F-Zero X Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 9/6/2022)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

F-Zero X

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): Racing

Platforms: N64

Release Date: July 14, 1998

Have you ever seen how video games are portrayed on television or in advertisements? They're practically portrayed as visual, interactive crack. Two kids will be sitting in front of a TV with their drooling mouths agape and their pupils sinking into the whites of their eyes to the point of non-existence. A cacophony of erratic button tapping will be performed by several pairs of thumbs moving so wildly it's as if they have their own wills. Their borderline hypnotized faces are brightly illuminated by the coruscating glow of the television, which is shaking violently in pain from not being able to withstand the unmitigated awesomeness of the game. Upon the climax of the players finishing, they will hoot like owls with megaphones, and the TV will ignite in a roaring flame. Sounds fucking radical, doesn't it? Alas, to my knowledge, this experience has never occurred a single time while someone has been playing video games. Companies exaggerate gaming thrills to make them more alluring to children, while television frames this scene as gaming being dangerous and addicting. Some may claim that this elated moment is meant to represent an internal feeling while playing video games, but the realistic level of stimuli while playing video games cannot match the exaggerated depiction. One video game that attempts to simulate the bodacious media-portrayed embellishment of gaming is F-Zero X, the N64 sequel to the futuristic racing launch title for the SNES. F-Zero X is the story of how an ambitious, albeit glaringly flawed, 16-bit racing game became the most thrilling video game of the 20th century.

Besides Star Fox, F-Zero was the one new Nintendo IP on the SNES that greatly benefited from the jump to 3D. F-Zero's ethos was beyond the capacities of pixelated arcade-style racing, and it's a shame that the confinements of the SNES could not support F-Zero accordingly. As bold as the first F-Zero was, a racing game of its caliber was impractical on a 16-bit console. "Mode-7" graphical capabilities were impressive enough, but they are superfluous when the gameplay feels so muddled. I'd state that Nintendo should've held off on developing F-Zero until they were ready to jump to the third dimension, but one always learns more and grows from their mistakes instead of their hindrances. In 3D, the potential that F-Zero had can be fully realized. As it is, 3D F-Zero seems to be fairly minimal. It's a good thing that F-Zero's pixelated visuals weren't a grand spectacle because they couldn't have been rendered efficiently in the early 3D era. Tracks mostly look a paved gray with only a smidge of color variation for split seconds in the passing view of the player. The machines all have a plethora of colors and designs, but they all have a shared, gauche look of a sanded-down soapbox derby car. Fortunately, F-Zero is not a series that needs spectacular visuals. The racing courses that would be drab in a typical racing game compensate greatly with impeccable design. Leaping to 3D now allows F-Zero to diversify the layout of its courses. Loops, pipes, rotating tunnels, and steep jumps caused by vacant pits in the tracks are gripping enough to ignore the lackluster aesthetic. Plus, encountering all of these attributes at the blazing speeds of F-Zero implores the player to learn each track's layout to master them, demanding more intrigue to make it through them unscathed. Also, the addition of an analog controller is a godsend, as well as the buttery-smooth framerate that supports the blisteringly-fast action of F-Zero. I can't think of another N64 title whose frame rate was this crisp and responsive, and the game probably would've been unplayable without it.

Before the player can press start at the opening menu, a thunderous guitar lick worthy of Bill and Ted's "excellent" air riffage sounds over the N64 console logo. The intro will jumpstart the hearts of any player, but it's merely a sampler of what they'll be hearing throughout the game. I normally don't talk about a game's soundtrack in my reviews because that aspect of a game can be discussed exclusively on its own merits. However, I must untangle the music in F-Zero X because it is a huge factor in what makes the game so exhilarating. Ripping guitar licks that fall somewhere on the spectrum of speed metal accompany the races of F-Zero X marvelously, something of the guitar work of a Joe Satriani or Jason Becker. The finger-snapping virtuosity synonymous with the genre is perfect for a lightning-fast racing game like F-Zero that requires as much proficiency to play as the music that accompanies it. Also, I'm pretty sure this game is the only Nintendo soundtrack to feature guttural vocals. Fucking wicked. My only complaint is that the music makes the game much harder due to melting the player's faces off.

F-Zero X also must be set a few years after the first F-Zero because enough time is needed to pass for the sport of futuristic, high-octane racing to catch on. The first F-Zero supplied a paltry four characters for the player to choose from, but F-Zero expands the roster of playable characters, totaling to an exuberant thirty. Captain Falcon is still the face of the franchise, and the other three F-Zero mainstays return, but they've all got a lot of competition to contend with now. F-Zero X's bountiful cast of characters runs the gamut of mutated animals similar to Pico like Billy the ape and Octoman the humanoid octopus, old timers like Silver Neelsen and Dr. Clash, women (gasp, it really is the future!) like Jody Summer and Kate Alen to characters like Baba and Beastman. They look like Captain Falcon with a wardrobe change. Also, is that Fox McCloud's dad driving the Little Wyvern machine, and why is he a human? His overall look is too uncanny to be a mere coincidence. Each character comes with their own machine and stats, giving the player ample chance to become familiar with one or more of these to fit a racing build that suits them. A wider roster is more exciting, but the minimalist qualities of the game sort of diminishing the potential of having a wide selection. Even though none of the characters speak and their visages are obscured by their vehicles, I want to know more about them and their histories. Character bios often seen in fighting games would've been interesting to peruse in another menu, but I guess the developers would then have to delve into James McCloud's messy and shameful sexual history with a fox.

Even though all 30 characters will be present in every race, the player only has a small fraction of the roster available. Without resorting to putting in the "unlock everything" cheat code (which I'm guilty of doing, give me a break here), the player will have to unlock the roster via the fair method by placing first in the game's grand-Prix mode. Three cups, with an extra two unlocked as the player progresses, are presented to the player with six races each, and each subsequent cup gets more challenging. It's here in this grand-Prix that I'm reminded that the goal of F-Zero is not to outspeed the competition but to survive them. As I've stated, all thirty racers are accelerating on these tracks simultaneously. A large number of machines are in close, narrow spaces trying to pass each other. F-Zero acted like a bout of high-octane bumper cars, but F-Zero X is similar to a mosh pit caught up in a tornado. All the while, all of these racing contenders have to navigate the hazardous pratfalls that each track possesses. Normally, a grand-Prix featuring six races would be more accommodating because it gives the player enough chances to not have a perfect run and still win. This leeway is still present in F-Zero X, but the strict margin of error when racing combined with how many opportunities the player has to make a slight but fatal mistake makes having to run six races consecutively feel like a test of endurance. Offering rewards like expanding the roster and unlocking new cups is at least an enticing incentive, but the arcade difficulty brought over from the first F-Zero still makes the experience vexing.

F-Zero is still hard as nails, but unlike the first game, F-Zero X gives the player more tools to use. While playing on regular difficulty, I was confused and slightly irritated because I could seemingly never get to the same speeds to pass the racers in the top tier. I thought I was missing something crucial, and pressing the B button answered my questions. In the first F-Zero, the player's machine would be given a slight boost after passing the first lap, and F-Zero X greatly expands on this by granting the player a manual boost feature that is ready for the player to use the rest of the race after the first lap. This option makes a difference as it is the only way to win any race in the game, but the player cannot use it excessively. Using the boost at inopportune times will most likely result in the player slamming their machine into a wall or careening off a ledge and losing a life. The player must know the best spot to use a boost when they are memorizing the layout of the track. Secondly, the boost rate is limited as it coincides with the machine's health bar, which can only be restored while driving on those colored patches. A mosh pit between thirty combatants going hundreds of miles per hour may sound extremely overwhelming, but there's always that one beefy guy in every pit who commands the space with his tenacity. F-Zero X's equivalent to the audacious spin kick is another spin move where a player's machine can be shifted into a projectile weapon, whirlwinding into the others, knocking them into walls or off the track completely. It takes a certain proficiency to execute, but it is vital to winning as the boost move. The game even points out a specific target by flashing "rival" over the fiercest competitor and rewards each execution with a gold star, accumulating to an extra life with five. Boy, howdy, is this game vicious!

F-Zero X also has other game modes like timed races and a mode exclusively featuring the attack move, but the one that bewilders me is the multiplayer option. I stated in my review of the first game that it would have benefited from one. I realize now that being able to play with multiple people would imply that someone would play this game casually with others, and F-Zero is the least casual racing series known to gamers. It's probably why F-Zero lies dormant in Nintendo's archives while Mario Kart can make the same high earnings by releasing the same game ad nauseam. F-Zero may have improved significantly with its first 3D title, but the relenting challenge it takes simply to be competent is enough to deter most gamers from playing it. I say to hell with those people and that Mario Kart is for pussies. F-Zero X took something that was essentially a tech demo to test a gimmick on the SNES and turned it into one of the most engaging racing games I've ever played. I might have chipped a few teeth in frustration when I lost all my lives in a grand Prix or wasn't able to swerve around the tracks at first. Still, overcoming the challenges the game presented eventually almost made me feel as elated as someone playing video games in a commercial feels. F-Zero X is gnarly, dude.