A worthy successor, but........
We needn't have worried, though. Think of Majora's Mask without the pesky clock, slap a Star Fox coat of paint on it, and you have Star Fox Adventures. If that makes it sound a bit derivative, it could be viewed that way; then again, if it's derivative of a Zelda game, that's not such a bad thing. It's a Star Fox game, so it goes without saying that there will be some Arwing combat involved, though not enough. What is there makes you sorely wish that the guys at Rare had added some more flight missions. The difficulty is nice and consistent, which is good, because Rare has produced some real doozies in this respect. With the game format being drastically altered for the most part, the story has to accomodate the gameplay, so it's not your typical Star Fox story, but that's a good thing. I can't say that the ending was a terribly huge surprise, but it was fitting.
On the techincal side, the game looks great. The character models have matured nicely, evolving from the polygonal characters that were introduced in the first game way back in 1993. Fox's on-foot motion is smooth and flowing. The sound is great, and the controls are taken straight from Zelda, so they're great, as well. The one flaw in this game is the dialogue spoken by Krystal and the inhabitants of Dinosaur Planet. If you haven't experienced Rare's final home console gem for Nintendo yet, pick it up.