor to Star Fox Adventures, which was released for the Gamecube in 2002 and served as Rareware’s final game before it was acquired by Microsoft’s Xbox division.
“We purchased this disc containing the build from a private game collector in Sweden,” Forest of Illusion explained. “The file date lists the build as being from December 1st 2000. It seems to be quite a late build of the game which is great, but it will need some hacking to be fully playable to the end.”
“[Dinosaur Planet’s] development was halted and moved to the GameCube, where it was then released as Star Fox Adventures. The game will currently not run 100% perfectly on any emulator. Expect many graphical issues with shadows and lighting, and some slowdown. It should however, work perfectly fine with flashcarts.”
Dinosaur Planet’s development was going smoothly in 1999 until Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto stepped in and convinced Rare to turn the game into a Star Fox title due to the supposed resemblance between the game’s original lead, Sabre, and master Arwing pilot Fox McCloud. Some members of Rare were reportedly unhappy about the change, as it led to extensive rewrites.
Today we have released Dinosaur Planet by Rare for Nintendo 64. The development was halted and moved to the GameCube, where it was then released as Star Fox Adventures. Enjoy! (More info in this thread).
— Forest of Illusion (@forestillusion) February 20, 2021
Link to the dump:https://t.co/gQGGcU4vJK pic.twitter.com/Orub7RU3fa