Let's Sperg StairFax Temperatures - Finding out just why Star Fox is dead

[AngeloTheWizard]

What is StairFax Temperatures?
Simple, it's the temperature of the room while you attempt to send a fax out.

No really, what is this game?
Star Fox Adventures (jokingly called Stair Fax Temperatures by JonTron in his review) originally started life as "Dinosaur Planet", an action adventure created by Rare. However, at the time, Rare's corporate masters were seeking to get out from beneath Nintendo's thumb, and seeing the writing on the wall with Microsoft, Nintendo demanded that Rare reskin Dinosaur Planet with Star Fox characters so that Rare couldn't port Dinosaur Planet to the Xbox or something like that. The rushed nature of the job shows.

So why does this game suck?
Several reasons. Imagine if you took Ocarina of Time and ripped out everything that made the game charming and interesting-Remove the side paths in the dungeons that would lead to extra items, remove most of Link's items and force him to use a sidekick with a goddamn stamina meter to use those items, and then make the controls looser than your mom on a Friday night. The graphics are about the only thing this game has going for it, it's very pretty, outclassed only by some of the later Gamecube games like Twilight Princess in the looks department. I'll be going into other stuff that pisses me right off about this game later, as we come across it.

Couldn't you record this game and do it as a video series?
I could, but to add to the pain, the only ISO I was able to find has the quality of shit on toast, with constant slowdowns during cutscenes and graphical glitches that make No Man's Sky's original version look polished and refined.

So strap in, fuckers. It's gonna get loud...again.

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Right, so, this is about all we get for an intro. The Main Menu is actually on board Fox's capital ship, the Great Fox, with all the characters you know and love, so suddenly being behind the reins of some bitch named Krystal is, well...whiplash inducing.

"It said something about a mountain hidden in a storm. Whoever they are, they sound in great danger!"

Oh right. Shitty design choice number 1: The characters, at least for the first part of the game, speak in "Dinosaur Language", a stupid letter replacement language that makes about as much sense as the Al Bhed language in FFX did. And I hate FFX, so anything that reminds me of that pile of trash gets immediate negative points.

Oh yeah, while I'm lamenting the stupid language, Krystal gets shot with a fireball and drops her staff. This is only so Fox can pick it up later after being given a stupid excuse for not being able to bring his fucking blaster rifle to the game.

And here come the glitches. You can't tell, but what's next to us is a massive airship that seems to be alive-or at least, have living dinosaur heads worked into it. These glitches are mercifully rare after this point so I can't even say it's "extreme weather" that does it, the rest of this level and a level later on has a rain storm and a blizzard throughout it, respectively, and this glitch never comes up again. So...I dunno.

Man this game does not look good in screen caps. Your objective here is to use your pterodactyl's magical light balls to blow up several parts of the ship, starting with the two cannons behind it shooting fireballs, then the propeller below it, and then finally, the dinosaur figurehead in the front. Problem is, you don't have any sort of indication of where your shots will land. Your movement affects the trajectory of your shots, so trying to hit anything is like trying to piss into a cup from 10 feet away. Luckily, you cannot die in this segment, no matter how many hits you take.

Once you blow everything up, Krystal will land on the ship for some reason. There's no need to do so and in fact we just end up going to the "Mountain in the Storm" as soon as this segment is over, so really, she only lands so the game can introduce the badguy.

And another shitty design choice, but then again, there's a million Gamecube games guilty of treating players like absolute retards. Just, game designers, please pretend I have some idea of what I'm doing, or at least leave the control tutorials to NPCs I can talk to and skip by if I don't give a shit.

Anyway, we follow a squeaky voice to a caged pterodactyl, and after talking to it, a door opens to go down below. Going down below, we find a key.

So, you know how Zelda had that charming little "Item Get" thing, and it was reserved for treasure chests and rupees that actually meant something? Well, imagine that, but it's twice as long and done for EVERY SINGLE NEW FUCKING ITEM YOU FIND. Every key, every Scarab (the game's currency), even the fucking food items that restore health. No really, imagine if Link jumped in excitement and the game gave you a 20 second long text based explanation about how hearts restore your health and you have about how this game handles new items. It would be one thing if it was just "oh, this egg restores your health", but no, they have to explain what it is, asure you it's not a dinosaur egg, and annoy you to no end. Though thankfully, the explanation only pops up the first time you collect a thing.

If your first instinct after getting the key is to run back to the cage with the little flying dino and try to save it, you are right and wrong. Right in that you have to go back to that location, wrong in thinking you can save him. It disappears after this prologue sequence, never to be seen again. Who IS seen again is...

Ruler, tyrant, and dictator of Dinosaur Planet.

And, for some reason, I enjoy describing myself in villainous terms, despite how tyrant and dictator are usually reserved for the heroes to call the villain. I'm just kinda removing the moral ambiguity up front for your convenience.

What brings you to my world?

I'm not here to fight you. I'm here because of a distress call?

A distress call? The whole planet is in distress!

The CloudRunner told me about you, the evil General. Though this conversation will not be shown in game and it's kind of up to the player that "CloudRunner" means "Flying dinosaurs".

My girl, I am not evil. I rule over the many dinosaur tribes. You see, I must control this planet with fear. Otherwise, the tribes always try to fight against me. Hmm, you know, ruling through fear might be a bit evil and totally undermine my point, since they wouldn't be fighting me if I was doing a good job of ruling the planet...maybe I should stop talking. Maybe I should throw you off my ship!

General Scales then attempts to do just that.

Well, at least the game established that the flying dude was there instead of Deus Ex Machina'ing it. A worse game would just have her land on Krazoa Palace unharmed-which is where we're heading as General Scales promises, in that classic bad villain way, that this isn't over!

Seriously, this story has all the depth of a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

We land at Krazoa Palace, and the pterodactyl we've been riding tells us this is the dinosaurs' most sacred place. Yes, the flier talks. All the dinos talk, in fact, and for now they talk in the stupid Dino Language. This will not change for some time. Kill me.

And here's some more bad design. Instead of just using keys when they're appropriate, like Zelda does, you have to cycle your inventory to get to them. All of your items are in this red bar, and you use the C-Stick (the Gamecube's worse version of a Right Analog stick) to go through your inventory, rather than having a pause menu full of items, it's all on the C-Stick. Imagine if, in Ocarina of Time, instead of being able to map three of your items to the C buttons (or how, even in Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, you were able to slot items to X Y and Z), you had to use the C-buttons to cycle your inventory in real time, select the item you needed, and then you pressed A to use it.

There is a single Quick Select button: You can map an item to the Y button. That's it. X is roll and Z is looking around, so obviously we can't use those for mapping items, right? It's not bad right now, but later on you'll end up scrolling past a pile of crap you've collected just to get to your fucking bomb spores or blue grubtubs or whatever. Did I mention that Key Items are also part of this Red Menu? Cause they are. Things end up so cluttered that you'll be begging to have a pause menu like OoT's instead.

The entire palace is also a pseudo stealth section, at least for this visit. You can use explosive barrels left behind by Scales and his SharpClaw army to blow up the weird brain things you meet, but throwing is a delicate art-if you got used to how far Link can throw in any Zelda game, prepare to be disappointed when your tosses come up shorter. Also, if you get hit while carrying a barrel, it explodes and you take a lot of damage. Luckily, you have a lot of health, and you'll take out the brain thing with you.

You have effectively 12 hearts in Zelda terms, and each brain attack that hits takes off one. The barrels will take out 4 hearts, but you'll find a lot of healing items in the wooden boxes (that you can destroy with the barrels) that restore 2 or even 4 'hearts'. Unlike Zelda, you don't get pieces of heart to extend your life meter, only heart containers after completing certain plot important areas. But, when you DO get one, you get a full 4 hearts instead of just one. Kinda nice.

Anyway, you need to use the explosive barrels to blow up the wooden crates blocking your path, as well as destroying a crack in the wall. The barrels explode as soon as they hit something, so if you're too close to the wall, the barrel will hit the wall above the crack and not actually destroy the wall. It's annoying.

Eventually you'll reach a room with flame jets and a crack at the end. You'll need to carry a fuel barrel from earlier all the way up to here, dodging the flame jets with good timing. Throw the barrel from behind the final jet-otherwise, it'll hit the top of the wall and not blow up the crack.

The next room has a weighted switch that needs something heavy on it to keep it pressed down. Luckily, there is a fuel barrel here. However, you need to walk onto the switch and let the A button change to being 'Set Down' instead of throw before you can put it down and keep the door open so you can pass. You can only place fuel barrels in certain areas, like these switches, otherwise, you always chuck them and they explode.

Past the door, Krystal finds a wounded dinosaur and speaks with him.

The Krazoa Spirits are basically a group of six super powerful magic spirits that can save Dinosaur Planet, or something. But their power can also be used for evil, and with Scales nearly victorious, the spirits have been sealed away and it's up to you to collect them. And with that, I basically just explained everything this guy will explain in two sentences. Damn I'm good!

The Dino opens the entrance to the first shrine. Go in, grab the spirit, bring it back. Easy.

Inside the shrine, we're introduced to these doors. They're called "Life Force Doors". All it means is you can't proceed until you kill all the enemies nearby. The only enemy we need to kill for this one is a brain-thing that is taken out by the fuel barrels we've been using up til now.

From there, this shrine is just a couple more rooms until we reach the Krazoa Spirit and take the TEST OF OBSERVATION! Every Shrine has a little test associated with it. This one is bone fucking simple.

The spirit will hide in one of the urns, then the urns will shuffle around. Once they're done and the ticking sound begins, you simply move up to the one it's hiding in. Do this three times and the Spirit is yours. The urns move slowly, but will damage you if you try to 'cheat' by hugging the urn the spirit is in. Just watch the one he hides in and you'll be fine.

The spirit then slams itself into Krystal, so as far as I care, it's possessing her. Side effects include: Glowing purple aura, hovering into the air, purple eye color (including the whites of your eyes becoming purple), and the spirit's 'face' appearing at the top of your HUD. Ask your doctor if Krazoa Spirit is right for you.

We're instantly warped out of the shrine and returned to the palace. There's an elevator thingy near the dying dino we have to ride up to where we can release the first spirit.

All is not well, as we are looking through the eyes of an enemy. The spirit releases itself from Krystal, and shoots a laser beam out of it. The unknown enemy emerges from behind a pillar and knocks Krystal into the laser, which shoots her into a crystal prison.

And to make matters worse, she's awake in there.

Welp, that's it it seems! Our main character is stuck in a crystal prison and won't be getting out. The End! Short game it seems...

 

[Eryngium]

:autism::powerlevel:Fuck off, this game was part of my childhood, if a company can sell games to children that children love, it doesn’t matter what the Nu-male manchildren think about it, star fox is a game directed at children that’s why the characters are talking animals.:powerlevel::autism:

 

[Billy_Sama]

Spoiler: TL:DR version

:autism:

 

[Wallace]

Star Fox Adventures was Rare's last game published for Nintendo; they became a Microsoft developer afterwards. It was originally just going to be a standalone game with completely original content. Shigeru Miyamoto saw the similarities to the Star Fox series and decided to make it into a Star Fox game very late in development. So if Fox feels like he doesn't really belong here, that's why. Otherwise, it would have been another forgettable GameCube game.

 

[Forever Train Engineer]

I'm displeased.

 

[ducktales4gameboy]

This game was such a tire fire and a decade later I still remember the absolute bullshit mess that is the last hour.

Am I remembering wrong or do they drop the dinosaur language VO like 5 sentences into the first actual cutscene in exchange for english?

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

Don't worry, these aren't dinosaur eggs, they're tasty PUKPUK eggs.

 

[DragoonSierra]

And thus the Furry Fandom found its mascot

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

This game was such a tire fire and a decade later I still remember the absolute bullshit mess that is the last hour.

Am I remembering wrong or do they drop the dinosaur language VO like 5 sentences into the first actual cutscene in exchange for english?

Kinda. There's a couple more cut scenes with it and then Slippy makes a translator that makes everyone talk English.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

And thus the Furry Fandom found its mascot

And Maid Marian from that old Disney Robin Hood cartoon was forced to retire into obscurity.

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

...Shit. I can't get away with pulling "everyone dies" so early, can I?

Enter the Great Fox. It's meant to look a bit beat up and rusted-the Fox has seen some better days.

Whoa! Slippy, could you please not be doing...whatever it is with that robot?

Actually, he's fixing the poor guy. It's Rob the Robot! The much maligned Nintendo peripheral turned into a character. This sequence does a good job establishing the characters and their role on the ship-Slippy is the mechanic, Peppy navigates, Rob is the robot required on all sci-fi ships by law, and Fox is the leader. If you came in with no knowledge of Star Fox, that's your takeaway and hell, it's not inaccurate.

Eventually, General Pepper pops up.

I know, I just said that.

"I have a new mission for you, Fox! You are approaching Dinosaur Planet, an ancient world on the edge of the Lylat System. As you will see, chunks of the planet have been torn from its surface. It's your job to get them back. If Dinosaur Planet explodes, it could affect the entire Lylat System. The only lead we have is that you must locate the Queen of the EarthWalker dinosaur tribe. Maybe she can help you further. By the way, your fee has been approved. If you are successful, then the money will be forwarded to you immediately. General Pepper out!"

So yeah, Fox is doing this for the big paycheck, and this is where Adventures actually slips into the canon. Assault is a direct continuation from here, and Assault has both some updated Arwing designs and use of the Landmaster tanks which aren't mentioned before Assault, so I wonder if Fox splurged and got himself a FUCKING BATTLETANK with the paycheck. I mean, I sure would. I'd drive to work in that shit. Slowly. While laughing.

Before we can really get on with our adventure, however, we actually have to fly to Dinosaur Planet. We're tasked with flying through Gold Rings to lower a Forcefield so we can reach our destination, for this one, only one will suffice. That won't stop Slippy from yelling in your ear that you missed one, however.

Anyway, this segment is actually pretty fun. You'll notice the Arwing shares the same health Fox does, and these segments are short enough that you aren't in danger of really dying. It also keeps score. All the controls you're familiar with if you played literally any other Star Fox game all apply here. You have 10 possible gold rings, if you can't hit at least one (and you're not intentionally dodging them because you're fucking around), then turn off the Gamecube and walk away. You're not ready for it.

Once you're through, Fox lands...

At Thorntail Hollow, where our adventure begins in earnest. Once we've landed, Pepper says hello.

"Great flying Fox! For a moment I thought you weren't gonna make it!"

"Very funny, Sir."

"I know! Now on to business. By pressing Start, you will open your communicator. Choose who you wish to speak to, and then press A to contact one of us."

Okay, I hate this little bit, but I can't fault StairFax, EVERY Gamecube game did this-well most did. Literally explaining how to work a menu is the least of it. I get that kids are the target audience, but give them some credit, they're not all pants shitting retards. Only the ones who rated me Dumb in the OP are!

Okay, the whole bouncing between various cute puppies and foxes was an idea but fuck this conversation. Pepper reminds you of your objective (Find Queen EarthWalker), Fox bitches about not being able to bring his blaster, and Pepper scolds him, saying the mission is about saving the planet and not blowing it up. I don't know where Fox is getting blaster rifles that could blow up a planet, but I want to know what arms dealer he goes through.

Anyway, I'm trying to not throw a ton of images at one post, since that didn't seem to work in the last update and broke half my links. We'll call it here, and in the next one, we'll find a weapon, get introduced to combat, and do some shopping!

 

[The Iconoclast]

Very unpopular opinion:

I liked this game. But in my defense, I was young, and it was my first Starfox game, so I didn't know what Starfox should have been.

I'd play it again tbh, if I can find a good iso and a way to make it run smoothly on Dolphin.

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Very unpopular opinion:

I liked this game. But in my defense, I was young, and it was my first Starfox game, so I didn't know what Starfox should have been.

I'd play it again tbh, if I can find a good iso and a way to make it run smoothly on Dolphin.

In all fairness, there are good parts. I'll be going over said good bits. And it runs alright on Dolphin, slowdown is only noticeable during cutscenes-which is annoying as fuck, but survivable if you don't care. That said, you should care, this game has some of the best bits of characterization for the major players.

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Having extra episodes ready to go is doing wonders for helping me keep on schedule...*Looks back at Changing Beasts with a sign*

So, you have no weapon. You can run around for hours and never find a weapon, but if you run straight forward from the Arwing...

You'll find Krystal's Staff. I don't know where Krazoa Palace is in relation to Thorntail Hollow, or why Krystal didn't go and find her stick before going to said Palace (maybe the message was just too urgent), but Fox has it now. A pre-recorded message from Krystal plays, telling us she's in danger, the Staff is a powerful weapon and can be used to navigate the world, and will also eventually gain powerful skills.

This is actually something I like about this game. We don't get shoved into a tutorial about how to use our damn sword, we just get told "hey, use different movements to do cool attacks!" and off we go! The Staff is on our A button, and I know this: In combat, the camera will lock to a target. We can attack with A, and using X plus the Control Stick will make Fox dodge in that direction. Doing a forward roll and hitting A will make Fox do a jump attack, which is neat.

Head forward again and enter a courtyard looking area to get our first taste of combat. Four SharpClaws rush out of a building to attack us. You'll also notice a new addition to our HUD, a Magic Staff Energy Meter used to power the Staff's abilities. We don't have any of those right now. We'll get them.

Sometimes, enemies will block by holding their weapons in front of them. When this happens, you can hold R to block yourself and wait for them to hit you. When they do, they're wide open. When they're blocking, you can't do shit. Even the Fire Blast we get soon enough is blocked.

When the enemies are defeated (they each take about two full combos to take down), a target will appear on top of the building we're standing in front of, and a cave will open up nearby. Going to the cave and flipping over the little stone there lets us descend into another, magical cave, where we pick up our first Staff Upgrade:

The Fire Blaster is a fireball from the staff that can hit things at a distance-like the targets we've seen already. You need to use it to get out of this cave too, you can see the target behind Fox there. Trouble is, free-aiming never works quite right on the Gamecube, even Metroid Prime's was a bit floaty, so you wanna get as close to your target as possible. You can also use it in combat. I recommend setting it to the Y button for now, which will let you dance around enemies and fire off a few shots when you need to.

Head out of the cave and back to where the first target was, shoot it, open the door, and find the Queen Earthwalker.

Oh yeah, I forgot: Those messages from Krystal, of which we've had three (finding the staff, first combat, and after our first combat) have all been in Dino Speak. Fox eventually rolls his eyes at this letter substitution code and calls in Slippy, who helpfully informs us that we need to fund her son, Prince Tricky.

Pictured: Fox having trouble believing the name "Prince Tricky".

So we have to talk to the Warpstone, a giant stone golem, to get to the Ice Mountain where Tricky is. The Queen sends out a call which has a dinosaur near a cracked wall move 8 inches to the right. Fox asks Slippy if the translator is ready, the answer is "almost!"

In order to get to the Warpstone, we need bombs. We don't have fuel barrels...

But we have this. This is a "Bomb Spore Plant". We can blow this up to get Bomb Spores which can be planted in certain areas to make more Plants which can blow shit up. Ones we plant don't produce Spores, but this one is infinitely respawning so, stock up.

Anyway, if we attempt to talk to the Warpstone, he tells us no one brings him gifts anymore, and he'll refuse to chat with us if we don't bring him something. What we need to do is go lift rocks in the Hollow to get ourselves some Scarabs, which is the currency of this world. Why? I don't know! But it's what they want, so, when on Dinosaur Planet...Get 10, head to the store. We have some stuff to buy.

 

[c-no]

Star Fox Adventures was Rare's last game published for Nintendo; they became a Microsoft developer afterwards. It was originally just going to be a standalone game with completely original content. Shigeru Miyamoto saw the similarities to the Star Fox series and decided to make it into a Star Fox game very late in development. So if Fox feels like he doesn't really belong here, that's why. Otherwise, it would have been another forgettable GameCube game.

Not only would it of been forgettable, it would just be furry fapbait with just Krystal and nothing else to go for it.

 

[SpaceGodzilla]

This game would've been leagues better if Miyamoto didn't have Rare shoehorn in Star Fox because it at least would have some level of individuality and charm that was lost when they had to incorporate Star Fox into it.

I liked it when I was younger but even then I knew it derailed the franchise and was basically a Zelda clone. I ran through the game last year for shits and giggles and I can pretty much only praise the graphics and music.

 

[Wallace]

This game would've been leagues better if Miyamoto didn't have Rare shoehorn in Star Fox because it at least would have some level of individuality and charm that was lost when they had to incorporate Star Fox into it.

I liked it when I was younger but even then I knew it derailed the franchise and was basically a Zelda clone. I ran through the game last year for shits and giggles and I can pretty much only praise the graphics and music.

Miyamoto shoe-horns a lot of crap. Yahtzee's description of the WiiU gamepad as "a solution looking for a problem" was spot-on.

Is there a market for rail shoot-em-ups anymore?

 

[Zaryiu]

This game was the reason Krystal was unleashed so fuck and everything wrong it did and for eventually causing Command Mission to exist and fuck that shit

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Oh right, this thread is still a thing. Ha.

So, shopping then. The currency is Scarabs, and unlike Rupees in Zelda (where I'm practically always running around with a full wallet, save in Breath of the Wild), you don't get them easy. Gotta hunt high and low, usually you have to lift rocks and let them pop out. They also run around so you have to chase them-luckily, they're slower than you.

Meet our shopkeeper. He (or she? Official sources say she) will be the most annoying character. At least Tricky has some redeemable qualities to overcome his squeaky, Scrappy-Doo esque voice. The shopkeeper is annoying because every interaction with them is about 3 cutscenes longer than it needs to be.

So, he's got a lot of stuff on sale, but we really only care about certain key items and maybe some extra stuff. Oh, and maps. He has maps for nearly every area in the game. Right now, we can only carry about 10 Scarabs, which is enough to get us the Rock Candy we need to appease the WarpStone.

If you're short a few Scarabs (like I was, to intentionally get this footage), you can gamble in the Scarab Room. It's no game of chance, actually-you risk some Scarabs, he tosses them into this room along with some ordinary, non-glowing Scarabs. You have 30 seconds to gather all the glowing ones. Fail to get them all, or touch a non-glowing Scarab, and you lose, losing all the Scarabs you DIDN'T pick back up. Get them all, and you'll get double what you risked. It's nice to have a gambling game that isn't all about luck.

You can haggle a bit, but you can't try to buy something if you have less than the price tag. It's a neat little thing, save yourself a few coins, and I haven't seen a similar mechanic anywhere except Morrowind and Oblivion (sure, in Skyrim you could make things cost less with Speech perks, but those two games you could actually adjust how pushy you were for a deal). 10% lower than normal is usually safe, but the Shopkeep is an enigma and I don't know how to make the most of this stuff. So, pay full price if you're in a hurry. There's always more Scarabs, and we're going to be getting a wallet upgrade soon.

With Rock Candy in hand, we're ready to chat to the Warpstone.

EDIT: Forgot something.

Scattered around the world are wells that give us Cheat Tokens if we have enough Scarabs. These are taken to a maze area and dropped in to activate certain features or give us cryptic messages about the plot. No actual cheats, not even a Big Head mode.

This one gives us a Sound Test in the main menu. Cool if you wanna listen to the music, otherwise, eh. I'll point out what they do as we go along, so save your Scarabs.