* AntiClimaxBoss: [[spoiler:General Scales]], whose fight against Fox only lasts for a few seconds til [[spoiler:the actual FinalBoss]] shows up. [[spoiler:Andross himself]] sadly isn't the strongest last fight ever.
* {{Applicability}}: Fox [=McCloud=] in this game is OnlyInItForTheMoney and aggravated by anything that prolongs his stay on Dinosaur Planet, a stark to being an AllLovingHero in the rest of the franchise. Many take this sudden characterization shift as a mouthpiece for how Creator/{{Rare}} felt making the game, as ''VideoGame/DinosaurPlanet'' was reworked into a ''Star Fox'' game to bolster sales, with Fox’s impatience stemming from the rush to get this game completed before the impeding Creator/{{Microsoft}} buyout.
* AssPull: [[spoiler:Andross being [[HijackedByGanon revealed as the real villain of the game]]. Considering it was an eleventh hour addition to the game, there is ''no'' foreshadowing or buildup to it, and the game gives no explanation for how he came back after being killed in ''Star Fox 64''.]]
* BestKnownForTheFanservice: [[GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe Krystal]] seems to be the one thing in this game most people talk about.
* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The game ''starts'' with one: controlling Krystal riding a [=CloudRunner=], the player has to defeat the Galleon, a LivingShip with an giant, animate, fire-breathing dinosaur head at the helm. This is done by shooting blue fireballs at it; it's not obvious if it's Krystal or the [=CloudRunner=] shooting them, especially since neither are shown possessing the ability to do after the battle (though [=CloudRunner=]s are shown to possess a more traditional fire breath). After the battle, Krystal boards the ship, meets a captive baby [=CloudRunner=], retrieves a key from the hold, and is unceremoniously thrown off by General Scales. The only things relevant to the rest of the game are some tutorials and the introduction of General Scales - the ship itself or the [=CloudRunner=] chick are never mentioned afterwards. The fact that the fight is completely impossible to lose, despite Krystal appearing to take damage whenever the ship's attacks hit her, only adds to the strangeness of the sequence.
* BizarroEpisode: Aside from the GenreShift, the game has a lot of fantasy and mystical elements that are not seen in the other ''Star Fox'' games, which are firmly in the realm of ScienceFiction.
* BreatherBoss: The Krazoa Test of Strength is significantly less brutal than either the Test of Fear (the previous Krazoa test) or the Lightfoot Test of Strength (which uses the same mechanics) both being noticeably more difficult.
* CompleteMonster:
** [[spoiler:[[YMMV/StarFox64 Andross]]]] returns. See that page for details.
** [[InsaneAdmiral General Scales]] is the brutal leader of the [=SharpClaw=] tribe who wishes to rule Dinosaur Planet. With the aid of [[spoiler: Andross]], Scales steals the Spell Stones, slaughtering the [=EarthWalkers=] sent to stop him. This causes the planet to become dangerously unstable, threatening to affect the entire Lylat system if it explodes. Scales then imprisons the Gatekeepers as well as the [=EarthWalker=] Royal Family. Scales forces the [=SnowHorn=] Gatekeeper's daughter to open a Gate to [=DarkIce=] Mines by threatening to slaughter her tribe, and [[ExactWords fulfills his promise not to kill them]] by enslaving them in said mine. He conquers the [=SkyRunner=] Fortress and has his men beat and imprison the [=CloudRunner=] Queen. He releases the vicious [=RedEye=] Tribe into the Walled City, driving the [=EarthWalkers=] out of most of the City. He transforms Dragon Rock into a wasteland and performs experiments on dinosaurs to turn them into dangerous bioweapons. [[BadBoss Cruel even to his own tribe]], Scales stands out as one of Star Fox Team's cruelest foes.
* ContestedSequel: It is generally agreed that it isn't quite like ''VideoGame/StarFox64''. Whether or not it's good in its own right [[BrokenBase is another matter]].
* ContinuityLockOut: The game is a stand alone that never refers to the previous games until [[spoiler:Andross suddenly shows with no explanation of who he is.]]
* CultClassic: It's one of the least popular ''Star Fox'' titles, but it has its fans.
* DisappointingLastLevel: The final portion of the game, with [[spoiler:General Scales being a CutsceneBoss and [[AssPull Andross showing up out of nowhere]] for an unexpectedly hard boss fight [[UnexpectedGameplayChange using a mechanic you haven't had much time to get used to]]]] is generally agreed to be a major low point of the game.
* EnsembleDarkhorse: Krystal. She definitely has a pretty solid fandom, and was even one of the more requested characters for the ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'' game[[note]]she did eventually appear as an assist trophy character in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate''[[/note]], but is a bit character in the actual game. Her Hatedom dying down quite a bit over the years has probably helped.
* FanNickname: Thanks to WebVideo/JonTron, some have taken to calling this "Stairfax Temperatures".
* FanPreferredCutContent: Many people wish that this game would have been finished in the original scope and vision of ''Dinosaur Planet'', as there is TONS of interesting content in it that never made it into the final game, along with Krystal having a much more prominent role in the game as a {{Deuteragonist}}, a darker atmosphere and tone, a much more complex and in-depth story with plenty of lore and worldbuilding, and a more interesting main villain who is actually foreshadowed.
* FridgeBrilliance: The "tattoos" Krystal has are white. This means they're probably [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeze_brand freeze brands]], which--apart from the more familiar hot-iron method of branding--is the only way to "tattoo" an animal that has fur.
* FridgeHorror: The design of Drakor is similar to that of the Sharp Claws, implying that Scales had one of his own species transformed into the monster.
* GameBreaker:
** Not that the game is hard to begin with, but the staff's energy shield removes any kind of tension from certain encounters. The shield envelopes Fox in a dome of light that blocks [[NoSell all]] damage and it can be used indefinitely since, unlike other abilities, it isn't tied to your magic meter. Don't want to put up with dodging fire on the conveyor belts in the Dark Ice Mines? Use the shield and just ride them out. Don't want to keep running away from the King [=RedEye=]? Use the shield and watch as he walks over you harmlessly.
** The staff powers completely trivialize combat against regular enemies. The Fire Blaster will kill any enemy in four hits, is picked up very early in the game, can be fired rapidly, and doesn't even need to be aimed once you've locked onto an enemy. It's only downside is that it can be blocked and uses up your mana. The Ice Blaster breaks the game even harder, however, as it cannot be blocked, can freeze multiple enemies at once, and frozen enemies die in one hit. It still requires mana, but replenishing mana is never hard, and enemies will sometimes drop mana for you anyways.
* GoddamnBats: Bloops, literally. If you get anywhere close to them, they will automatically fly directly above Fox and start lowering and kicking him repeatedly while constantly laughing, guaranteeing to blow up any object he's carrying, and will chase him for quite a distance before they stop. Fox can't lock on to them, so the only way for him to kill them once they start attacking him is to swing at exactly the right time as they lower to kick him. The little bastards are everywhere, and it's possible to get more than one attacking Fox at once.
* HarsherInHindsight: Over the course of the game, you can buy and later deliver Cheat Tokens to unlock cheats or special messages. The very last Token (buyable in the Ocean Force Point Temple once Fox is on the way to put into place the final Spellstone and then proceed to the last part of the game) unlocks the following message upon being delivered in the Warpstone's maze in Thorntail Hollow: "There is sorrow ahead. A close friend does not have much time left. It will be hard to accept but you will grow". In-game, this message is foreshadowing the farewell between Fox and Tricky, but becomes doubly somber when you remember that this game, released in September 2002, was the final game released by Rareware before their departure from Nintendo after they were bought by Microsoft, going to them literally the day after the game came out, finishing a successful partnership that released many popular video games in the past. The only consolation is that, as far as the ''Star Fox'' universe goes, Fox and Tricky met again in ''VideoGame/StarFoxAssault''.
* HilariousInHindsight: While ''Star Fox Adventures'' is often compared to ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'', the later-released ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' has some amusing similarities to it, including:
** Both games being on the [=GameCube=] and the first Teen-rated entries in their respective franchises.
** A plot twist that involves [[spoiler:the respective overarching BigBad of the series revealed to be TheManBehindTheMan, [[AGodAmI posing as a god]] to manipulate the apparent main villain to help him return]].
** Link can turn into a wolf, which is a canine like Fox, and is the same species as scrapped protagonist Sabre. Relatedly, both characters are imprisoned at one point and can only escape by using an alternate physical form (Link taking advantage of his then-new wolf form, Fox turning into a [=SharpClaw=] thanks to an invention by Slippy).
** Both games have two sets of {{Plot Coupon}}s: Krazoa Spirits and Spellstones in ''Adventures'', Fused Shadows and fragments of the Mirror of Twilight in ''Twilight Princess''. The Spellstones and the fragments of the Mirror of Twilight are also alike in that they have to be retrieved for their placement in their respective original locations, because their removal has led to very harmful effects.
** Both Fox and Link bid a bitter farewell to [[spoiler:their respective sidekicks, Tricky and Midna,]] after their adventures conclude.
** The protagonists of both series being playable in all ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' games while the newly-introduced female leads of both games (Midna and Krystal) having non-playable appearances in the form of Assist Trophies.
** Neither game was originally conceived as they are in their released form. The developers at Rare intended to release ''Dinosaur Planet'' as a new IP before Shigeru Miyamoto gave them the idea of rebranding the game as ''Star Fox Adventures''. Nintendo themselves originally planned to create a direct sequel to ''the Wind Waker'' until, due to the latter's low sales and the awkwardness of animating Toon Link trying to ride a horse, Aonuma asked Miyamoto for the game to take a different, more realistic direction and eventually turn it into ''Twilight Princess''.
** Finally, both games are regarded exactly the opposite way by their respective series' fanbases: ''Twilight Princess'' is sometimes criticized for being too formulaic for a ''Zelda'' game, while ''Star Fox Adventures'' is criticized for being too much of a departure from the rest of the ''Star Fox'' series.
** Unlike Zelda, which typically uses the A/B buttons for combat, "Star Fox Adventures" instead uses the right control stick (C stick) for such; amusingly, 19 years later, the HD port of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' would end up using the same control scheme.
** ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' also has a similar plot to ''Adventures'' with parts of the planet being broken up into pieces floating around it, and needing PlotCoupons (Spellstones and Krazoa Spirits in ''Adventures'' and Chaos Emeralds in ''Unleashed'') to put them back in place.
* ItsShortSoItSucks: Notably averted, as unlike most games in the series, clocks in on reported playthroughs of 15-20 hours. This where the game has its defenders, with the game having much more meat due to the GenreShift as opposed to its one-sitting rail shooters.
* MemeticMutation: "*random incoherent babbling* ''GENERAL SCALES''"... [[labelnote:Explanation]]Frequently used to mock the game's use of the dinosaur language and how it completely falls apart with how characters ''still'' refer to themselves and others in perfect English even when using it.[[/labelnote]]
* {{Misblamed}}: Most people blame Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto for the game being rushed and simplified compared to ''VideoGame/DinosaurPlanet''. In reality, he was only the one who gave Rare the idea to make the game a Star Fox game, with Nintendo being very hands-off on development. The reason the game was rushed and so much content was removed was because Microsoft bought out Rare during production, forcing them to have to scrap more than a third of the game that they had planned to get it out on time before the deadline.
* {{Narm}}: The Dinosaur Planet's native language. So developed that the dev team actually had a guide in the manual over what vowels and consonants replaced each other... Yet, apparently, there are no words in their language for any proper nouns such as the characters' names, since they're always spoken in perfect English whenever they're addressed. In particular, General Scale's infamous introduction line where he speaks ominously in dino language, only to speak his name in perfect English in an overly dramatic fashion is often brought up as a prime offender of this trope.
** The impact of the scene where the [=SharpClaws=] brutally beat Queen [=CloudRunner=] is undermined by the use of [[StockScream stock scream and]] [[KungFoley punch sound effects.]]
* NarmCharm:
** "[[UsefulNotes/BritishAccents Nobodeh]] ever brings me gifts anymore!"
** "You pay THIS much!"
** Fox's rapid expression changes, when he [[ItemGet gets an item]].
** Everything the Lightfoot dinosaurs say.
---> "Mah baybehs are sooooooo naughteh! Huh! They like to play underground."\\
"Look out for my three babies! I think they're in the foh-rest!"
** [[spoiler:Andross']] death scene. His facial spasms are incredibly ridiculous but they are easily overshadowed by the ensuing explosion with Fox [[spoiler:and Falco]] [[OutrunTheFireball surviving it]].
* NightmareFuel:
** The [=RedEye=] Tribe, especially the [=RedEye=] King.
** The shopkeeper is this to some people. He acts very friendly but his voice makes him sound ''very'' sinister. Compounding it is also [[https://youtu.be/U4YKQffdLCc?t=51s this line]] that wouldn't be too out of place in ''Franchise/{{Saw}}''.
---> "How about playing a little ''GAME''?"
* OvershadowedByControversy: Sadly, the game seems to be best, if not exclusively known for the ExecutiveMeddling that happened behind the scenes than for its own merits.
* TheScrappy: True, you don't have to be pressured into saving your companions, especially Slippy from getting shot down, but Slippy still has this, Even though he' voiced by Chris Seavor this time, he speaks with a jarring falestto.
* ScrappyMechanic:
** Haggling with the Shopkeeper. Given there's not really much of a mechanic to it aside from "try your luck and see if he'll sell you that 50 scarab item for 47 instead", the fact that 1) he generally refuses any offers more than 2 scarabs less than his designated price, which leads to 2) haggling hardly saves you anything at all in the long run unless you're particularly tight for scarabs and NEED him to come down on the price of one item so you can afford one more in one sitting, and haggling really just isn't much use at all, especially since if he refuses your offer three times in a row, he basically tells you to get lost. Given it's not too hard to find extra scarabs, and you could just make some more by playing the Shopkeeper's minigame, haggling probably won't ever really see much use in a game unless you just wanna stick it to him. Sometimes you MIGHT get lucky, but it's pretty rare.
** The day and night cycle, while common to adventure games, holds no positve merit here. The only thing that will happen at night is that the music will change and friendly [=NPCs=] will go to sleep. In some cases, these are the same [=NPCs=] that you need to talk to in order to advance the plot or solve a puzzle. A notable example is your first trip through the Snowhorn Wastes where you need to feed a Snowhorn two roots in order for him to give you the means to leave. When night comes, Fox can do nothing but stand around and wait for the sun to come up in order to advance.
* SpecialEffectsFailure:
** The game has some very broken effects-heat distortion, water reflections, and floor reflections are incorrectly programmed, marring the graphics of an otherwise-graphically-impressive game. Reflections of the characters models are shown upside down above the head.
** Fox and Krystal share some animations, which may be ''out of character'' with one another.
** When talking to an Earthwalker as Krystal, she will crouch down with her legs ''spread apart''.
* ThatOneBoss: Drakor is going to give a bad time to those who aren't used to ButtonMashing, especially since he and Fox are moving very fast through the battlefield during the fight.
* ThatOneLevel:
** The Lightfoot Test of Strength, which only the most button-mashing-happy will have ''some'' chance of beating the first time off.
** The Krazoa Test of Fear will make even the most patient gamers toss their controllers in a fit of rage, as it is an UnexpectedGameplayChange to a focus based minigame where the player must keep a line inside a bar as it swings from side to side ''wildly'' with little input as to where it's going to swing. It lasts ''a full minute'', and if you fail you have to go all the way back to the start. Not to the start of the Test itself, but instead all the way back to the beginning of the area and have to go through all the, admittedly easy if tedious, puzzles all over again. To say it grinds on the nerves is an understatement.
** The mission to protect a Thorntail's egg nest from incoming reptilian thieves, until you learn that the easy way to beat it is to use your Groundquake (which miraculously doesn't crush the very eggs you're supposed to protect).
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter:
** Krystal was originally meant to be the {{Deuteragonist}}, but was reduced to being a DamselInDistress.Even more egregious is that she had an elaborate backstory in the original Dinosaur Planet and her own sidekick, Princess Kyte. Even in the current draft, the story about her figuring out what happened to her homeworld, Cerinia, is not brought up again after the intro.
** General Scales could have been a threatening villain but [[spoiler:ends up being TheUnfought]]. Worst yet is how he was still a chance to do something different than Andross but ends up [[spoiler: getting shafted rather quickly and anti-climatically. ]]
** The whole Star Fox crew sans Fox. Falco is missing for most of the game, while Peppy and Slippy are relegated to MissionControl, never stepping foot on the planet proper.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot:
** Krystal's entire reason for coming to Sauria, finding out what happened to her homeworld as well as her parent's deaths, is brought up only in the introduction sequence of the game and then never brought up again. What makes this even more of a missed opportunity is the fact that [[spoiler: Krystal seems to recognize Andross as she is pushed into the crystal, but nothing comes of this later either.]] None of the later games bothered addressing this plotline either.
** The rivalry between the Earthwalkers and Cloudrunners could have made for an interesting subplot after the Queen Cloudrunner mentions it in her introduction, it's almost never touched on again. Making this worse is the fact a Cloudrunner companion, Kyte, was intended to be in the game originally but was cut when Dinosaur Planet became Star Fox Adventures. Her inclusion could have shed more light on this subplot as well, possibly having to get along with Tricky, the other companion and Earthwalker Prince.
** Despite an implied history behind the lore, with Scales noted to have been fighting the tribes for years by the Queen Earthwalker, the game gives little backstory about the history and events on Sauria prior to Star Fox's intervention. Most of the information given is rather shallow and concise, although the Star Fox series has never really been big on worldbuilding.
* UnderusedGameMechanic: The Arwing sections feel tacked-on just to give the game more of a connection to the prior ''Star Fox'' games. Unfortunately, the final boss is fought entirely in the Arwing.
* ViewerGenderConfusion: It's not uncommon to hear fans refer to the Shopkeeper as a "she". The character is actually male, but he has a voice that makes him sound like an old woman (which is actually provided by a man).
* VindicatedByHistory: The game's reputation still isn't perfect, and still not up to the level of ''VideoGame/StarFox64'', but even those who dislike it are grateful for the fact that unlike ''VideoGame/StarFoxZero'', which is seen as a little more than a rehash of ''64'', this one at least ''tried'' to do something new and different with the series. This also applies to ''VideoGame/StarFoxAssault'' as well.
* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: Rare pushed the boundaries big-time in their final first-party Nintendo game, and it shows:
** Environments have tons of detail, with great polygon counts and textures, yet the game still runs at a mostly consistent 60 fps.
** Fox and other fuzzy characters actually have fur! The [=GameCube=] isn't powerful enough to actually render individual hairs, so the developers figured out a brilliant workaround based on a much more efficient technique called shell texturing. [[note]] Essentially, a bunch of concentric layers above the basic model, with each layer having a cross-section of the volumetric look you're trying to achieve.[[/note]] Unless you look really closely, the shell layers blend together and it just looks like real fur!
** Some games, such as ''Super Mario Sunshine'', used pre-rendered, compressed video for their voice-acted cutscenes. In this game, ''everything'' is rendered in-engine. The most impressive part of this, though, is the incredibly detailed facial animation system used for the characters, most notably on Fox. As a result, this game, out of the entire franchise, does the best job of selling Fox as a real, relatable character.
** The game uses a rather unique technique for rendering its water, and thanks to that the game accomplishes something that many games even today struggle with: the water ''actually looks wet.''