After having been canceled way back in the late 90s, life has apparently found a way to revive Rare’s Dinosaur Planet. Albeit in an unfinished state. Thanks to Forest of Illusion, a site dedicated to the preservation of Nintendo properties, a full build of the shelved Nintendo 64 title is now available online.
According to a tweet posted on the morning of February 20th, Forest of Illusion purchased a disc from an unnamed Swedish collector that contained the original game data for Dinosaur Planet. The build included seems to be from sometime in late December of 2000. They have since made the game available on their site for anyone to download and check out. Clips and snippets have long been available online from the early days of development, but this will mark the first time that the general public has the chance to explore this lost world.
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).
Link to the dump:https://t.co/gQGGcU4vJK pic.twitter.com/Orub7RU3fa
— Forest of Illusion (@forestillusion) February 20, 2021
Dinosaur Planet was originally going to be an original single-player adventure from Rare for the N64 before being canceled. After legendary Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto supposedly saw the similarities between the project and his own Star Fox franchise, he pushed forward on shifting Dinosaur Planet to fit into that universe. Many assets from the original design plans for Dinosaur Planet were eventually rolled into that release as well. Including the setting, game mechanics, as well as would-be protagonist Krystal who has since become part of the Star Fox franchise.
The download for Dinosaur Planet can be found on the original Twitter post or an additional link provided by Forest of Illusion. The site does not charge for any of their downloads or services but is open to donations on their Patreon so that they can further unearthed pieces of lost gaming history.
