Legend : 
🟥 Critical : Blocking story progression, either very hard to work around or not possible to work around at the moment.
🟧 Major : Crash, freeze or soft lock but workaround may still be possible.
🟨 Minor : Avoidable issues or random crashes while performing certain actions.
🟩 Nice to have : Bugged UI, dialog, spelling or small general issues that don't (or very little) affect the gameplay.


General

Random crashes

Soft resetting the game sometimes results in a crash

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟨 Minor
  • Description: Upon soft resetting the game, it may occasionally / frequently crash instead of rebooting properly.
  • Workaround: None, use hard resets or power down the game completely to avoid the issue.

Picking up certain items crash the game

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟧 Major
  • Description: Upon picking up most items a few hours into the game, it will fail to load an animation of the character for the close-up cutscene of the character holding the item and will subsequently crash the game.
  • Workaround: Use the GameShark code Pickup Fix to replace the models of all items, during the cutscene, with that of a magic gem, bypassing the crash.
     

💡 This doesn't seem to happen anymore, as 2024 in the latest patches - to be confirmed after a full walkthrough with multiple users and set up.


Killing SharpClaws sometimes crashes the game

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟨 Minor
  • Description: Sometimes, the game will enter a bugged state where killing a SharpClaw will crash the game. Causes are currently unknown.
  • Workaround: Reportedly, saving the game and performing a hard reset will undo this effect.

Killing the Snipluk in Sabre's introduction may crash the game

  • Status: Fixed (July 2023)
  • Type: 🟨 Minor
  • Description: The first enemies that Sabre encounter (Snipluk, almost known as worms by the community) have a chance to crash the game due to an issue with their sound effect programming.
  • Workaround: Avoid them.

💡 As of July 2023 this is fixed in the community patch (thanks to MusicalProgrammer)!


The "Previously on Dinosaur Planet" and tasks displayed are often incorrect or incomplete

  • Status: Partially fixed (July 2023)
  • Type: 🟩 Nice to have
  • Description: When loading a save, the recent task summaries displayed on the "Previously on Dinosaur Planet" screen are often incorrect or incomplete. There are two causes for this. This menu loads the most recent 6 tasks completed by the player, but is only capable of displaying the oldest 3 of these tasks, so the information will often appear to be outdated. Secondly, while Rare had written summaries and clues for approximately half of the game's tasks, they had only assigned gameplay flags to a small handful of these text strings as of December 2000 (presumably leaving it for a later stage in development when gameplay flags etc. would've been more finalised) - as a result, this screen (and the pause menu's % counter) will stop updating early on in the game.
  • Workaround: None.

💡 As of July 2023 this is improved in the community patch (thanks to LaminGaming)! The task summaries and completion percentage now work up to 57%.

The "Previously On" screen still loads more tasks than it's capable of displaying though, leaving the most recent few obscured.

More images and examples to be added here. Ideally we could show pretty much all possible tasks that are possible to show up on here.
dino_planet-258.pngdino_planet-459.png


Tricky is stuck in a wall when going in the well in Swapstone Hollow

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟨 Minor
  • Description: Tricky doesn't work well in the well in Swapstone Hollow, as if he doesn't seem to spawn in correctly and gets stucks in a wall. There is a tunnel to dig up with him, so this is bothersome but doens't block progression.
  • Workaround: None.

    dino_planet-272.png

Falling snow FX often seems to stay in Swapstone Hollow

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟩 Nice to have
  • Description: Coming from Snowhorn Waste, there seem to be a probability that the falling snow FX stays in Swapstone Hollow. It does not help the performance in the area.
  • Workaround: Sometimes other meterological condition takes priority, like rain, and it removes the snow.
    dino_planet-266.png

Tricky's and Kyte's hunger are non-functionnal

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟨 Minor
  • Description: Usually when performing Sidekicks action, Tricky and Kyte will need Blue Mushrooms/Blue Grubs to do so and won't help you if they're too hungry. The mecanic is introduced in the tutorial area with Sabre (Snowhorn, alpine roots, lone Sharpclaw and digging are introduced as well) but isn't used for the rest of the game and the sidekicks will perform the actions without losing their hunger meter nor refusing to do said action even though certain ones are repeated (and would usually make them hungry, like in the tutorial) This could have been made so by the team, to avoid to feed the sidekicks during testing.
  • Workaround: None. The UI was also probably hard coded as well at the moment, since it doesn't reflect changes in the hunger as well.

dino_planet-178.pngdino_planet-171.png


Progression Related

Saving issues

Saving after General Scales's galleon leaves gets the player stuck

  • Status: Fixed (unknown date)
  • Type: 🟨 Minor
  • Description: Saving and reloading at Warlock Mountain any time between Scales's Galleon leaving and warping away to the Swapstone puts the game into an unwinnable state where the Galleon is gone but its collision still exists. Krystal can run around on the invisible Galleon, but an invisible wall prevents her from continuing on into Warlock Mountain.
  • Workaround: Don't save at Warlock Mountain after the galleon leaves.
     

    💡 This is fixed in the community patch (to-do: track down the patch date and patch author)!


Saving immediately after the first swap (to Fox/Sabre) gets the player stuck

  • Status: Fixed (December 2022)
  • Type: 🟧 Major
  • Description: Saving and reloading at Ice Mountain as soon as the player arrives will send Sabre to the world origin, causing him to fall into the void endlessly. This happens because Sabre's position is still uninitialised in the save data.
  • Workaround: Don't save as soon as you arrive at Ice Mountain. Move forward into the area first, then save.
     

    💡 As of December 2022 this is fixed in the community patch! (Fix by Banjeoin)

    However: saving and reloading during the jetbike race will currently (as of January 2024) set Sabre back to the top of Ice Mountain, so it's recommended to continue as far as Tricky's tutorial area before saving.

 

💡 If you're playing on a backup cartridge (EverDrive etc.), this endlessly-falling-into-the-void save glitch will occur if the cartridge is using the wrong save format for Dinosaur Planet.

In order for a patched Dinosaur Planet ROM to work on an EverDrive-64 X5 (or X7), you need to copy and paste "DP=5" into the ID detection section of "save_db.txt", located inside the ED64 folder on the cart's SD Card.


Bypassing certains storypoints

The Swapstone Hollow well's tunnel leading to Snowhorn Waste isn't blocked

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟧 Major
  • Description: The access to Snowhorn Waste, in the well, is not blocked. You can get to Garunta Te and he won't stop you from freeing him with the (tedious) frost weeds quests even though you didn't do the quests that were programmes before (Healing the Queen, visiting Rocky, switching to Krystal, Discovery Falls, spirit and then swithcing back to Sabre with Distract). 
  • Workaround: Blocking the tunnel in the Well with the vines (As intended?) or invisible wall until swapping back to Sabre after learning Distract with Tricky.

💡 This leads to the next issue possible and will block progression later on, since Distract isn't learned and Tricky will become somehow bugged with his commands.

dino_planet-287.png


Possible to free Garunda Te before healing the Queen EarthWalker

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟨 Minor
  • Description: The access to Snowhorn Waste, in the well, is not blocked. You can get to Garunta Te and he won't stop you from freeing him with the (tedious) frost weeds quests even though you didn't healed the Queen before hand. 
  • Workaround: Blocking the tunnel in the Well and forcing the completion of the healing before hand, but a clearer dialog or subtitle should be added since the first spellstone location isn't clear enough after talking to the Swapstone. (Progression isn't forced on the player and they could get confused on where to go next)  

Lost the Shield/Forcefield Spell

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟨 Minor
  • Description: It is possible to lose the Shield/Forcefield spell if Krystal dies with it, or if the game is shut off, before the internal checkpoint is updated; the player is then unable to get it back through normal means because the LightFoot is considered 'saved' at this point and will not reward the player with the spell again.
  • Workaround: Use the Shield Saving Fix GameShark code, which prevents this issue. The code can be left running indefinitely. Alternatively, the issue can be avoided by swapping to Fox and saving once the player gets the spell in order to correctly update the internal checkpoint in the save; this will permanently save the Shield/Forcefield spell to the file.

After saving Kyte, the freed Lightfoot is back but frozen

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟨 Minor
  • Description: After freeing the Lightfoot and thensaving Kyte, going back to the cage area we can see the Lightfoot (and spell) are back in this section but are frozen.
  • Workaround: None?

dino_planet-676.pngdino_planet-677.png

Holding down the elevator switch in DarkIce Mines crashes the game.

  • Status: Fixed (December 2022)
  • Type: 🟧 Major
  • Description: The switch in the room's centre controls the elevator, but the game will crash if the switch is held down for longer than a moment (due to a buffer overflow). It is necessary to use this elevator because a SharpClaw in the area above holds a key needed to progress.
  • Workaround: Due to a programming oversight, it's possible to activate the switch by shooting it with the projectile spell! Because this interaction is so brief it avoids overflowing the switch's actor buffer. Alternatively, it is also possible to get Tricky to stand on the switch by hitting him a few times and running to the elevator or by using his ball. The game will crash if Tricky stays on it too long though, so be careful! After collecting the key from the SharpClaw, it must be used on an invisible keyhole to the right of the door - a cursor will appear when nearby.
     

    💡 As of December 2022 this is fixed in the community patch! (Fix by Banjeoin)

    Note that it's no longer possible to activate the switch by shooting it with a projectile. Instead you need to use the intended method of shooting a nearby rock onto the switch, or you can coax Tricky into activating the switch with some clever use of his ball.


Can't trigger Galadon boss fight in DarkIce Mines.

  • Status: Fixedhelp (TO-DO: clarify patch date, and whether the issue is fully resolved)
  • Type: 🟧 Major
  • Description: Tricky is needed to trigger the boss fight by using flame. Sometimes he doesn't enter the room with Fox and even if he does, the flame command doesn't trigger the cutscene.
  • Workaround: First of all, Tricky must be in the boss room to trigger the fight. If Tricky does not enter the boss room with you, it's because his checkpoint wasn't updated. All of the puzzles have to be completed in order to do this, along with potentially saving and quitting in the large room before Galadon's. Then, the player must go back to the lava room to retrieve Tricky. If Tricky does enter the boss chamber with Fox, Tricky's flame command must be used on the sheet of ice containing Galadon while the Galadon Boss Fix code is enabled. It is not advised to leave the code on constantly though due to side effects, and only as long as to trigger the cutscene, it is not necessary to have it on after triggering it. If playing on an Everdrive, where real time cheat enabling and disabling is not possible, prefix the code with D10A7DC0 0800 and hold (not press) on the D-Pad up to activate it; release up on the D-Pad to disable the code.
     

    💡 This seems to be largely fixed in the community patch (TO-DO: confirm if Tricky can still occasionally go missing on your way to Galadon) (TO-DO: gather more complete info on the fix authors and fix dates! Banjeoin's Dec 2022 patch and MusicalProgrammer's November 2023 patch are relevant, but there were other contributors too)!


Can't hit Galadon during third phase

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟨 Minor
  • Description: After spitting the player out, Galadon is supposed to be attacked with the Projectile spell while the creature exposes the weak spot in their chest. The player is unable to fire the projectile spell though.
  • Workaround: There are actually several ways to damage Galadon. First, it is actually still possible to shoot the projectile spell at Galadon if the player selected the projectile spell from the magic menu. Then, if Fox gets hurt, such as walking through Galadon's acid pools, it is possible to shoot the projectile spell if the Z button is held, followed by pressing the A button. Another way to hurt Galadon in this stage is, while Galadon's weak point is low to the ground, it's possible to hit it with a normal attack. Finally, it is possible to use the Levitate noclip Gameshark code to float up to the weak point and attack manually.

Can't place CloudRunner Fortress SpellStone into Desert Force Point Temple

  • Status: Fixed (August 2022)
  • Type: 🟥 Critical
  • Description: After getting the SpellStone from CloudRunner Fortress and travelling to the Desert Force Point Temple, upon reaching the end, it is impossible to place the SpellStone regardless of whether it is activated or not.
  • Workaround: It is possible to remove the SpellStone from the inventory with the code, Remove CloudRunner Fortress SpellStone: 805C4D41 0000, and allow switching back to Sabre. However, this will not progress the story.
     

    💡 As of August 2022 this is fixed in the community patch! (Fix by Jeebs2kx)


Invisible wall in Swapstone Hollow

  • Status: Partially fixed (January 2023)
  • Type: 🟨 Minor
  • Description: An invisible barrier prevents entry to Willow Grove.
  • Workaround: The game is unfinished past this point, use the Levitate Noclip code if you want to explore past this point.
     

    💡 Partially fixed in the community patch as of January 2023 (fix by MusicalProgrammer and Banjeoin)! Instead of a permanent invisible wall, a ThornTail was added to make it clearer that this area is intentionally blocked. The ThornTail moves from this spot after Krystal completes Desert Force Point Temple.

    As of January 2024 the ThornTail is unmoving and cannot be interacted with, but maybe someday they could tell you about Willow Grove.

Voice lines, subtitles and descriptions

Snowhorn dialog is misplaced

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟩 Nice to have
  • Description: After giving the first Alpine Root to the Snowhorn, he mistakinly says how to leave the clearing, but the geiser isn't stopped yet. Would place the dialog before the "I'm sorry lad, you're on your own now".
  • Workaround: None.
    dino_planet-209.pngdino_planet-217.png

Krystal voice line gets cut when talking to the Hightop in the water

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟩 Nice to have
  • Description: After the line "This must've happened before I arrived on this planet"... "Randorn...." gets cut out early in the cutscene with the Hightop dinosaur when first arriving in Discovery Falls.
  • Workaround: None.

dino_planet-776.png

The Mine Key description could be clearer

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟩 Nice to have
  • Description: After passing by the GuardClaw, besides the chained Snowhorn, you can fin the key in a box to break them free. Although the description could be clearer. It's only know as the Mine key and as description is "DarkIce Mines", could be replayed to "Key for a locked prisoner" or something to help guiding a bit the player.
  • Workaround: None.

dino_planet-468.png


Minor visual issues

Tricky's ball in the Sidekick menu isn't similar to it's in-game model

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟩 Nice to have
  • Description: Tricky's ball in the UI look closer to it's older model from the E3 footage and RareThief's gameplay.
  • Workaround: None, unless the sprite is modified manually.

dino_planet-191.pngdino_planet-193.png


Whacking a sleeping dinosaur will bug their following sleep animation

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟩 Nice to have
  • Description: After whacking a sleeping dinosaur with the staff/sword, they'll fall again asleep soon after, but with their eyes opened.
  • Workaround: None.
    dino_planet-183.png

No visual on wall for the diggable tunnel to get to Snowhorn Waste

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟩 Nice to have
  • Description: There is no visual on diggable wall to get to Snowhorn Waste, after pushing the block and jump across the lake. The Dig command itselft is confusing for first time players, since tunnels aren't seen until that wall. 
  • Workaround: Open the Sidekick Command menu with C-Down, the icon for Dig will appear close to the wall. (Screenshot on the right to show what the wall is supposed to have as damaged to show possible digging)
    dino_planet-223.pngdino_planet-241.png

Missing textures down in the well in Swapstone Hollow

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟩 Nice to have
  • Description: Missing textures down the well in Swapstone Hollow, just before the tunnel to Snowhorn Waste. The sky box is visible (Notice the change to the sunset colors!)  
  • Workaround: None.

dino_planet-275.pngdino_planet-287.png

Blue Mushroom appears over the minimap when collecting a Blue Grub

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟩 Nice to have
  • Description: The in-menu sprite of the Blue Mushroom appears when collecting Blue Grub for Kyte.
  • Workaround: None. Probably because the side right menu should open to increase the counter?

dino_planet-663.png

Blue Mushroom are used instead of Blue Grub visual in Inventory

  • Status: Active
  • Type: 🟩 Nice to have
  • Description: Kyte's food appears incorrect in-menu, as Blue Mushrooms and not Blue Grubs.
  • Workaround: None. Is there a leftover sprite for this or it was never intended to change?

dino_planet-667.png

 

Tags: