Part 5: 05 - A Royal Gimmick

05 - A Royal Gimmick



_{My arms...}

Ok, you big baby, we can go now.



Just take me to Ice Mountain, my arms are starting to lock up.

Alright, 'ere we go! Didja know, that for just a second, ye can see through a person's clothes as I warp them?



The fuck?!





Ah. Sweet, frigid relief.



Aw, hell. Reinforcements.



Or just dinner.

I was getting kind of hungry.



You got perdy lips.



Squeal like a pig, boy!

On second thought, I don't think I'll want to eat him after they're finished.

Ew.

[We regain control and go to explore this tiny area, even though there isn't a whole lot to do. A cannon will attempt to take pot-shots at you the whole time, and at the far end there's a bombable wall]



[Not a whole lot to speak of inside, just another glowing well and a fuel cell.]



[Once we're finished looting we head back towards where we came in from and grab the other variety of Bomb Barrel, a timed Bomb Barrel! Woo!]



[Blow this dinky wall up and head in to beat up some SharpClaw. A new target appears, and after shooting that we can go watch that little EarthWalker get wailed on.]



Take your time, Fox, I want to see him getting beat up.



Nice line, Fox. Real smooth.

Je ne peux pas vous comprendre.

I am Fox McCloud, lead pilot of the Star Fox team.

Êtes vous un idiot?



C'est une distraction, notre souper a couris!



You fuckers aren't getting away from me!

[Ice Mountain Racing Minigame: Viddler]

[This race is pretty easy to win, though it's also pretty easy to fuck up. The vehicle is extremely sensitive to what has enough friction to slow it down, so it's very important to stay well away from anything that could be considered a wall since they react as if you had slammed into them, rather than just brushed against. The key to victory is simply to cut as many corners and get ahead of the SharpClaws. There are about three or four specific places where you can gain ground since the SharpClaws will always take the longer route.]

[Of course, if you don't win...]





[Afterwards you end up back up at the top of the mountain. If you really want to grab the fuel cells in the cave you can throw the race, but you have to come back later, so it doesn't really matter.]



Oh god!





Espèce de salope!



Oh god, not again. Slippy! Hurry the fuck up!

Yeah, yeah.

HOOLY BOOLY HOOLY BOOLY HOOLY BOOLY!



HOOLY BOOLY HOOLY hot spring or you'd be frozen by now! Hahaha.

[The Dinosaur language is now dead forever, as is my sad, sad racism.]



Hey, I wouldn't if I were you. My dad's a King EarthWalker, and he'll bash you up.

I don't think he'll be doing any bashing. He's been captured. That's why I've been sent to rescue you.

He's been captured?

That's right. It was your mother that sent me to find you.

Is she...ok?

Fuck if I know, I'm not a veterinarian. Yeah, sure whatever, she's ok.



[We finally regain control and now we're introduced to the final new gameplay element; Tricky.]



[Tricky serves several purposes. Right now, however, we can open up the blue bar in the menu and use it to dig things up. Digging up patches of earth will generally reveal puzzle-related elements, but he can also reveal special items. In this area he digs up a switch and then instructs us to use his Stay command to hold the switch down. Doing so causes a portcullis to rise, allowing us access to the switch within.]





[Which in turn raises an island that lets us cross this lava pit.]



[We're also introduced to Tricky's 'fuel', the Blue GrubTub.]

_*whimper*

Oh man up, you big baby.

[You can find the little pieces of shit everywhere, and you have to hit them once before you can pick them up. This isn't that bad, but you do have to chase them around like a retard as they try to hop away. They also fall asleep at night, so murdering them for food is easiest under the guise of night.]



[Tricky's ability to dig also allows him to dig through ten feet of solid rock...]



[...in under a second.]



[And with that, we've finally reached the SnowHorn Wastes.]

-----

Star Fox Adventures: Origin

[At this point we've now seen almost all the key elements of the game. The only one we haven't seen is the SpellStones, but those will come up soon enough.]

[The original game that Rare was making was called Dinosaur Planet. It had absolutely nothing to do with the Star Fox series and had two main characters: Krystal and Saber.]



[Krystal, as we've seen, is still in the game, however Sabre became Fox. In the original game design Krystal (seen above) and Sabre (seen below) had dinosaur friends that assisted them, Kyte and Tricky. This is supposed to explain how Krystal found a CloudRunner with a saddle to use as a ride and why Tricky is integral to gameplay (though Kyte was supposed to be closer to Tricky's scale.)]



[At around the time this game was entering the late stages of development Nintendo came along and asked Rare to convert their game into a Star Fox game because Nintendo loves milking a franchise. This explains why there are so many assorted elements of the game that seem either underdeveloped or completely out of place.]



[One last thing to note is that the way the game was originally designed to play was that Sabre and Krystal were both used, and that it was the WarpStone that allowed players to switch between them. This was necessary as only Sabre could be used to collect and return the SpellStones while only Krystal was capable of rescuing the Krazoa Spirits.]