Pros:
+Delightfully fast
+Hard and mechanically demanding, but extremely satisfying to play
+Good amount of content and tracks
+Excellent graphics and music
+The story mode and cutscenes are hilariously bad and entertaining

Cons:
None

in which sega adapts the wachowski sisters' magnus opus, speed racer, into a minidvd that might get you high if you boof it. there's sweat pouring down my head and my hands and my asscrack. gamecube controller diehards are still mondo uncool, though i come dangerously close to becoming one every time i jam down the spring-loaded triggers to kick into a drift. good shit. i think the devs knew the dpad and c stick placement were trashy and that's why nothing is mapped to either by default. anyway, this is the perfect racer. trying to describe the blistering gamefeel of one of the most beloved sega arcade racers 20 years after the fact is a pointless endeavor, so i will instead forego that and just show you this. and a message to my friends: no, i'm not going to shut up about this game. get gx or get out.

edit: shit, i think this might have beat out sonic r as my favorite racer. ganbatte, f-zero.

The guys at Amusement Vision (later Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio) were truly masters of the craft around this time, making two of my favorite games: this and Super Monkey Ball 1. They really knew how to make games that feel great to play on a visceral, physical level - games you can sit down for hours and forget you're even using your hands to control it. You just feel it.

F-Zero GX, on the surface, doesn't appear to do much to distinguish it from X. There aren't any obvious new gimmicks or anything. But AV knew exactly what kind of small, precision changes to make that would make a huge impact. The vehicles control extremely precisely; this is something you should simply experience yourself rather than take my word for it. Track designs are a clear step up from X's, with more memorable, varied layouts. To me, this makes up for the lack of the X Cup and track creator/editor.

The new Story Mode is fun, but I think I prefer the simplicity of a standard Grand Prix. I will say though that you should definitely do all the Master Class GPs before diving into the Story since those are pretty much a tutorial.

And of course, Hidenori Shoji and Daiki Kasho bring a world-class soundtrack which fits the game perfectly. I especially love how the music changes for the final lap.

It's no surprise Nintendo seems hesitant to follow up on this considering Sega's AV team knocked it out of the park.

Remember when Mario Kart 8, one of the most successful videogames ever made, featured 2 circuits inspired by F-zero and people still considered some of the best racetracks they ever played?

There is a reason for that. F-zero is more than a racing game: it's an absolute masterful ride. It's like the most adrenaline inducing and blood pumping rollercoaster you even jumped on, a game so bombastic in everything it does that it will make you come back over and over again.

If you are new to the series it can result brutal and extremely unforgiving, but the presentation, the addictive gameplay, the hyperactive energy it has in its characters, soundtrack and extremely energetic moments makes you come back.

F-zero GX specifically was the result of an "alliance" between Nintendo, Bandai Namco and SEGA, and you can feel the flavors the third party companies put into the series and this gem, which presents the same enthrilling speed of a Sonic game and the same exagerated but also goofy energy of a Tekken game.

One of the best games from the Gamecube era. Nintendo should sue itself for not porting this masterpiece on modern consoles.

After finally getting around to finishing my F-Zero 99 review months ago and having a bigger reflection on this franchise as a whole, I really got the itch to go back to this one; F-Zero GX, the game people often tout as the best in the series and even the best racing game in general. This latter point is such a huge claim that I really had to go back and retry for myself, since admittedly I never got very far at all into this game when I was younger. I bought it on the basis of "OMG ITS F-ZERO ON MY NEW GAMEBOX!!" and enjoyed what I could despite never being all that good at it in the slightest, a story I'm sure is all too familiar to my fellow F-Zero fans because oh boy does this game have a very well deserved reputation for being difficult! How about all the other claims though, how do those stack-up? Well...

Out of the gate, this game feels great to control. It takes some getting used to but if you ease yourself in (which the game does well at helping you do) you'll pick it up relatively well in no time at all. Steering is one of the biggest points I've seen in this regard since the game doesn't exactly explain it the best, but instead you kind of trial-and-error it through gameplay; each vehicle handles differently, of course, which is especially noticeable with steering. Some can turn just a bit unless you properly slam into a particular direction whilst others will be slipping and sliding unless you have the most delicate of touches. More specifically this is balanced out according to current vehicle speed with some having higher max speed than others, something the game isn't outright telling you. In fact this is a flaw I'll bring up right now, the game straight-up lies about vehicle stats in a lot of cases which is most noticeable with returning pilots from previous games. The displayed stats vs. the actual stats the vehicle abides by can be outright wrong which will disappoint players who had a favourite in a previous F-Zero game that now handles in a way they do not like, and although I'd still argue the vehicles all play very well into the control and feel of this game it's undeniably bad for them to have just given players a false impression on the way a vehicle will apparently play like. Putting this aside, the way the game players is fantastic and makes it incredibly fun to learn and eventually master. With 41 different vehicles there's going to be at least one that you can click with!

What I ended up enjoying most about the gameplay is not only the absolute addiction of reaching incredibly high speeds and zipping by the competition but how you have to watch your speed from going too high and thus losing your control or going down in speed higher than you can reasonably maintain it. There will be certain areas on certain tracks where you will fly off-course should you be going at too high a speed and this is a punishing element, for sure, but stops you from effortlessly curbstomping entire races by getting an early lead and then becoming unstoppable; there are still situations where you can actually do this, but you'll still be having to pay attention to how fast you're going at what points of the track as well as how you maneuver around certain parts of the track too. Colliding with walls and hazards at higher speeds also puts more damage on your vehicle compared to normal which adds another big risk factor, especially when playing on tracks you're not quite as familiar with as others. It gives a very rewarding feel to learn the layout of tracks, how best to utilize potential short-cuts, and how best to manage your vehicle across the track too. But in addition to just moving fast around tracks you also have rivals to take care of, and just like in most other F-Zero titles you are encouraged to go against them with offensive maneuvers in the form of a side-swipe and spinning attack. KO five fellow pilots in a race and you earn an extra try for your grand prix run, personally I find it easiest to rack-up give KOs on a first lap if possible with the side-swipe being stupidly overpowered. Seriously, this move can easily deliver an instant KO to just about any opponent if you hit them right on the side! The spin-attack I'm not sure the exact power of as sometimes it would get very easy and consistent KOs whilst other times it would heavily damage an opponent but not KO them, sometimes they'd even boost into my as I was spinning and KO themselves. The bigger benefit to KO'ing opponents, however, is that it stops them from gaining any points for that race! The game will even nicely mark a "rival" for you, basically being the pilot who has the point count closest to yours, making it easy to pick and choose ideal targets. Generally, however, taking out any amount of pilots is good as it stops them from becoming potential threats later down the line. This is all a LOT to consider and as such it may take a good few runs to get fully used to, or even beginning to understand any of it, but eventually it'll all click together like clockwork and it feels very good to later start coming in the top-6 and finishing 1st with relative consistency, mixing together knowledge of the track and confidence in playing aggressively against rival pilots to score higher and higher. This is an incredibly satisfying game to learn, improve at, and eventually master!

In terms of the difficulty scaling, there are three aspects I'd like to talk about. First up is the actual difficulty options within the game itself, of which you have four to choose from (three at first): Novice, Standard, and Expert, with the infamous Master mode coming as an unlockable for beating the first three cups on Expert. Novice is definitely a snooze looking back and only becomes difficult when the track design gets difficult, but in a way this is the ideal starting point for a game like this. The AI is much more lax and forgiving against the player, likely a fledgling who would otherwise be quickly overwhelmed by trying to learn the many ropes of the game whilst the enemy pilots are zip-zooming away without a care in the world. Once you begin to know the ins-and-outs of the tracks and your chosen vehicle(s), Novice is nothing worth going back to unless you really seek a casual playing experience on a low-mood day. Ironically, though, I'd say this leaves Standard as nothing memorable because it's just kind of there? It's like Novice but by the time you've moved up to it you'll likely be having a much easier time understanding the game, making it just as trivial (if not moreso due to newfound track knowledge) as what you experienced beforehand. Expert is where the game begins to ramp-up and is personally what I like to play if I'm not quite feeling up for rounds of Master difficulty, providing a great challenge that doesn't overwhelm you too hard once you're confident in your abilities. This is where track knowledge begins to demonstrably payoff compared to being able to cruise on by relatively fine without much refined know-how on the previous difficulties and as such is where the game begins to really start getting fun for me. This is also where attacking enemy pilots starts to become an almost necessary tactic on certain GPs with how unforgiving their later tracks can be, combined with you starting out with less retries on higher difficulty options making the option to have another go at tracks is an absolute luxury; this especially holds true if you're not consistently great at ones that appear later into a GP's run, making them more likely to end your attempts without sufficient retries in reserve. Whilst Expert truly is a fun time and where the game begins to expect more of you, it isn't quite the peak of this game's challenge. Once you've completed your Expert mode runs, the game presents to you another challenge: The aforementioned Master mode.

This is where the game pulls no punches and begins to expect you play at your best, you have to bring your A-game when playing Master or else the AI will run circles around you and you'll barely be able to keep up or finish in even decent places. THIS is where the true challenge of F-Zero GX waits, everything prior has been leading up to this very mode. Master makes this fast and frantic game as mach-9 as it can possibly be, with the AI going as fast as they can muster whilst finally beginning to more consistently go on the offense for themselves too; you have to know your way around the tracks, the ins-and-outs of your vehicle's performance, how to manage your speed, when it's best to go on the offense or stick to playing defensive, even smaller details like how many boosts your machine can handle with its remaining energy... this mode tests you for all of that and much more. And I love it all so much! Master is the epitome of "hard but fair" video game difficulty in my opinion, where although at points I felt outclassed I never once felt like I was in an impossible to win position. Like the rest of this game it comes down to a lot of playing, learning, and replaying to eventually get to your best possible performance and it is always such a satisfying feeling to come out of the last track on a Master difficulty GP and see your character's name ranked at the top spot. Such a rewarding feeling that got a pop-off from me each and every time, Master is where the game is truly as its hardest but also at its best; everything that comes before it is pretty damn easy, even the closest comparison in Expert mode becomes fairly trivial to complete once you've learned Master mode and handled it by the reigns without fear. You will likely lose a fair amount of times before even coming close to clearing all the Master mode GPs but that is a largely fun and inspiring part of the experience, you get to apply the most of your F-Zero knowledge in this mode and see your improvement finally reach its absolute height as you tackle the monumental challenges waiting ahead. I'll say it again, this is the best example of "hard but fair" game design and very few games that I've played can reach this same level.

...but then we move onto other aspects of the game's difficulty progression. Story mode I want to address first since it's honestly not that great? I feel like this was pretty much included as a way for them to have secret unlockables and that's cool in theory but the tough as nails journey is not worth it for many of these characters who are, quite frankly, outclassed by some of the ones you can very easily unlock right out of the gate. The plot for story mode is kind of all over the place and doesn't really do much you'd expect from a traditional story, events just happen and it eventually ends, although they are played out with some hilarious CG cutscenes. Give those a watch sometime, they're a delightful treat for those of us who enjoy this kind of cheesy FMV. But I digress; story mode is closer to a challenge mode in practice as each individual chapter is pretty much a 'skill check' for certain aspects of game knowledge, giving you a hard time on even the easiest difficulties at certain points. Yet this is never really consistent, as chapter 1 is trivial whilst chapter 2 is slightly more challenging followed by chapter 3 kicking you in the balls if you don't know the ins-and-outs of how jump pad physics work. After that the main snag is really chapter 6, because I didn't have any other real difficulties completing these... talking exclusively about the normal difficulty option. This is where my real gripes with the story mode lay: Already the difficulty is piled-on plenty from very early on but to unlock all but one thing from this mode you have to complete missions on not just normal, not just hard, but the infamously brutal very hard difficulty too. My main problem is that completing these legitimately requires a LOT of grinding and in most circumstances you will end up winning because of the AI patterns messing-up or otherwise choosing to deliberately cheese the missions, something I've seen recommended a lot by other players. Doing these without any deliberate cheesing was an absolute nightmare but by no means impossible albeit lacking the same satisfying feel that came with eventually overcoming the Master mode GPs. Some missions you could do in a half-hour, others took me multiple days of repeated attempts, the difficulty scaling is really just all over the place and pretty damn wack looking at it objectively. The rewards being some tasty early-2000s FMV and eventually getting secret pilots to play as are well worth it, although exclusively if you look at it through the lens of a casual player; gonna give it to you straight chief, most of these pilots come packing vehicles that are strictly inferior to many of the pilots you can unlock by default. Whilst I found Phoenix (my first unlock) to be very consistently great due to the all-around fantastic stats and easier handling of his vehicle, the only other one coming close is Don Genie who was apparently the best character in the game and I really wish I had known that before deciding to unlock all the characters. Because... yep, once he was on my roster, he would consistently shoot to the top of the GP leaderboards on Expert and Master modes. Not unbeatable and wasn't ever guaranteed to show-up but if ever showed his face he would definitely become the "boss fight" of my runs. Other than these two, the remaining unlockable pilots aren't anything too special but luckily for me I didn't give a toss about stats and just played with my favourite pilots. That includes PJ for me, easily my favourite to play as in this game!

The last aspect of difficulty progression I'd like to touch on is how the actual tracks and GPs scale in difficulty. Even though the game has its own star-rating for track difficulties I personally disagree with a lot of them although how hard you find a particular track to be will always be subjective in some form. Ruby Cup is a great start to the game with a consistently rising difficulty across the tracks, Twist Road being a simple starter track that lets you get familiar with the rules of the road. Casino Palace is more simple in layout but will help you learn about chaining boosts together. Surface Slide, Loop Cross, and Multiplex are then considerably more wild in layout but without feeling like they go too far into crazy territory. There's still plenty of room for error on these tracks whilst providing busier layouts akin to what the rest of the game will largely hold. Sapphire Cup largely continues this trend although I'd say overall the tracks are a little more lenient on the layouts and instead rely on navigating the large racing crowd as well as making the most of the environment around the track, such as the boost pads on both Port Town tracks and the minefield on Mobius Ring. Where this changes for the worse is with Serial Gaps; this track is a huge spike in difficulty for no good reason. Legitimately, even when you know how this track functions it is so easy to make one mistake and have your run be over. My strategy on every Sapphire Cup run after Novice difficulty was to build-up enough points in the first four tracks so that I could casually comb through Serial Gaps after taking out rivals on the first lap to secure my top spot. This track should've been far later into the game if not removed outright. Emerald Cup is another great GP when it comes to difficulty spread among the tracks but instead suffers from the first track- Cylinder Knot - being not only long but incredibly boring despite its relatively low difficulty. Hit all the boost pads and mash machine boosts on straightaways, easy to consistently place in the top-3 and steal last minute 1st place wins. Ordeal is more exciting but similarly quite long which can make it very demoralizing to crash-out here and then have to redo the entire GP from Cylinder Knot again, and again... Half Pipe is also a bit of a skill check track but in a very fun way, being one of the first where managing your speed is baked into the actual track design. Although it also might be TOO harsh in this regard? Sometimes you'll pop up for half a second and fall into the ether, which made playing the track for the first time rather unfun. Once you realize how it works though, which does happen fairly quick, it can become a challenging favourite! Diamond Cup is, in my opinion, closest to the best balanced GP but fumbles the ball a bit with the final track Slim-Line Slits. I do not believe the QA team for this game got anywhere close to top-6 for this track because holy hell, this track... I actually really like it and think it's a great challenge in the right areas but the final turn is straight-up cheap unless you study it extensively. Like track memorization is a fun part of this game as mentioned but having to memorize the specifics of one exact turn at the end of a final track in a GP? It's a little bit excessive in my books, because otherwise messing-up this turn can drop you a good handful of positions given that the AI can make the turn effortlessly. Humorously, the true final GP- the AX Cup -is incredibly easy by comparison. It has the right progression of difficulty across all of its tracks and they require different applications of game knowledge for sure but you can go from crashing out and retiring fairly frequently to pretty much never crashing out unless you over-extend your boosts. Nothing to complain about on this one honestly, it's perhaps the best balanced cup all-in-all but might be a cheat to say given it debuted in an arcade game first rather than being tracks made specifically for GX.

Despite all of the factors surrounding story mode's asinine difficulty spikes and the sudden difficulty mountain that is Serial Gaps, the main game keeps itself incredibly well balanced even on Master mode. You can pick-up this game and learn it at your own pace with your favourite character/vehicle relatively comfortably and despite my comment about most of the secret pilots being complete ass stats-wise, you can still get victories with any of them just fine without even requiring any of the advance techniques that higher-level players use... admittedly I also didn't dream of touching these, I just used what is called a "momentum throttle"; a technique that only requires you to let go of your acceleration around higher levels of vehicle speed, helping to retain momentum across slopes, turns, and helps in areas with lots of boost panels or straightaways where you can chain boosts together much more easily. That you only really need the technique of removing your grip from a single button in certain situations to master this game, with any of the vehicles on offer, is truly a testament to how well-balanced it is. I didn't even know this one right away though and had only started using it around my Expert mode run of the Emerald Cup, although once I picked up on it (thanks to a YouTube video that got chucked into my recommended) I kept using it as I also learned the hang of when best to use it. I could go onto another ramble about the tightly-controlling and fun and engaging mesh of gameplay we have here but I'll cut to the chase, yeah this game is remarkably well balanced despite some slight flaws in it here and there. I don't even need to tell you that higher-difficulty AIs have a tendency to cheat certain movements, that's practically F-Zero tradition by now! Yet I've said it earlier and I'll still say it again: This is the most hard-but-fair game I've experienced to this day, despite the difficulty spikes, and despite the cheating bastard AI players.

Finishing this lengthy son of a gun off with a talk about the game's visuals and sounds. Despite being a GameCube port of an arcade game this title still looks incredible running on native hardware without any sorts of upscales or modifications, whilst an older TV can of course blend together any imperfections of these older games anyways F-Zero GX doesn't even feel much detriment from being viewed on more modern screens either. There are some effects this game renders that the emulation scene hasn't fully caught-up as well which shows just how greatly crafted the look and feel of this game truly is, everything looks amazing and there's not a thing I'd really want to change about it. Even if the graphics might be "dated" by modern standards they hold-up great, are certainly some of the best on the GameCube (they even surpass some of the Wii titles if you ask me), and absolutely hold a candle to the arcade original. The wizards making this game run smoothly on the GameCube despite all the visual pizzaz should definitely receive recognition for their work until the heat death of the universe. When it comes to audio this game similarly nails pretty much everything, the sound effects across the board are incredibly fitting and memorable whilst the soundtrack has become some of my most listened to in the past few months even whilst I was actively playing the game and hearing those songs anyways! Whilst F-Zero X's metal tunes are always going to be very memorable, the different vibes on display for F-Zero GX fit its soundtrack perfectly and really suit the game's environments perfectly well; compare this to X where I feel you could swap around the songs used on tracks and usually keep the same vibes. That game has a more all-purpose soundtrack whilst GX is almost creating stories around the settings of each track between their given backstories in-universe and the way their matching songs will pair-up to the look and feel of each planet pretty perfectly. The soundtrack evokes great feelings whilst being addictive to listen to in their own right, this series hasn't really fallen short in the music department before and I'd put F-Zero GX on-par with the original game for how incredible these songs are. Amazing shit right here!

Going back into this one I was really unsure if I'd see what everyone else was seeing in this one. F-Zero has always had a special place in my heart, yes, but so too has it been severely overlooked by the general public... it's too good to be true that one of these games could rank-up as one of the best racing games ever made. It could've just been people who grew up with the franchise having a bit of bias for it just like I admitted to in my review of the original game. But I'd say, no. This game truly is a perfect racing game and one that has yet to truly be matched, let alone topped. Looking at this classic game I never got to play far into way back when through the critical eye has given me such a huge appreciation for it, for all the work that went into crafting such a monumentally fun, enjoyable, difficult, yet thoroughly unforgettable experience the whole way around. I really didn't want to be finished with this game, I REALLY didn't, I wanted to give myself excuses to keep playing it! ...but all good things come to an end. F-Zero GX truly is the best in the franchise as far as I'm concerned, as well as in contention for the best racing game ever made. It's certainly my favourite racing game bar none; I can see why Nintendo weren't sure on how to follow-up this one. We've all been clamoring for another F-Zero for so long but I think even the guys who made this one knew, and still know, that GX is something incredibly special that is not easy to make a follow-up to. I don't know what the future for this franchise holds now that it has come back into public light with the advent of F-Zero 99, but even if 99 is a one off fluke of returning success? The rest of the franchise will always be here. I'll always want to revisit these incredible games and now I can add GX to that list, given the ability to properly enjoy and appreciate it all these years later. Letting my thoughts sit and simmer about this one has only made it stick out in my mind even better, I will gladly recommend this one to anyone and everyone who is curious enough to try it out. I guarantee that if you're a fan of racing games with personality to them, you will love this game. You cannot go wrong with it.

"See you next time..." indeed I will. Thanks, F-Zero GX.

Top notch racing game.

This game makes me angry I'm not that much into this type of games, because I can appreciate the high quality of it, and I wanted to be good enough to enjoy the high speed rides. It wasn't for lack of trying, thought. I managed to win the easiest courses and understand the machine's stats. But one thing is clear: this is not a game for casuals. You want to enjoy this ride? Be willing to dedicate a large part of your brain to practice it. Didn't even made it past the third mission in story mode.

Flawless game which only sin is being too difficult for me to enjoy it.

I was doing that one campaign mission where you have to do the race against Evil Captain Falcon and Eviler Captain Falcon, and I kept on losing by like half a second over and over. Probably an hour into trying it I was once again about to come in 3rd, when the spirit of Captain Falcon himself took over my body. I swerved and slammed directly into a mine that was near the end of the track, which ricocheted me into another mine, which then blasted me over the finish line in a clear first place. You remember that Nascar guy that rode the wall and won the race?

I felt that rush.

Revisiting a childhood game, and realizing the game has not only aged incredibly well, but it is significantly better than you remember may be one of the best feelings in the world. You always knew the game was great, but experiencing that greatness with a deeper appreciation for what makes it so great is like reaffirming your childhood memories. I thought this was one of the best arcade racing games ever made. And fortunately (and somewhat unfortunately) this still reigns true today. F-Zero GX is the peak of the series, and I think I get why Nintendo and Sega were so afraid to make a proper follow-up to it. It's hard to improve on perfection, without fundamentally changing it. What we were left with was Mario Kart 8.....for 10 years.

Rest in Piece F-Zero/10

This is the best implementation of mid-00's aesthetic - that mix of gritty, earthy, dark greens/blues/oranges and steel-neon cities out of a frutiger aero background. It whizzes by at 700 MPH, and it feels like it. It goes for pseudo-realism and it still looks good two decades later. How does it do it? The story mode is balls-disgusting hard, but with such quick hooks objectives and ever-teasing, escalating difficulties - you can't get through that door? that one boulder is gonna make you stop playing? - it dangles the carrot so well. Great fuckin soundtrack, and there's more than one person I know who got into electronic or ambient music from this. The characters are so distinctly goofy sci-fi, and they don't need to be there or fleshed out like they are, yet they are! And then there's the astronomically-high skill ceiling that's fun to watch, and fun to just graze every now and then with an absolutely perfect slide or snake before you absolutely eat shit off the track like Icarus. Anyone of any skill level can at least enjoy it.

I've been trying to stick all my five star rated games with some kinda commentary, but what is there to add here? Go play it! It speaks for itself. It's so effortlessly cool, such a tightly built game with grand feel, few flaws, and zero friction between it and its experience - just a raw test of skill, and people still keep pushing its limits year by year.