Star Fox on land borrows heavily from the Legend of Zelda. Fox can change weapons and keeps an inventory to open doors or break down barriers.
He can carry things and in the demo level I played I had to carry a bomb to a cave wall to break through it. At another spot I fired a shot from my staff up to a switch above a locked door. The door opened and a cutscene showed baddies inside taking my dino buddy and cruising off. A racing game ensued... a tough one, and I lost.
I tried a flying level, too. The enemies were too tough for my laser for the most part, so I did a fare amount of dodging. The goal was to fly through so many rings and I did that ok. Not particularly breathtaking, but it was nice to fly an arwing again.
-Eik