F-Zero X
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DoubleSergio

reviewed F-Zero X

Completed
It's definitely fun, but while I don't like comparing games too much and would rather view them by themselves, I couldn't help but get this feeling the whole way through of "PS1 Wipeout is kinda better isn't it?"
For example, the driving does feel good but it's rather loose because unlike Wipeout you don't normally steer with the analog stick and then only drift with the air brakes, if you steer for a bit you start drifting which ends up creating a lot of situations where you didn't mean to. Also, the track design is good but it most tracks feel barebones, they are way too short and feel too much like toy sets, again, Wipeout does this better.
All of this said it's still clearly a good game, and I it does leave a nice base for GX to build on. Also, the music fucking rocks.

Reviewed on Jul 06, 2023

1 Comment

DeoxysPrime

10 months ago

I think it comes down to what you value in a game like this versus Wipeout. F-Zero X is very barebones in comparison but that was also a conscious design decision, with the tradeoff being able to hit a consistent 60FPS on the N64. The sense of speed kind of blows Wipeout out of the water. Honestly having played it back in the day it was kind of a mind-blowing experience, like the whole thing was a massive jump from the original F-Zero. I would even say the looseness of it plays into its one strength over F-Zero GX even in that it's much more focused combat and being able to quickly sideswipe your rivals to gain an advantage.

It's one of those games, at least to me, where some of the sacrifices it had to make gives it a bit of a lasting legacy even if other games including GX did more overall. That and its overall vibe of which the music is a big part of, yeah.