Played on Beginner, Standard and Expert difficulty. At its core, F-Zero is a simple, albeit satisfying racer. Maintaining top speed is especially important in a game such as this where the rubberbanding AI can easily catch up with the player after a mistake. To this end, mastery of both the drifting and boosting mechanic is necessary - though they are easy to learn, these two have a very high skill ceiling, there are a lot of little optimization to be made on every track, and I was pleased whenever I managed to beat one of my best times, if only by a second or so. Track variety is unfortunately on the lower side, as 6 of the 15 tracks are repeats to some extent, but that is ultimately a very minor complaint.

What really ended up dragging this game down for me was playing on one of the second-highest difficulty, Expert. A lot of my minor annoyances with this game, such as the invincible opponents, the random orange cars on the tracks that can actively hinder your movement, their explosive cousins and the life system which prevents you from continuing a cup if you do not consistently place within the top 3 became genuine grievances on this difficulty. Call it a skill issue, but I felt as if I was constantly fighting an uphill battle, as if everything was working against me. Coupled with the fact that you cannot even select the latter half of the tracks in practice mode, Expert ultimately left a sour taste in my mouth and I will likely never bother with Master difficulty.

Regardless, this was an interesting experience and I cannot wait to give F-Zero X a try.

When Nintendo was releasing their brand new 16-bit behemoth they were already facing tough competition with SEGA's Genesis (or Mega Drive if you were not in North America). Nintendo of course had their mustached champion ready to spearhead the launch, but our fluffy friend was accompanied by a daring death-racer from outer space.

F-ZERO is a solid tech demo for the early SNES, it showed all of their rendering tricks including the now well-known "Mode 7" that would be one of the console's gimmicks to give an illusion of perspective over a flat surface, it turns out this one trick makes a pretty good job with racing games.

While F-ZERO is a challenging racing game with nice bells and whistles, these days it can leave you with much to be desired, one of those is a sore absence of a 2-player mode, leaving only the options to do 1-player races, time trials, and check your records.

While it may have received its round of applause in 1991, F-ZERO could have been far more, but it still delivers what it promised.

[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!

F-Zero salió en 1991 para hacer gala del famoso "Modo 7" de la SNES, el cual puede aplicar efectos de reescalado, rotación y deformación a los fondos.
A pesar de que solo podemos elegir entre 4 corredores distintos, el juego nos ofrece 15 pistas distintas por las que correr a toda velocidad.
La banda sonora es bien conocida y ayuda a crear la sensación de velocidad junto con la fluidez y buenos controles que nos ofrece el juego.
La estrategia tiene mucha importancia en este juego, no todos los momentos serán buenos para adelantar y nos encontraremos con imprevistos en el camino, como viento en algunas pistas.
Mientras que Super Mario Kart se pensó para carreras más lentas pero desenfadadas para 2 jugadores, F-Zero sé centra en las carreras veloces para un jugador y cumple su misión sin despeinarse.