(beat all leagues on beginner and standard)

When I was young, I played this at a friend's house prior to our families going on a road trip together. I was absolutely terrible because I never took my finger off the accelerate button ("slowing down is for the weak", I reasoned) and couldn't finish any of the races except for Mute City 1; still, it was enough of a vibe that I ended up playing Mute City again and again. We then went on the road trip and I proceeded to annoy the everloving shit out of everyone by singing the Mute City theme for the entire duration of the trip.

F-Zero has many of the same annoyances that I've savaged other early racing games (see Road Rash and Super Mario Kart) for: wonky collision physics that seem to always work in the AI's favor, rubberbanding, invulnerable opponents, and a Grand Prix mode that doesn't let you continue if you don't place in the Top 3, walling some interesting tracks behind bullshit ones.

However, unlike those games, F-Zero is at its heart an extremely solid pure racer. This is - at least in part - down to the vibes, but also due to the smooth controls and excellent physics (with the noted exception of when cars crash into each other). The devs made the very wise choice of working within the system's technical requirements and making every track on a flat plane, which ensured a very good draw distance, especially compared with its contemporaries.

Also, instead of leaning into the 'versus' style of gameplay like other casual racing games, F-Zero feels more like a time-attack game with a GP mode thrown in as a bonus. There's too much bullshit for me to even think about completing any of the Grands Prix on expert mode, but there's something therapeutic and satisfying about roaring round the tracks on Practice.

brb off to annoy my wife by singing Mute City again

F-Zero was one of the Super Nintendo's launch titles, meant to not only showcase the console's capability with Pseudo-3D graphics. thanks to its Mode 7 technology, but also showcase high-speed gameplay with the Mode 7.

F-Zero is a very simple racing game. You got 15 tracks (5 on each league), 3 difficulty levels, 4 vehicles to choose from, and you only really get two options to choose from: Grand Prix, the main mode of the game; and Practice, which is exactly what you think it is.

Unlike many other racing games at the time, the original F-Zero does not contain a multiplayer mode. It's a pure single-player game, and that's a bit lame, but I think I can understand why, limitations at the time, and stuff like that.

What we got is a fast-paced, and hard racing game. This game is so hardcore, that you only have a set number of lifes, and after you lose all of them, you gotta restart from the beginning of the entire league.
It also has a health-bar for your vehicle, and after you lose it, you go kaboom! and lose one of your lifes.

Early on, when you're playing through the Knight League, I'd say the game isn't so hard. Mute City I and Big Blue are good beginner stages that help you ease into the game's controls and physics.
Then Sand Ocean teaches you how important it is to briefly break your speed, and use the L and R buttons to make sharp turns.

And I'd say that the game's difficulty evolves quite naturally from there. While it is a bit disappointing to always start with a Mute City course in each league, they're good warm-up tracks for what's to come in the rest of that league.

But I think things start to get quite difficult with Port Town II, the third to last track in the King League (the hardest league in the game). While it is natural for a track that late into the game to be so hard, the reason why I found it too difficult was because of how narrow the stage was, and how frequent it is for other F-Zero machines to bump into you, which grinded my gears plenty.

Thankfully, the track that came afterwards, Red Canyon II, was much more comfortable, and had a pretty cool, although tricky, shortcut.
And Fire Field, the final track, is pretty hard, but I'd say it's a bit less annoying than Port Town II, but be prepared to get hit... a lot... and also die a lot.

But after that... that's it. If you want, you can do the stages again but on a harder difficulty, but I'm like "fuck that", but besides that, there's not much to do. It's a bit lackluster when it comes to modes, but the overall gameplay loop is pretty fun!

F-Zero is a nice series' first game, even in spite of the lack of content.

Whenever people think of Nintendo’s flagship racing title, a game that everyone (if not, most people) have played and had fun with at least once in their lives, it is without a doubt Mario Kart. With how many different entries have been released over the years, each of them (for the most part) improving and building on the formula that made the series popular from the start, it is no wonder why the series is so beloved to this very day, and why Nintendo keeps it as one of their signature money makers. However, what the general fanbase of Mario Kart may not know is that it isn’t Nintendo’s only racing franchise, and better yet, it wasn’t even their FIRST racing franchise. That honor would go to F-Zero, which had a good number of releases, from the original on the SNES to F-Zero Climax on GBA, but ever since then, Nintendo has shoved the series away in favor of Mario Kart, only acknowledging its existence with Captain Falcon in Smash Bros., as well as some other cameos here and there. Which is a shame too, because from the small amount that I have played of the various games, they are some of the company’s best in the genre, and they would fit right at home in their modern library of titles.

As for the original F-Zero on the SNES, it still holds up extremely well to this day, and is, yet again, another fantastic launch title for the system. Obviously, it is probably exceeded in quality by future titles in the series, and it isn't perfect by any means, but if this is how the series initially came out the gate, it makes me wanna play the sequels even more to see how it gets better from here with such a great start.

The backstory, while typical for a story set in a futuristic world, is fun enough to where you can turn your brain off and accept it, the graphics are very good, especially with the wonderful use of Mode 7, the music is iconic and incredible, the control is great, EXCEPT for the turning of the car, which I will get into later, and the gameplay is your standard racing affair, but dialed up to 100, and I love it.

In case you haven't figured it out at this point, the game is mostly your basic racing game, where you can take on either singular races or a grand prix, choose one of four racers, each with varying stats, and you then race through five laps against many other racers, making sure to not get eliminated and fighting for first place. It is pretty typical for racing games, yeah, but back in the day, many traits about this game were pretty influential for the genre as a whole, and would go on to influence the creation of several other series, which is always something that I appreciate when it happens. Also, since this was a launch title for the SNES, it did a fantastic job at showing off just what the SNES was capable of in its earliest stages in comparison to Super Mario World, which showed off what games from the previous generation could look like in the new one.

So, as someone who started seriously playing F-Zero for the first time with this game, I admired how different it approached racing in comparison to Mario Kart. Where that series was more focused on trying to maintain the lead in the midst of item shenanigans and obstacles a plenty, in this game, it was more focused on the skill of the player rather than, say, a blue shell ruining your entire run. Despite having several difficulty options, the game isn’t typically that easy, and it requires you to be quick on your reflexes while driving through the course, and to be careful around other racers, so to not potentially cost yourself the entire race. This is also amplified with several additions to the gameplay to make things more challenging and strategic, such as a power meter that you must keep filled, or else you die and have to start over, plenty of pits and obstacles to damage you along the way, and the additions of Super Jets that you acquire after passing through a goal, which are VERY helpful, yes, but since you already go really fast, using one of these is also very risky, and could cost you the race if you aren’t careful. Sure, this all may be nothing new to F-Zero fans, but as someone who was experiencing this series for the first time, it was a really nice surprise, and it was extremely satisfying to learn the tracks and how the opponents work, so that I could get into the top 3 (almost) every time.

Now, with all that said, I do have some issues with the game, and my main issue that I do have is that the turning is not that great at all. It feels extremely heavy, and yes, while there are separate buttons on the controller that “help” with the turning, it feels completely useless a lot of the time, as I would still just smash straight into walls either way. I just end up trying my best to brake a little whenever I reach a tight turn, and even then, sometimes it’s not enough. Maybe it’s a skill issue, maybe it isn’t, but either way, it did become a factor in several courses throughout the game. And speaking of which, my last big problem with the game is the final track, Fire Field. FUCK THIS COURSE AND THE PEOPLE WHO DESIGNED IT. Seriously, it’s not too bad, but it has some of the tightest turns in the entire game, and there is barely any room for error whatsoever, because you can end up either getting disqualified or dying VERY quickly. And yes, it is appropriate that this is the hardest track in the game, since it is the final one, but even so, it gave me a lot of unneeded trouble.

Overall, despite the turning not being the best and that last course being a pain in the ass, this is still a fantastic start for the F-Zero franchise, and it has me wanting to get into playing the other games more than ever. And hey, if Nintendo ever brings back this series from the grave (which, let’s face it, they never will), I would fully support it all the way… unless it’s shit.

Game #166

Going back to F-Zero in 2021 ticks different boxes to what it would've ticked upon its original release. It's no longer a top-of-the-pile graphical tour de force and as a racing game it has been bettered by not only its direct sequels but a lot of other games on the SNES.

It's a weird one. It isn't really a racing game, the four enemy cars that make up the chasing pack aren't really difficult to beat and the countless non-ranked additional vehicles are simply obstacles to avoid. Finishing in the qualification spaces is almost a formality, but that's not really what the game is about. F-Zero is a game about track mastery at high speeds and still satisfies in that regard. Being able to utilise the shoulder buttons to turn sharper and the way that dropping and firing up the engines instantly changes movement direction makes cornering feel fantastic and there's so much in the way of subtle changes you can make to improve your racing line.

This is all stuff that was refined and improved upon in F-Zero X but it is nice to see that, even when stripped back to its most basic form, the things that make F-Zero so good to play hold up and its no surprise the series has the reputation it has, given that the base it has been built upon remains solid.

Despite the lack of stage, game mode and vehicle variety, the game is still incredibly fun.
Gameplay is exciting and always keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Visuals are pretty colourful and vibrant.
The OST is also great.
There are some things which kinda ruin the enjoyment like limited lives.
Combined with the fact this is a hard game, you'll find yourself needing to analyze and memorize AI and course patterns to an extensive degree if you wanna 100 % this game.

The controls and feel of the game hold up really well, there's a level of precision there where you feel totally in control of your vehicle while also moving at 400 km/h. Pulling off really tight turns feels really great and cathartic, it's a very sleek and tight game. My only problem is how unforgiving it can be, once you fuck up and get knocked back to like 7th place, you're probably never going to get back to third in a million years because the track is so narrow and if another vehicle even slightly touches you, you get flung into the side of the track and damaged. The narrowness and tight turns of these tracks, while being really fun in first place when you only have to dodge the occasional bot that you're lapping, if you're in 4th and there's two other racers next to you, it's a complete nightmare where everyone is getting flung into walls and you're probably going to run out of power and explode. Speaking of running out of power and exploding, I also wish that attacking other racers was a more viable option. Theoretically, it's possible to screw over everyone else by ramming them into the walls, but 90% of the time if you try that it mostly just harms you more than the person you're trying to damage., which is a real shame for me since that would both partially solve the problem of the tracks being so narrow that it just turns into a mess when you try to pass someone, while also allowing me to indulge in my childhood dreams of being a supervillain from Speedracer . This would probably only apply to the main three other pods(?) so that when you're in first the challenge of still having to dodge the other pods occasionally would still be there.

EDIT: This game made me crash my car into a wall at 3:00am. This is not a joke.

For the first game in the franchise, and for a what is essentially a mode 7 tech demo, F-Zero holds up remarkably well.

It feels surprisingly fast, and races on higher difficulties put you on the edge of your seat while you're trying to turn tight corners without crashing into walls or other cars. I mostly played on handheld Switch, and the excitement got me involuntarily steering the entire console when pulling a tight
turn.

Collision with vehicles is he biggest source of frustration, because your tragectory upon impact is largely unpredictable. It's also a very short game, which is a positive or a negative depending on your play habits. I spent around two weeks with it (I suck at racing games), and I ended up feeling pretty satisfied with its length.

If you wanna go back to the humble beginnings of a long forgotten Nintendo franchise, steer clear from Star Fox and speed towards F-Zero.

I'm just like Captain Falcon, I'm getting exploded all the time.

Along with Pilotwings, F-Zero might be the most technically impressive entry in the Super Nintendo's launch lineup, though it is less a demo and more a proper video game. Sure, the Sega Genesis had been out for a while and had already simulated 3D spaces to great effect with games like Space Harrier, but F-Zero is so smooth and runs so fast that even with the leg up, it makes a strong case for investing in Nintendo's 16-bit hardware.

Setting aside its role as a Mode 7 showpiece, it's just a well-designed racing game, with incredibly engaging courses, cars that handle great, and a satisfying sense of speed that is rarely interrupted by performance hitches. F-Zero isn't bogged down by a bunch of track gimmicks, it lacks depth mechanically, it's about as straight-forward as you can get, but I think that's a strength.

That's not to say it's perfect, though. F-Zero might be one of the better racing games on the SNES but it also suffers from issues typical of this generation. There's rubberbanding, and god help you if you screw up and smack into a wall near the end of a race, because your position will be taken by at least a car or two. Whenever you're behind a racer, they have a tendency to weave back and forth to prevent you from overtaking them, and during late game courses where tracks become more narrow and turns more tight, it can feel like threading a needle where inaccuracy is punished harshly by bouncing you against walls like a pinball until you blow up.

That said, I'm a huge Super Mario Kart defender, so I can't judge F-Zero too harshly for its sins, and if it came down to it, I'd knock Mario Kart off the shelf if it meant having room for F-Zero. Great pickup for Super Famicom owners. CIB sets are still affordable, and not only is the game in English, the comic in the back of the manual is, too. Even numbers the speech bubbles to guide native Japanese speakers as it's presented left-to-right. I thought that was neat. F-Zero is neat.

One of two launch titles for the SNES, main goal appears to be showing off what Mode 7 could do. It's a lot better than Super Mario Kart, the console's other big racer, but 1 that's a low bar and 2 it still has a fair share of really awful moments.

There's this part in White Land II where you have to hold down to get across a gap, but there's no indicator of this whatsoever. Spent a lot more time than I should have just trying to build up more speed there to no avail, and had to look up what to do. Also there are these orange cars always in your way that aren't even part of the fucking race? They always slow you down if you bump into them, and sometimes they explode on contact, which typically sends you into a wall and makes you take damage as well. If you take too much, you explode, and have to start over from the beginning of lap 1. It gets really annoying, especially when out of the racing genre you're only used to games like the Mario Kart series. There's also Silence and Fire Field, which are terribly designed and much too difficult.

It does have its high points, every Mute City course is very good for example, but also all three leagues have a blunder or two in them, and none are particularly fun to finish off. I guess the Queen League is a little better than the other two, if I had to choose one. Definitely an interesting game, especially for the time and how it works, but it really just isn't that fun to play for me.

After the absolute travesty that was Super Mario Kart, I got a few people from a couple of different places mentioning F Zero, another SNES racing game that used mode 7 scaling to give the effect of being placed in a 3D environment. After hearing those comparisons I was admittedly a bit tentative to check this game out, but I'm glad I did, because this is really cool and suffers from very few of the criticisms I could place on Super Mario Kart. F-Zero really feels like an arcade racer done right, with the incredibly high speeds lending themselves to a lightning fast pace, and the core gameplay loop and game feel only adding to the adrenaline rush. Along with this, the game demands a high degree of adaptability and intricate knowledge for each of the 15 tracks here, feeling as if it heightens both the skill floor and ceiling tremendously, encouraging some pretty rigorous practice in an attempt to improve your skill and track times by any amount you can, feeling rewarding every step of the way.

One of my favourite things about this is the way that the game feels endlessly nuanced in ways that largely don't matter unless you're actively trying to perform at your absolute peak. Each of the 4 cars you pick between feel significantly different from one another but all feel great to play in their own ways, often coming down to personal preference about which one works best for you. While there's only one car that any speedrunner would dream of using due to its extremely high speed and handling, it definitely doesn't feel quite so cut and dry due to the high risk high reward nature of it. New players who pick it will find themselves losing with this one more often because of the car's strengths being balanced out by being extremely punishing for every minor mistake you make, for example.

Each car essentially feels as if it fills its own niche that only really gets broken once you're at the point where you're already incredible at it and just want to improve yourself, and I love this, the game manages to set up this dichotomy in how a player is expected to approach things depending on if they're casually playing things or gunning for their best, with the decision making dropping off a bit as you get better, replacing it with a game that feels infinitely harder due to the player essentially expending all of their safety nets in pursuit of those extra couple of seconds. While you could say that a similar dynamic could be applied to a lot of games, I don't really recall one making me consider this to quite the same degree as I did while zooming down these tracks at absolutely ludicrous speeds. This feels especially true with the boost you get at the end of each lap, where there are so many potential applications for them and it really depends on your current position that determines where you end up using them, as while you could always save it for the optimal point in the track, you could also decide to wait for a slightly safer point or even save it in case you make a mistake and want to get back up to top speed as quickly as possible. The utilisation of such tools becomes something that completely encompasses the experience and it makes it even more insane when it's happening while the player is driving at such high speeds.

While the core gameplay feels superb most of the time, controlling with just the right amount of weight and being a constantly exhilarating experience, the game isn't really perfect either, mostly thanks to how strangely cruel it is in certain aspects. A lot of the later tracks seem to have these one or two moments that feel specifically designed to trip you up every time without fail, where your speed management and turning has to be absolutely perfect for you to not get thrown around or lost the majority of your momentum. While I'm all for the game challenging you to do that bit better and master its mechanics and level design, I do feel like it's a bit much to be so harshly punishing for not being absolutely perfect, as that sort of stuff feels like it should more be something you do to improve at the game rather than requiring it to not completely fail. That infamous jump in White Land II is a particularly brutal example, where if you aren't fast enough, you don't only bump into a couple of obstacles and need to build up speed again, but you straight up die and need to start the race again entirely, even if you're on the final lap.

I also feel like the physics when you bump into another driver are really, really janky, often sending you in seemingly random directions and very easily derailing your entire race, which is particularly nasty given how many cars are on the track most of the time. Overall I think that F-Zero is a pretty sick game though, it feels great to play, and even though I'm awful at it, I still felt that drive to try and improve myself, the game just feels so cleanly built to always make the player simultaneously love the feeling of driving but never feel 100% satisfied with their performance, always striving to get better and truly feel the thrill of driving at high speeds flawlessly. Starting to get why there are those people who are still gunning for a new F-Zero game at some point in the future, and apparently the sequels are even better, so I'm looking forward to that.

I've always wondered about the future F-Zero presents to us. at a glance it seems to be one that solved the energy crisis, one that populated other planets and has a general sense of peace. on the other hand these people keep racing to the death and apparently that's the most popular sport in the galaxy???? I can't figure out what they mean with this, is this supposed to be some sort of critiscism to our own dangerous racing sports like F1? some sort of commentary on men's fetishistic longing for the spectacle of the coliseum? is this just blade runner or something I'm not getting the reference because I didn't watch many movies? nevertheless, these people keep racing to win some fabulous cash prize so I can just assume inequality is still rampant on this world.

honestly this game is just not really good. don't get me wrong driving feels great, much better than it's sucessor, Super Mario Kart, that came 2 years later. but that's it. the grand prix mode beyond the standard difficulty is a terrible mess.

I'm a bit of a fan of games that will just resort to chaos and make you try over and over again due to said chaos. it's usually fun because more often than not designers know that they're being deliberately unfair. that's not the case here, anything on expert and up just feels untested, unbalanced, some sort of "ok let them deal with it" kind of case. game is already exceedingly brutal with it's 3-lives system per cup, but the cherry on top are the non-competitor cars present on these track. yeah, non-competidors because they're there just to mess you up, they do not count towards your overall position and they're extremely random and the exploding ones will drain a huge chunk of your life and honestly with all caps and every emotion I can muster here it just plain SUCKS. the rubber banding AI won't help you either because any tiny mistake, most of them which aren't even your fault, and you'll get overtaken instantly or rammed into or whatever bullshit the CPU decides it's gonna do next. even if I can accept that this is a 1990 game I don't think it wasn't just as unfair at that time either

if you want to play this because of the music (it rocks), because of the aesthetics (usage of color is incredible and this game is super pretty for the SNES, being a 1990 release too!) don't go beyond standard please. even if the game won't give you any credits screen or boomers on gamefaqs will tell you the game only gets fun in expert that's not true. if you MUST do expert, only go till queen league. if you MUST experience king league expert, abuse save states. don't be like me I'm a gal with too much patience and too much time and doing it "legit" was not worth it, not one bit.

but really just play F-Zero 99 it's a much casual friendly and funner experience than this, it's surprisingly less caotic and more fair too.

I was able to extract a bit of value playing this though, it should come up any time I need to prove that a rock solid foundation isn't everything or sometimes not even enough for a game to be good.

guess im on a retro binge, huh?


f-zero is a game that is full of clear cut bullshit, way more clear than dkc2. from the shitty physics engine, to the game turning into Bullshit Bumper Cars on Death Wind II(FUCK DEATH WIND II), to the random ass cars on the track that have no influence on your rank(why are they here????). there is so much bullshit here, the game so clearly favors your opponents, id be hard pressed not to call half the tracks rigged. which let's not kid ourselves, half the systems here are half baked, from the health system(which is genius but lacks good execution), which adds to the rigged nature of this game.

take the power/health system. giving you health adds a great risk reward, either you can go off course to heal if you need to, or you can risk it if youre low health, and play the best gamings of your life so that you can keep your place. but here's the problem with this system, the collision system is so ass that if you merely tap another car on the road, you usually end up getting stuck in a tight corner, getting passed between the damaging borders, and keep getting stuck there, not being able to get out because one after the other cars keep fucking hitting you. if you survive this unfair onslaught then youre usually fucked anyway, your health is way too low at this point to survive much else, so either you need to heal and lower your spot in the race even further, diminishing any chance of winning at all. or you just end up dying if you forgo the healing(which ill say, i do not appreciate the game peaking my headphones every time i crash. terrible sound design). anyway, you can see how the health system for these cars is a great idea, but meshed with the shitty physics engine, it works poorly

and that's another thing, the collision is totally rigged. hit a car from behind, you go spiraling and get your health crushed to oblivion, while the ai goes on it's merry way. you get hit from behind, you turn into a ballistic missile, slam into a wall, your speed halts to a crawl and you need to slowly turn whilst taking damage on the border to get back in the race. if a car hits you in the air, you get knocked out of bounds and die. to my knowledge, you cannot do this to the ai. if you hit them in the air, you also get fucked and knocked out of bounds. lets not forget to mention, all the unranked cars... what is their purpose???? why are they unranked? i think the intent was to not make things smooth sailing if you hit first, but the intent lacks execution. on wide tracks like mute city or red canyon, you can just fly right past them without much thought. on narrow tracks, if you so as much as tap them they can trigger a chain reaction where you get bumped 3 or 4 places behind. this is especially apparent on tracks like Death Wind II and Port Town II. honestly, these two tracks are way harder than mute city III and red canyon II, and even fire field. i beat them both once and then save stated past them because beating both DW2 and PT2 is almost completely up to rng, even if youre breaking and such. the track selection in king league is so weird, half of them are easy and the other half is total bull. anyway, the point is, these unranked cars are only a frustration. iirc(idk its been a year+) ridge racer type 4 had a much better solution to this. you start last every race and the goal was to get in the top 3, then 2, and 1. if you were skilled enough to reach 1st in that game early, the only opponent you had left was your own nerves, and that to me is a much better opponent than bullshit unranked cars that keep spawning.

despite all this bullshit, despite the rigged nature of f-zero, this game is fantastic. it feels wonderful when you beat something so clearly against you with your own willpower. when the puzzle pieces line up perfectly, the game's a masterpiece. probably my favorite retro ost. every track is banging, it's so good. there's no other place this is evident better than the final track of the game, fire field. it's an endurance track, full of tight turns, land mines, and ofc everyone's favorite, unranked cars that fuck you over... but the more you play, the more you discover ways to flip things in your favor, from purposely ramming into cars to make them blow up on mines for you, then using that momentum to carry you into the tight turn... or going on the healing runway while braking, then getting on the boost pad, regaining all your speed and then some. when you engage with the bullshit, there's such a tightly controlled racer that's on display. unfortunately, this philosophy isn't present in every track, and there could be some areas of improvement. like being able to fuck other racers more, like permanently outing them by bumping into them on a ramp. or more opportunities to use the unranked cars as fodder, instead of as an annoying, unfair headache.

regardless this was a great experience with a wonderful ost. im sold on the series, dunno when id play the next one though. hopefully i can get through mg1 and 2 and metroid before monday when p3r is slated to arrive. i might just do metroid before p3r anyway, idk.

Playing this genuinely got my heart pounding at the end of nearly every race. This game has a lot of what I look for in arcade/kart racers, like adapting and memorizing new tracks, positioning for getting past cars, knowing when to lose and gain speed, getting ready for turns and corners, and it's fast as hell which is how I like it. I would honestly say this game is a better basis for kart racers than Super Mario Kart.

Of course some aspects of it are pretty rough, like the way that getting hit by another racer can send you sliding in what feels like the most random directions, and affects speed in way I never really understood. Not just getting hit by other cars, but just bumping someone from behind makes some real weird stuff happen with your car. There's also that one jump in White Land II that just expects you to use a mechanic that's never required again. But honestly, in terms of single-player arcade racing game, this blew me away a lot more than I was expecting. Also the OST is top-tier of SNES soundtracks.

These nutjobs are driving at nearly 500km/h on a racetrack in the sky, plummeting to their deaths with a single slip-up. This was the vision the game wanted to sell me, but I didn’t bite until I reached Master difficulty.

At that point the game expected nearly flawless driving and a pinch of good luck. Maneuvering through tricky courses already feels like threading a needle. Add to that managing boost, dodging slow back-markers, hoping the AI plays nice, and praying an explosive car doesn’t stall right in front of you on the last lap. The rubber-banding is practically holding you at gunpoint, ensuring that you’ll lose position as soon as you mess up.

Sure, it has a serious lack of content, but it’s so fun and thrilling to return to that it doesn’t really bother me. The tracks and music are incredibly memorable, the difficulty is still there after hundreds of runs, and there’s always a story of upsetting defeat and narrow victory emerging from the unpredictable situations it puts you in. Gonna be replaying this one for a long time.

Remarkably better than Super Mario Kart; this game has a jammin' soundtrack, responsive controls that perfectly suit its relatively fast pace, and even three decades later it still has a solid sense of visual style.

That's not to say it's perfect. The way the AI-cars can ricochet into you and easily derail your race feels excessively brutal, there are moments of level design that similarly feel surprisingly harsh (the jump in White Land 2 is heinous), and you can see almost all the content the game has to offer within an hour or two. Still, holds up much more solidly than I expected.

F-Zero on its own is a fine racing game for the SNES. One of the first games to use Mode 7 graphics, and visually, it looks nice. The soundtrack and tracks are decent (White Land is my favorite, btw), and the gameplay is challenging but fair

So why am I giving these 3 stars? I did say that the gameplay for F-Zero is challenging but fair, but only in Beginner Mode. Whatever I do or what I do in Expert Mode, I get pinballed whether I mess up a turn or the high-octane racecars. They look nice, but my God, it might just be me, but I don't like the rubber banding here in Expert Mode. It's like you have to play the game flawlessly, and I don't have the skill level to beat Expert Mode, unfortunately. I can beat Normal Mode with a bit of practice, but not expert, sadly, so that's why I feel like its labeled under Played, but I'm testing out the new updates. Also, the courses can be a bit repetitive with not much variety. I like the ideas they have with some tracks, like the ramps and the ultra shortcuts, but overall, meh

F-Zero is solid for what it is, but it can be frustrating at times. It has its charm, but like with Super Mario Kart, it's going to be hard for me to come back to this game