is it weird to review what is basically an incomplete alpha of a game that never came out, and also unfair to rate it higher than the final-yet-very-different product it got released as?

yes and i don't care. researching this game made up a good chunk of my childhood and i enjoyed it, leave me alone.

there's a good lot of Dinosaur Planet that was left unchanged in the retail Star Fox Adventures (specifically the galleon intro and most of darkice mines for example), but it's still a vastly different beast altogether. unlike SFA, DP's pacing is a lot slower and seems to be mostly focused on environmental puzzles and exploration rather than the more fast-paced action and challenges than SFA brought. not a bad thing (especially when the environments are pretty gorgeous even for the N64), but definitely an acquired taste when you're more used to how things were in SFA.

isn't to say Dinosaur Planet is better (or worse) than the game it ended up becoming tho; there's definitely more to DP than SFA in a lot of areas, but alpha-state-bugginess and unfinished-ness aside, there's quite a few quality-of-life things that SFA had that i really wish were in the build we got. two that i can name off the top of my head: bomb spores IMMEDIATELY vanish upon touching the ground, and some items like mushrooms you have to manually pick up rather than automatically picking up when you walk onto them. plus some challenges that got reworked in SFA are substantially more difficult in DP coughcloudrunnerjetbikeracecough.

but yeah that's. kind of the reason why i can't really rate this the full five stars. SFA's got its issues, and DP isn't exempt from it's own flaws.

due to the state it's in, Dinosaur Planet is essentially impossible to truly complete, and with some areas and tasks being empty or unfinished, you can't really go through the story "as intended". still, DP's a trip to explore what could've been, as well as compare it to it's finished Starfox-ified verison. there's a sense of mystery and atmosphere to DP's original N64 incarnation, and i'm so glad i can finally experience it after 15+ years of researching the game.

will this game ever be truly "finished", be it in Rare's hands or by the dedicated fans decompiling it? hard to say, but with this and the tsukihime remake coming out in the same year, weirder things have happened.

and even then, i'm fine with what we got. it's some sense of closure to a mystery over two decades old now, and it's been a real treat to explore.

look, i get it. mario 64 was an influential title and it's importance and presence in video game culture even to this day is commendable. mario 64 provided a very solid foundation for future 3d platformers to build off of, including its own romhacks that expand on not just mario's movement capabilities and level design, but also its coding thanks to the decompilation of it. speedruns and analysises of this game are incredibly fascinating to watch, and seeing the culture around this game grow and evolve is something i'm glad to witness.

but the camera controls suck dick and that's why this doesn't get the full five stars. rainbow ride is also the stuff of my nightmares. i'm sorry.

remember when american mcgee made alice in wonderland edgy? what if he did that to 23 other fairy tales but it's a less memorable experience

grimm's pretty similar in gameplay to katamari, 'cept instead of collecting things in a giant ball, you're turning things from cutesey to edgy. a fun time while it lasts, though the platforming and controls can be really jank at times, and it's core gimmick never does really anything new throughout its 23-episode run beyond the different story setpieces.

the presentation's fun, and there's a bit of speedrun appeal i can imagine, but chances are you're only going to play through each episode once and only go back to them for completionist reasons.

may all our stories end so well, i just hope your next time's a bit meatier, grimm!