TL;DR: With like two hours of play time and three wins backing my points, you can trust when I say that this is a pretty good game in this burgeoning online 99 genre, definitely in the better half of the existing four games. Hard to say for sure if it's better than Tetris 99 yet, but it's equally fun at the very least.
F-Zero 99 does at least feel much more fair and meaningful than its Tetris counterpart, as you get at least some kind of reward and sense of progression regardless of where you placed. It's also better in the sense that none of its content is paywalled (at least yet).
But then again, there's also no way to properly play with your friends, you just have to sync up pressing on the "Join Game" button and pray you're matched into the same one. And even then, there's no way for you to highlight your friend in the chaos, so you'll just have to hope you see them at some point in the game or trying to match into the same one ends up kind of meaningless. And speaking of friends, mine did have a small complaint about the game not being rendered in Mode 7 anymore but in actual 3D models, which he felt detracted from the original title. I think it looks fine, and was probably necessary in some way for the game to work properly, but you should know that going in.
Overall a pretty solid "free"-to-play game, I would recommend it if you have Switch Online. The presentation, music and style is all still there from the F-Zero we don't know but do love, and I can see myself playing this for at least as long as Tetris (that being over 40 hours).
F-Zero 99 does at least feel much more fair and meaningful than its Tetris counterpart, as you get at least some kind of reward and sense of progression regardless of where you placed. It's also better in the sense that none of its content is paywalled (at least yet).
But then again, there's also no way to properly play with your friends, you just have to sync up pressing on the "Join Game" button and pray you're matched into the same one. And even then, there's no way for you to highlight your friend in the chaos, so you'll just have to hope you see them at some point in the game or trying to match into the same one ends up kind of meaningless. And speaking of friends, mine did have a small complaint about the game not being rendered in Mode 7 anymore but in actual 3D models, which he felt detracted from the original title. I think it looks fine, and was probably necessary in some way for the game to work properly, but you should know that going in.
Overall a pretty solid "free"-to-play game, I would recommend it if you have Switch Online. The presentation, music and style is all still there from the F-Zero we don't know but do love, and I can see myself playing this for at least as long as Tetris (that being over 40 hours).