A game that I really loved as a kid... and did again this time around, for about the first half.

This games strengths for me mostly lay in its exploration and beautiful setting. Also, to the credit of its level design, I never got lost or needed to buy maps (this did make the bartering & money system somewhat pointless).

However the game becomes repetitive - boring combat, backtracking (especially between Thorntail Hollow and Cape Claw, which you have to visit a number of times, meaning traveling through a maze and up and down ladders over and over), flying, button mashing mini-games and bosses, the same environmental hazards everywhere (I eventually just started walking through flaming barriers rather than waiting for them to stop)...

The backtracking in particular was a shame. I didn't mind revisiting areas exactly, and I like that you had to walk back to areas rather then warping (which tends to ruin the feeling of inhabiting and exploring a world), but in some sections it would have been nice to have been able to create shortcuts once you had traversed them the first time.

The plot too fizzles out strangely at the games climax. Nothing much comes of General Scales or Crystal, and it was unsurprising to find out that this game was originally conceived as its own entity, and Star Fox was later welded into it.

Ultimately, Star Fox Adventures is fun to run around in and play for the most part, and still looks beautiful all these years later.
But man, I wish I had played this with a turbo controller instead.