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.

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.

Shimmy shimmy yay, shimmy yay, shimmy ya (drank)
Swalla-la-la (drank)
Swalla-la-la (swalla-la-la)
Swalla-la-la
Shimmy shimmy yay, shimmy yay, shimmy ya (drank)
Swalla-la-la (drank)
Swalla-la-la (swalla-la-la)
Swalla-la-la

[played on real hardware via FXPAK Pro]

Like most people, I’m fairly sure my introduction to the F-Zero series was through Super Smash Bros, as Captain Falcon’s consistently been a fighter in every game in the franchise. I learned a bit about the series through there, mostly in regards to the music, characters and general atmosphere.

Although, it wasn’t until I began hearing about how great F-Zero GX was that I really got interested - I wasn’t even planning on checking out the SNES original until a recent ROM hack caught my eye, that being BS F-Zero Deluxe. It added the 10 exclusive tracks from the Satellaview releases into the base game, and in order to prepare myself for those, I thought it’d be a good idea to acclimate myself by playing the base game first. And like so many times before, I ended up being surprised by how much fun I had!


The main thing that surprised me about F-Zero was how it still felt incredibly good to play, even over 30 years later! Each vehicle controls like an absolute dream, which makes drifting around corners and maintaining your lead effortlessly satisfying. There’s also a fair bit of nuance that makes mastering the game even more rewarding, like figuring out the best time to use the boosts you receive in each lap, or utilizing more advanced maneuvers to get even better at cutting corners and keeping ahead of the pack.

This wouldn’t mean anything if the tracks weren’t up to snuff, but they absolutely are! There’s 15 in total, split up into three leagues, and the difficulty curve’s extremely solid: the Knight League starts things off with easy courses that let you get adjusted to the gameplay, the Queen League ramps things up with some more daring design, and the King League ends it off with some of the toughest tracks in the game. They’re all incredibly well-designed, and manage to remain distinct from each other despite their flat appearances. My personal favourites are Big Blue, Port Town 1, Sand Canyon 2 and Fire Field, if you want to know.

Having such tough courses as well as harsh CPUs in the higher difficulties means F-Zero can get very challenging… but for me, that’s a good thing! It helps to enhance the sense of exhilaration and thrill I get from hitting ramps and cutting corners in order to stay ahead, and it really pushed me to get good at the tracks, which eventually paid off.

Alongside having such excellent gameplay, F-Zero also excels in the presentation department! While the Mode-7 rendering of the tracks looks a little dated, I still think it’s very charming, and the developers use a lot of cool tricks that help sell the immense speeds you’re traveling at. The background details are also gorgeous, with the purple skies of Silence and Port Town in particular looking beautiful, and really help to give the game some atmosphere.

I also really enjoyed the soundtrack; Mute City and Big Blue are the iconic ones, and they’re great, but everything else is solid too! Silence, Fire Field, Port Town and even the title screen theme are some of my other favourites, and they really take full advantage of the SNES’ sound chip.


In terms of criticisms… I guess the controls can be a bit slippery sometimes? Your vehicle can also occasionally go bouncing around the walls of the track if you’re not careful, which is a little annoying, but easy enough to recover from.

To say I was simply surprised by F-Zero would be an understatement. I went in expecting an interesting little relic that didn’t have much staying power, but what I found was an incredibly challenging, exhilarating and pure fun racing game! The fact Nintendo was able to make a game that showed off the SNES’ capabilities so early into the system’s life makes it even more impressive.

And quite frankly, I’m even more excited to check out the rest of the series now! Because if the first instalment was this good, I can only imagine that the sequels are going to be even better!

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.