"This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here." - Waste Isolation Pilot Project, New Mexico
99 crabs stuff themselves into the bucket of a Mute City that has been widened just enough to make the mechanics trivial when in a breakaway, and yet still tight enough that the main pack racing may as well be done with marbles, as you bounce down straightaways five wide that at best can handle 3 wide.
It is so very very stupid, and to play and even appreciate F-zero 99 you really need to bring yourself down to it's level. This is not a place of honor, where calculated decisions and mechanical skill decides whether you win. This is as close to a simulation of the middle ground between being a pachinko ball as there will ever be. And that, in it's own way, is kinda remarkable. As 99 people step into a 2.5 minute race, you personally get to witness and participate in the net wastage of 4 man hours. I have won a game of this and I fundementally thought i drove way worse in it than a race I came 70th in. I cannot overstate what a clusterfuck it is.
There are some thought out elements, granted. F zero's boost system being so perilous works remarkably well for 99, as you're encouraged to push your luck as far as you can possibly take it if you want to win, which leads to even more chaotic and swingy final laps where half the field will probably just die. It does have the effect htat you can basically place well in every race just by trundling about at extremely low risk though, which is a bit lame. The comeback mechanics, which are absurdly neccessary as otherwise any early breakaway would win by a mile, are probably too powerful but as I mentioned, this is not a game for anyone serious so somehow more madness is appreciated.
F-Zero 99 is so cursed that it kinda loops back to being fun. A cynical repackaging of thing you like chasing a trend that died a good 3 or 4 years ago, somehow has less content than the Threadbare snes Original, fucks up the gameplay, and feels like it wasnt ever tested with the full player count. I'd say it was the most disposable game ever made if it werent for that last of these nintendo BRs being literally born to be in service for like 3 months.
I don't hate it. It's quite clearly terrible and pointless and a giant waste of time for everyone involved, and is at best kinda fun, but there is some art in that. When you're all in the brain melter together, you have to laugh, or you'll cry.
99 crabs stuff themselves into the bucket of a Mute City that has been widened just enough to make the mechanics trivial when in a breakaway, and yet still tight enough that the main pack racing may as well be done with marbles, as you bounce down straightaways five wide that at best can handle 3 wide.
It is so very very stupid, and to play and even appreciate F-zero 99 you really need to bring yourself down to it's level. This is not a place of honor, where calculated decisions and mechanical skill decides whether you win. This is as close to a simulation of the middle ground between being a pachinko ball as there will ever be. And that, in it's own way, is kinda remarkable. As 99 people step into a 2.5 minute race, you personally get to witness and participate in the net wastage of 4 man hours. I have won a game of this and I fundementally thought i drove way worse in it than a race I came 70th in. I cannot overstate what a clusterfuck it is.
There are some thought out elements, granted. F zero's boost system being so perilous works remarkably well for 99, as you're encouraged to push your luck as far as you can possibly take it if you want to win, which leads to even more chaotic and swingy final laps where half the field will probably just die. It does have the effect htat you can basically place well in every race just by trundling about at extremely low risk though, which is a bit lame. The comeback mechanics, which are absurdly neccessary as otherwise any early breakaway would win by a mile, are probably too powerful but as I mentioned, this is not a game for anyone serious so somehow more madness is appreciated.
F-Zero 99 is so cursed that it kinda loops back to being fun. A cynical repackaging of thing you like chasing a trend that died a good 3 or 4 years ago, somehow has less content than the Threadbare snes Original, fucks up the gameplay, and feels like it wasnt ever tested with the full player count. I'd say it was the most disposable game ever made if it werent for that last of these nintendo BRs being literally born to be in service for like 3 months.
I don't hate it. It's quite clearly terrible and pointless and a giant waste of time for everyone involved, and is at best kinda fun, but there is some art in that. When you're all in the brain melter together, you have to laugh, or you'll cry.