Re-View: F-Zero GX

Everyone loves the fast pace of a good racing game, but certain franchises always seem to be at the forefront of people’s minds when they think of the genre. A neglected racer from Mario Kart dispenser Nintendo is F-Zero, a supersonic futuristic racing series that last had a release on the GameCube with F-Zero GX. With Captain Falcon making an appearance whenever a new Smash game comes around, Nintendo has not quite dismissed the series, or so we might hope. As Nintendo focuses more and more on a narrow group of its familiar franchises, let us take a brief look at just what F-Zero offered at its height, so that we may speculate what it could offer the current console generation.

Nintendo constantly make references to F-Zero as if they’re secretly mocking me… Screw Mario; bring back Captain Falcon!

Set in a future featuring a universe-wide community, the ‘F-Zero Grand Prix’ is an extremely popular and highly dangerous racing competition. It’s essentially Rollerball meets Speed Racer. As a racing game, there was never any need to flesh out the universe of F-Zero GX to an insane degree, yet the sheer variety of characters does a good job of giving it a sense of size and scope. Everyone from genius androids, to genetic experiments, to alien delivery crewmen feature as racers, and every single one of them has both a back story and a catchy theme song. It all contributes to a wonderful sense of presence for the actual racing; every race and every species comes together to compete, like some kind of sci-fi Olympic games.

F-Zero GX maximised the potential of the Gamecube to deliver something truly stunning and, more than that, serious. It was an antithesis to Mario Kart: some characters were completely out for blood, and you could take rivals out of the grand prix permanently through a spin attack or dirty driving. The high speed gameplay and incredible soundtrack were just pure adrenaline. The game demanded constant attention lest you suddenly spin out of control and lose the race in an instant, and yet the rush of the gameplay made it difficult to not take risks for the sake of getting first place.

The courses have a great deal of variety, though certain locations and environments are repeated. Some areas in the game may have several courses, all featuring the same aesthetic, such as a desert or an ocean-side city. Still, there is a clear difficulty curve, and with winding turns, incredible speed loops, vicious pits and dire obstacles, every course remains uniquely challenging. Furthermore, throughout the game I found that there was never a sense of the tracks being ‘unfair’. There are no race-ending weapons that can randomly appear at the worst times, or easily exploitable glitches that veterans can exploit for the sake of a cheap win. Each course simply demands skill and practice, and with the excitement of the gameplay constantly keeping you interested they become incredibly rewarding to master.

Another feature of this game is the ‘Story Mode’, where you play as Captain Falcon dealing with his daily shenanigans. These stages are famously difficult to beat, and unlike the standard racing tracks can seem dauntingly unfair in a manner I found quite similar to Devil May Cry 3. The story is also rather ridiculous. Supposedly, a spandex wearing devil spawn believes that winning F-Zero tournaments unlocks some kind of evil inter-dimensional portal or something; I never got far enough to see the story through, nor did I have the desire to when I could just be playing a grand prix instead.

Another point that always bothered me is that although there is a huge variety in driver designs, there are a few racing machines that are clearly superior, and others that are completely hopeless. Unlike Mario Kart, where you can choose between characters with great acceleration or those with a high top speed, there are several racers in F-Zero GX that are pathetic in all aspects. It is a mystery to me why certain ones were even included in this way. Not only are they terrible to play as, but they almost always come in last when driven by the CPU.

For those who’re die-hard fans of these losers, or simply feel certain characters look cooler than the rest, there is also a vehicle customisation mode that allows you to choose whatever pilot you want. You win parts for your garage by completing grand prix, story levels, or by buying them with the credits you can win in single player. There isn’t too much to say about this; there are a good number of parts as well as varied customisation options, including an emblem editor, and everything is competently done. I get the impression that this has a lot of potential for online play, and could be done extremely well on a newer platform, sayyyyyyyyy the Wii-U?

F-Zero GX, for me, is an experience which hasn’t been matched since its release, which is a great shame. It has an incredible amount of potential as a franchise, and would look fantastic on the Wii-U. Nintendo constantly make references to F-Zero as if they’re secretly mocking me, and it all goes back to the debate of why Nintendo is so dismissive of so many of its franchises. F-Zero, Mother, and Star Fox: these are all adored by those that still follow Nintendo, and their greatest instalments still hold a great amount of appeal. Some would say they deserve a lot more love.

Screw Mario; bring back Captain Falcon!