Fox McCloud and a Magic Staff. There's two things that are rather odd.
I really can't believe how nicely the game handles. It's simply sweet. The animation is rather smooth, other than the disc loading problem that will be fixed by release. Rare put alot of polish on the game, specifically on the "complete" stage: the Cloudrunner Fortress. Fox's teeth are round.
Anyway, I was fooling around with the controller. X is the "Z" button and allows you to put the camera behind your back, but you use Y to lock on to enemies. I love the Staff. The fact that finally we have a game that doesn't rely upon a sword (although Link with anything else would be rather disappointing...) it has added quite a bit to the gameplay. Fox uses his Staff like an expert, somersaulting and dodging by vaulting with the staff. The NOA rep showed me some moves and they were rather impressive.
One thing I have noticed that his mouth is almost always open. I don't know why; perhaps Rare wanted to show off those lovely rendered teeth?
Unfortunately the demo was rather buggy and tended to crash often.
The only unanswered question left to me is if EAD will have a shooter along with this "Gaiden" title.