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 exorbitant 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 diminish 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.

F-Zero Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/12/2022)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

F-Zero

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): Racing

Platforms: SNES

Release Date: November 21, 1990

F-Zero is the racing franchise that Nintendo has forsaken. It predates the first Mario Kart game by a couple of years, so this means F-Zero was Nintendo’s first foray into establishing a series in the racing genre (the one-off NES title Excitebike withstanding). Once Mario Kart emerged on the SNES in 1992, both franchises coexisted for a few generations until Nintendo decided only to invest in the wildly popular Mario Kart series and leave F-Zero in the dust. We have not seen hide nor hair of F-Zero in almost twenty years, besides Captain Falcon’s long-running stand as a character in Super Smash Bros. I can’t say I’m surprised that Nintendo stopped investing in F-Zero and focused solely on Mario Kart as their juggernaut racing franchise. Why is this, you may ask? Because Mario Kart is accessible while F-Zero only reaches a niche demographic of gaming masochists. Why would Nintendo, a company that thrives on its user-friendly properties, put effort into a franchise that makes people want to tear their hair out due to sheer frustration? It wouldn’t make sense to do this from a marketing standpoint, which is why Nintendo gave up on the series many years ago. What Nintendo failed to realize is that this niche market still hungers for more of the meaty challenge that only F-Zero provides. As early as the first F-Zero game on the SNES, the series provided a high-octane racing experience that tested the limits of the racing genre.

The first F-Zero also tested the limits of what was capable on the new SNES. As a launch title for the system, its ulterior goal was to showcase the capabilities of the new console. If Super Mario World showcased an evolved translation of the NES side scroller, F-Zero showcased features that could not have been functional on the NES. The potential of the new “mode-7” feature on the SNES was exhibited greatly with F-Zero, almost as if the feature was crafted with racing games in mind. “Mode-7” graphics detail a rotated background layer, changing the perspective to give the illusion of 3D graphics. That’s right, this was the prototype for the 3D revolution that would become the standard for gaming, and it was used as early as a SNES launch title. While other SNES games used snippets of mode-7 graphics, F-Zero utilized them to the best of their capabilities. Racing games of previous generations were restricted due to graphical limitations. They were presented in a myriad of perspectives, but none of these did the racing genre justice. The new mode-7 graphics created the most ideal racing perspective for a console that predated the 3D era. Not only did the pseudo-3D graphics allow the player to see their car from the back, but it allowed the player to see what was directly in front of them. Racing games of previous generations could only render a minuscule amount for the driver to see on the road. F-Zero puts everything in clear sight so the player can anticipate everything from dirt pits, road curves, and other drivers. It seems simple, but this was a revolutionary change for the racing genre at the time.

The futuristic evolution of the racing game that F-Zero upholds in a technical sense is supported by its futuristic aesthetic. F-Zero is a racing game set in a time that nobody alive in 1990 or today will ever experience. The high-octane speeds the racers accelerate surpass any flux capacitor and, quite frankly, scare the hell out of my comparatively unadorned 21st-century being. The tracks are winding, and the backgrounds all look like concept art from Fantastic Planet. There is more context to F-Zero’s racing league and its drivers, but this is only elucidated in the game’s manual, which I do not possess (the SNES was before my time, and I played this game on my Switch). What the game presents is that the player has a choice between four different racers whose cars have distinct stats. The blue car (of which I’m only pretending not to know that this is Captain Falcon’s car because the game doesn’t tell the player) is the car with the most balanced level of speed, handling, and acceleration. It’s the perfect car for beginner players. The other cars have stats that exceed the blue car in some aspects but are lacking in others. This way, the small selection of racers the player has is at least varied. There are fifteen tracks divided into three grand Prix each with five tracks, and each grand Prix gets progressively more difficult.

Speaking of the difficulty, I think F-Zero should serve as a lesson that we as people should not attempt to surpass the limits of automotive technology. The racers of F-Zero drive at speeds in the 300-500 range, tripling the rates of speed of any present-day automobile. Driving at these perilous speeds is probably why F-Zero is so goddamn difficult. The player can see plenty of what’s in front of them, but good luck trying to avoid the many hazards each track presents. This can include having to execute the sharpest of U-turns, avoiding the patches of snow and dirt on the tracks, dodging unexploded ordnance, and not misstepping any of the various jumps that could lead to the driver’s death. The player has to contend with the other racers who swerve masterfully around the courses, even on the easiest difficulty. The other racers are ruthless and will defend their position as their lives depend on it. Even if the player is in first place, another driver will always be tailing them. One minor mistake on the player’s part will most likely cost them their position. Trying to pass other racers on the tracks tends to turn F-Zero from space-age NASCAR into space-age bumper cars. Passing the other racers without getting nicked is incredibly hard because the narrow tracks. The possibility of the player coming into contact with another racer is highly likely and will result in the player getting bumped around on the track like a pinball. The most frustrating aspect of this is the generic yellow and brown racers on the track who have no stakes in winning the race. Their only purpose is to cause grief for the player, acting as obstacles even when all the other racers are behind them. Some of them explode upon impact just to fuck the player over even harder. All of this battering and bruising the player will experience will lower their energy bar, which is essentially the car’s health meter. After too many clangs and clashes on the road, the energy bar will deplete and do a constant warning flash if it’s too low. There’s one long stretch of each track in which running on it will replenish the energy meter, but it only charges a minuscule amount. If that energy bar goes to zero, the car will blow up, and the player will have to start the race again. The game will only give the player three chances, and they will need all of them.

The ironic part about how innovative F-Zero was to the racing genre is how it seems like an arcade game. If I didn’t know any better, the demanding difficulty curve and the lives count scream arcade game to me. As one could probably tell from my reviews, I’m not a fan of games with this format made for consoles. The difficulty has little to do with my grievances here. Rather, it’s due to the lack of tangible rewards the player gets for overcoming the hardest racing game on the NES. All of the tracks, racers and grand Prix that are available from the start are all that are offered. What about the two or three racers always in fifth and sixth place? Unlocking their cars would at least be some incentive to keep playing the game. After winning a grand Prix, there is no grand ceremony giving the player a gold trophy. All the game will do is tally up the player's scores. I’m not someone who thrives off of bragging rights, so merely keeping scores like an arcade machine is not enough to satisfy me. There isn’t even a multiplayer mode that should be mandatory for any racing game.

If anyone out there thinks they are the Mario Kart grandmaster, playing F-Zero will be a humbling experience that will put them in their place. Alternately, if you’re someone who feels frustrated by being hit with a blue shell and losing a race, those unfortunate snags are nothing compared to the trials and tribulations on the futuristic tracks in F-Zero. I’m almost ashamed to admit this, but I had to play F-Zero on the easiest difficulty to experience the full game for this review. The easiest difficulty still managed to bend me over and make me its bitch. I got so frustrated with being tossed around on these tracks that I almost gave up. This is most likely the shared experience of many players of F-Zero, but I still kept playing. There is something so gratifying about progressively getting better at this game after struggling to even place in first on the beginning grand Prix. Learning how to properly drift and slide past those acute angles on the roads with little trouble feels like I’ve become more capable, something that no other racing game provides. That’s the appeal of this game that makes getting pummeled worth it. The game would’ve benefited greatly from providing the player with rewards for mastering it. The first F-Zero might have been a cutting-edge racing title that showcased the potential of the SNES’s hardware, but it still felt a little rudimentary.