I'm not exactly what you would call a big F-Zero fan, I do enjoy the games, but I'm not a huge advocator for the series, nor I'm one of the many people that was genuinely waiting for its grand return. So, if even I felt emptiness and even a little bit of anger inside when I saw the word ''F-ZERO'' alongside the number ''99'', I can only imagine the sheer pain real F-ZERO fans must be feeling.

But look, despite the sheer disappointed and kinda mean way it was shown, I still wanted to at least give it a fair chance. After all, I do really enjoy Tetris 99 and the different takes Nintendo has done on it during all these years, and this was yet another spin I really wasn't expecting, and hey, a racing battle-royale is not the worst idea on the world, so let's ignore, for just but two paragraphs, that this is the new home console F-Zero game after 20 fucking years, let's ignore that unless it does really well, it will probably shut down after a year , let's ignore ALL of that for but a fleeting moment, and focus on the real important question: Is the game, at the very least, good?


...Meh, kinda.

I think the best thing that can be said about F-Zero 99 is that it is, in fact, F-Zero. From the original game, it was clear that behind its presentation as a high-speed racing game with minor combat elements, the series wanted to create a clear resource management based gameplay that rewarded quick thinking and skill, and it very much succeeded at that. The original game in particular made clear that it was no mere technical showcase, it was a really fun game that established a really fun foundation, and it's that foundation that F-Zero 99 embraces and upgrades. With much clear UI's (albeit with much less personality) and brand new mechanics, like the speen and the skyway, this game expands every possible aspect of the original in a... actually fun way? It's pretty fun and balanced, honestly, especially for a 99 player setting, and that coupled with fun modes like the team races and the mini and grand prix, this game is not that terrible or mind-numbing way to pass the time. There’s a ton of strategy at play, you really need to consider you position and power meter at all times, so you don’t get eliminated or destroyed. It is F-Zero, and I’ll admit, it’s fun to spin at other players and defeat the ‘’rivals’’ a mechanic I do think it’s pretty good on paper; at its core, this game does work… but it is with its problems, don’t get me wrong.

While having more racers with the introduced mechanics sounds fun, is not 98 player fun; the races feel EXTREMELY cluttered, specially at the beginning, they do try to mitigate this with an introduction before some courses, but it just devolves into absolute chaos after a moment. It’s pretty impossible to keep track of any specific player, which is kind of important considering the ‘’rivals’’, you’ll almost never actually actively defeat them, and it just seems like you beat them by mere chance of simply racing, or by other players intervention. The side modes are fun, but the fact that they are all rotating is absurd to me, specially the Prixes; like, I already need the tuckets to participate in them why do you also add the time restriction? So that I don’t blow them in one go? This is a game that you’ll play in small bursts, so that is a dumb reason if that’s the case. Also, I was gonna praise the sound, music and visuals of the game… until I realized it was all lifted from previous games or promotional material, and all new stuff clashes really hard with it and feels extremely generic.


The game IS good, it IS functional, it IS F-Zero, but it ISN’T more. It’s just a funny little idea that wasn’t really fleshed out as much as it could have been and came out at the worst time possible (see? I told you, only for two paragraphs), it doesn’t even justify its existence by being amazing, it’s just… good, and not even Tetris 99 good. I’ll probably boot it up from time to time since it does lend itself to fun moments, but the fact I say ‘’probably’’ and not ‘’surely’’ it’s a huge fault in the game’s part; I really hope it finds its audience, I’d hate to see the newest piece of F-Zero content being gone soon, but still, I would also understand if people just gave up on it after a while.

Well, at least it’s the latest apparition of Samurai Goroh, so it does have really good stuff…

At best: a recreation of F-Zero that fundamentally does not care about the delicate setup of the animations and controls found in the SNES original but at least has some interesting bits of detail with the presentation

At worst: being bored and sticking your finger into a fan just to see what happens

Nintendo add White Land II or you’re a bunch of cowards I wanna see 70+ people falling into a pit

Much like the original F-Zero game, it's ok. I never really connected with the core racing from that game, and adding 98 opponents bumping into you doesn't really enhance it. On one hand there's a lot of buttons you can press to move up or down the rankings, but it doesn't feel like it's really impacting the race all that much. Leads evaporate quickly and the sky highway is an x-factor that is hard to account for. All of the races feel pretty similar. I'm happy for people with nostalgia for this particular game, but without it, I don't think I'll be returning to this one very often.

The kind of game I play once and never return to.
I appreciate what they've done here and the snes sound and style is a nice novelty but F-zero was always a skill based game.

FZ99 takes that skill and leaves it up to random players, I've fully completed GX, X, Climax, and the original, so I know I'm good at these games, yet after 4 hours of playing I could not win.

It doesn't matter that much if you race really well, all it takes is a casual player (or bot) warping in front of you and ramming you into a hard turn at the worst time and your run is ruined, the yellow meter can mess with the balance.

It's as if they took F-zero and put the Mario Kart Bullet Bill item into it, a casual party racing item that has no place here, winning feels up to luck.

I can't really complain because it's free and has ok content, GP is by far the best mode relying more on skilled racing and strategy, yet it's only available for minutes at a time, a baffling decision that really holds the game back.

This was neat to try out for a bit, but I'll stick to X or Climax for my FZ fix.

Tetris 99, Mario 35, and Pac-man 99 are allowed to be openly disposable products and kind of bad games because they are just a novel way to play well-trodden entries in high profile series. We can safely assume that there is going to be some kind of new Tetris, Mario, or Pac-man. This treatment doesn't really work for F-Zero, and the idea that this game could be a way of gauging demand seems sort of absurd.

What makes this game "99" anyway? Tetris, Mario, and Pac-man have things like scoring systems and timers that could be used for competition, but the main conflict is between the player and the computer; in a race, the conflict is already against other racers, so what's so different about F-Zero 99? From a quick search it seems like real life racing competitions have at most 60 cars on the track, so 99 simultaneous competitors is a high amount but it's not a spectacular amount.

Tetris, Mario, and Pac-man aren't just solo games, they're solved games. Pac-man is basically completely deterministic, Mario has an ideal, computer-controlled playthrough that humans have nearly matched, and what randomness Tetris has is still completely manageable without altering the difficulty in other ways. Even in their 99 incarnations they're really still against the computer, the multiplayer element comes exclusively from tampering with other player's games, introducing more extreme randomness or at least semi-randomness, changing the solution or even making the game unsolvable.

A game like Mario Kart uses power-ups to introduce randomness, to make things easier for players who are doing worse, to make victory less guaranteed for skilled players. They do this in service of the game being a casual, "party" experience, so that the game can be a fun thing for a group of people in a room together who may not all be familiar with games. The power-ups more or less separated from the game's main mechanics; you race according to the course, power-ups are given at set positions on the course, the effects of these power-ups influence the race but your focus should always be on how you maneuver your car.

Even where F-Zero 99 is not strictly random, it has enough variables to be semi-random enough that it knows you won't win, and instead highlights a handful of players that you will be rewarded for beating. You have a boost but it doubles as health, depletes when you collide, and only refills in a specific place once per lap; there is nothing in the way of tactile engagement with the track or with your vessel's handling. F-Zero 99 knows that the tracks are crowded enough that you won't even really be "racing", some tracks even introduce wind for you to fight against. You spend most of your time avoiding other players while trying to collect gold particles that randomly fly off of colliding players to build a meter that lets you fly over the other racers for a little while.

Calling games "Skinner boxes" is sort of missing a lot of the point, an operant conditioning chamber can used in different ways, and different things were learned from those methods; the scary thing about them isn't so simple as "hit button, get treat", the scary thing about that is that if you only give treats after a random number of button presses then animals will just hit the button over and over. F-Zero 99 isn't just frustrating because it's a random mess and a lot of people will love it because "addictive" game design is something people see as desirable these days, it's frustrating because I thought F-Zero was something else.

Though, let's be honest, Nintendo didn't even make GX. If Nintendo actually did make a new, "real" F-Zero it probably wouldn't be as good as any of the other sci-fi racers that exist today.

I’m not angry Nintendo, just disappointed.

What can I say? I tuned into the Nintendo direct and I saw the original snes f-zero gameplay. I started to get excited. My heart pounding like a fat clock. Finally, just finally, we were gonna get the next big f-zero game. I could finally enjoy a new big f-zero game. I couldn’t actually bel-

multiple cars appear
Me: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

F-zero 99! Why. You got rid of super Mario bros. 35. And what is your response to not only that, but a possible new f-zero game? This. Who thought that the first thing f-zero fans needed was not only a tease, but a new game in the Tetris 99 style. Oh well surely it can’t be that bad, besides, I did give this game 3.5 stars so surely there has to be some redemption for this game. Let’s just get into the gameplay because I wasn’t planning on reviewing this game but I needed to get my anger out somehow.

The gameplay is…actually alright. Like there are worse battle royale style games and I do kinda like what they tried here. You are pitted against 99 people all on different tracks from the original f-zero. You can speed up however it also means you lose some health at the same time. So if you’re likely to bump into things you’re probably better just waiting for the other way to boost…which leads me onto my next bit of gameplay. The other way to speed is to collect these little yellow things that come off of other cars when they bump into each other. You can then ‘super boost’ which allows you to go onto a second track above and speed about opponents. You can also spin to move others out the way too.

There are also the team mode and grand prix events but those are pretty standard. They can get pretty hectic and the Grand Prix mode is pretty fun. It’s cool how it almost takes on those classic racer tropes where you have to finish in a certain place or above to keep going. Overall, it feels like they did put quite a bit of time into this. You can also unlock new cars. These only come from doing specific things like playing 5 or more games of 99, or getting a number 1, and so on. You can also unlock banners and badgers for your car in a similar fashion but if you ask me…these aren’t nearly as cool.

I think the real problem is that…this is the next f-zero game. Whether you want to accept that fact or not, the bottom line is, this will probably be the only new f-zero game for the foreseeable future, and if you ask me…that kinda sucks. Granted, this game isn’t bad, hell I enjoyed quite a lot of my time with this game. But the problem is that it’s always gonna be looked down upon and never classed as a true f-zero gx successor. In a few years time, this game will probably be shut down and it would make sense. So for when that day comes…this game was simply a weird mark on history that tried to bring back a dormant franchise…and only ended up annoying or angering quite a few people.

Decent battle royale, quirky gameplay mechanics, cool cars, I still hate turning

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GOT A JOB FOR YOU 621

As you are probably well aware of at this point, there are a seemingly endless amount of spin-off games in the Mario franchise, whether they continue the traditional platforming style that the original games started, but changed things around, or with most other games that venture into many different genres, like party games, puzzle games, RPGs, and so on. Of course, many fans of this franchise have probably taken a dive into each of these spin-off series at least once to see what they are all about, but, even if you are not a Mario fan, or a fan of video games in general, there is probably only one Mario spin-off series that you have ever played in your entire life. That, my friends, would be Mario Kart. This is, without a doubt, the biggest spin-off series that Mario has ever had, with many different games still being made to this day, and each of them being a critical and commercial success (for the most part), usually being one of, if not THE best selling games on their respective systems. Hell, like I mentioned earlier, even if you don’t play video games all that often, you probably have at least tried out one round of Mario Kart in your life with your friends, just to see what all the fuss is about, it is THAT big. But, of course, all juggernauts have to start somewhere, and for Mario Kart, that starting point would be with the original SNES game, Super Mario Kart.

When it comes to my own personal experiences with Mario Kart, I have mainly stuck to later titles in the series, such as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Mario Kart Wii, since these games usually get better with each installment, and if I am gonna play any entry in the series, it would be best to stick with those ones. That’s not to say that I haven’t taken a look into the other games in the series though, as I have played quite a lot of both Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart: Double Dash, both with friends and by myself. In terms of Super Mario Kart though, I have barely any experience with it whatsoever, aside from one playthrough through all the modes, and occasionally jumping into it sometimes when I am bored. So, based on my own experience with the game, I would argue that Super Mario Kart is a good game… but it doesn’t hold up quite nearly as well as other titles in the series. Despite that, it did lay the groundwork for what the series would eventually become, and for a first attempt, I would say they did a pretty great job here.

The graphics are pretty good, having a distinct style from every other game in the series, and while they haven’t aged too well, and can look weird at times (Yoshi looks like he is in constant agony), I will admit that there is a certain charm to it, the music is pretty good, having this distinct and nostalgic flow about it, even if sometimes it can get drowned out in the main game, the control is good for the most part, with the steering handling pretty well, but when it comes to higher difficulty, that becomes a different story (more on that later), and the gameplay itself is that classic Mario Kart feel that has become a staple of the racing genre, but much more rough then most of you are probably used to.

The game is, obviously, a racing game, where you take control of one of eight racers hailing from the Mario universe (including Donkey Kong Jr., for some reason…), race against the other seven on a good selection of tracks through multiple Grand Prixs, try to get the upper hand on your competition with proper use of drifting, boosts, shortcuts, and items that you will obtain, keep your streak up so that you don’t end up eliminated, and come out on top while celebrating with a bottle of alcohol, as one does in a Mario game. All of the core mechanics and gameplay modes of Mario Kart that will be repeated for most of the rest of the series was introduced here, and when looking back on them, they still work very well, the items are very satisfying to use when you use them at the right time, and there is plenty to do here that will keep you invested.

The main mode is obviously the VS and Grand Prix races, where you can race against either the computer or a friend, competing for first place and rubbing it in your opponents’ faces when you eventually win. This is primarily where I spent most of my time with this game, and I had a pretty good time with it for the most part. It did feel fun going through these tracks most of the time, and the satisfaction I felt when getting first place in a Grand Prix felt as it should for one of these games. Aside from those modes though, we also have Time Trial mode, where you can try to beat these courses as fast as you can while learning all the ins and outs of it. I personally have never really cared about Time Trials, but I can’t deny that they have become a staple of the racing genre, so I can appreciate it for being there, and for those who do wanna get better at the game, it is a good choice to hone your skills. And finally, there is Battle Mode, where you can take on another player in a head-to-head battle, using many items to annihilate your competition, popping all of their balloons, and making you the Ultimate Balloon Warrior (god, that sounded so lame). Again, I myself am not too huge on Battle Mode, but I can’t deny, when you get the right people to play with, it can make for a chaotically wonderful time, even if this Battle Mode is hard to go back to, since there is only a two-player option rather then four.

So, now that we have gotten a lot of the positives out of the way for this game, it’s time that we get into the negatives, as this game definitely shows its age in a lot of ways. Going down the list here, first and foremost, for every race, no matter if you are playing by yourself or not, half of the screen is completely useless, only being used for the map or for the second player. I can kind of understand why this was done, but considering that F-Zero, a great SNES racer that came out two years before this, managed to fill up the whole screen with the main action, why can’t this game do that too, and put the map in the corner or something? Secondly, while the control is solid for the most part, it certainly isn’t the best, as it carries the same problem that F-Zero has where, in certain instances, it feels impossible to turn properly without smashing into walls. Yes, you do have drifting to help you out, but I’m pretty sure plenty can agree with me when I say that the drifting in this game is complete ass, and it doesn’t help that much, especially in courses on 150cc.

Thirdly, this game carries around a dirty term that is a common one with others in the genre: rubber-banding. If you don’t know what that is, it is essentially where, if you are too far ahead of the computer players in a race, they will speed right back up to where you are, and have a high chance of stealing that first place right from under your nose. I swear, the amount of times I have had a perfect run in 150cc mode ruined all because of an opponent snatching that first from me at the last second… it boils my blood just thinking about it. And on top of that, the AI can also use items that are impossible for the player to use, so they are basically cheating, and I hate them all because of that. And for the final issue of the game, one that is pretty obvious at this point… it is incredibly dated. Yeah, I know, it isn’t the game’s fault, but there have been plenty of other games, not just from Mario Kart, that have evolved the genre to places that this game wishes it could reach, such as with faster speed, tighter control, 4 or more players at once, and infinite possibilities for carnage and ways to push racing to the next level. If you were to play any Mario Kart game, this would be one of the last games that I would suggest to you, and many would probably agree with me on that sentiment, even though it still has a lot going for it even to this day.

Overall, despite having plenty of issues and just not being as appealing due to the effect of time, it cannot be denied that Super Mario Kart is still a pivotal point in the Mario franchise, and one of the best racing games on the SNES. It set the foundation for what would become the biggest racing franchise in gaming history, and even nowadays, it is still fun to come back to from time to time and revisit, seeing where it all started, and maybe even getting some friends along to have some fun with. I would definitely recommend it for Mario Kart fans, just so they can experience it at least once, but for those who are only casual fans of the franchise, then you can just stick with the later titles, as you won’t be missing out on too much. And besides, we all know that F-Zero is better than this anyway. It’s not even an opinion at this point, it is a well-known FACT.

Game #344

Well, it's iD's precursor to WOLFENSTEIN 3-D, which essentially makes it the great-grandfather of all FPS games. As you might imagine, that means it's pretty rudimentary. But it's still playable enough. Low enemy type count, low 'weapon' count, the perspective doesn't quite work right sometimes, and it gets mighty tedious, but there are some fun levels (suprisingly not TOO too maze-y!) and a little bit of game-spanning puzzle-solving to be done.

A respectable test run, but even the boys knew back in the day that that was pretty much all it was. Fun to try if you're curious.

As soon as people throw around 'greatest of all time' I start to get suspicious, but I can't deny that 3rd Strike is the fighting game I've been playing before, between, and after the many fighting games I've reviewed recently.

The most satisfying parry this side of Sekiro, the most interesting gameplay this side of Garou, and the most fluid animations this side of... also Garou. As an apparent Guile main I immediately tried Remy and went "nope", so I had to pick someone else, and after trying everyone I landed on Dudley, who might be my pick for the most fun-to-play character in the genre.

A good fighting game is one you can suck at and still enjoy, and this is that game. I suck at 3rd Strike, but I want to keep playing it. I also want Dudley to come to Street Fighter 6.

Edit: ED?????????

As the very first handheld Mario game, it does a pretty decent job at bringing the classic gameplay onto a simple Game Boy. Sure, it may not be the most jam-packed entry in the series, and it is very weird, but it still provides a decent amount of fun for the most part.

The story is... well, what do you think?, the gameplay is fun enough, the controls are fine except for your momentum, which makes you go from 0 to 100 in a split second, the music is simple yet catchy, the variety in gameplay, while there isn't much, is nice to see, the boss fights are incredibly easy, and speaking of easy, this game is VERY easy once you get a hang of it.

Out of all of this though, my one big complaint about this game is that it is WAY too short. It only has 4 worlds with 4 levels a piece, and you can beat every single one in about 30 minutes if you are good enough. I know it is a very early Game Boy game, so I can't complain about this too much, but it is still a bummer.

Overall, it is a neat little time waste, and there are definitely worse options in terms of platformers on the Game Boy.

Oh yeah, this game also introduced Daisy. That's also pretty cool.

Game #7

just a casual update on this. prior to the game's newly implemented master rate update - which introduced ELO as a separate, zero-sum figure which factored into matchmaking and more clearly delineated skill in players - a charitable interpretation of the game's ranking system would be as an extension of the game's thesis, the idea that the journey for strength is never-ending. and there was certainly an appeal to that: now that you've reached master rank, you'll have to duke it out with every other person who put in the time and managed to make it to the top.

on a mechanical level, though, this felt tangential at best, and over time would likely only result in an increasingly lopsided system where most players had managed to get into master rank just by playing the game over a long enough stretch of time. having master rate now lends each and every battle this genuine tension & palpable weight. after all, nobody wants to be at the bottom of that leaderboard. nakayama's team designed sf6 with the notion that the versus mode is philosophically endgame content, a mode that, for absolute newcomers, should best be reserved until after the completion of world tour and some additional reps in practice. with this in mind, master rate goes beyond just 'endgame' content - it feels like a high level expansion where you're invited to prove your salt.

for my part, i've enjoyed two brief stints in the top 25 north american dhalsims, although as it turns out the mantle is hard to keep (as of writing: #45). is it impressive? i dunno, i feel like i have a lot more to learn and my character is underplayed by a margin of almost 200,000 players (as of august 14, there were around 221824 ken users. this is to be contrasted against a paltry 29183 dhalsim users). im not actually really a competitor in the FGC, but id like to keep growing stronger and keep fighting strong opponents. so i dunno, we'll see where this goes.

it's a significant motivator, then, that this is probably my favourite street fighter at this point, as well as probably my favourite fighting game. not to say that this is without fault - i appreciate world tour's inclusion immensely but it's half-cooked, the in-game economy leaves something to be desired, battle passes suck and the devs need to do more to encourage casual retention (further costumes is one thing but what about alternative winscreens, a functional music player, further customization of titles and versus screens, etc), matchmaking needs to be further expanded to utilize the game's strong netcode (why am i somewhat region locked), and no, you're not imagining things, the game's input register really is kind of wacky.

but i think a lot of other complaints at the moment stem from the amplification of certain voices on social media - as well as the fact that these people are also vying for a million dollars in the capcom pro tour and need things to resolve in their favour. so if we can learn to accept third strike as one of the apexes of this genre, a game constructed around problems with no clear, safe answers, a game where half of the normals kind of feel like shit, a game where chun li and yun and ken and all manners of bullshit are allowed to run rampant and free, then we can accept sf6 as a similar work in progress too. an evolving slate, one in which we have to learn - with time - to deal with strong characters and strong universal systems and strong offensive options.

this game really hits this absolute sweet spot of accessibility and depth of systems without presenting straightforward or clear solutions in a way that gets my brow furrowed in concentration and my brain eager to keep playing. i come from a samurai shodown background so everything to do with this central notion of not going on autopilot and guarding against the tendencies of players, in a sense moreso than worrying about the characters they inhabit, strikes a resonant chord with me. im really excited to see where it goes, and of course it goes without saying EVO top 8 this year belongs in the pantheon of fighting game tournaments. just a total gem. thank you capcom for giving me aki on my birthday

addendum: KB0 third strike review, november 2020:
"rather than establishing new legends, this game is about characters unsure about what the future entails, about what their next move should be, about what it even means to continue fighting - they waver, they fail, they practice, they move on. "

what a joy, then, that this is the overarching idea that propels world tour! street fighter has never really had traditionally good narratives, but when it chooses to it has pretty good vignettes and pretty good character writing, both of which world tour thankfully has in spades. very smart to organize a narrative around each character kind of just doing their own thing instead of trying to wrap them all into a sweeping narrative ala SFV.

If I had to play this game on original hardware, I probably would have dropped it. But we live in the future, and I had a ton of fun with it! It's so archaic and basic that it loops around to being approachable with very clear goals. This is a game you're going to need to either find a map for or make one for yourself, but even with trial and error I couldn't see this game taking more than 10 hours to beat, and there's a very real sense of accomplishment overcoming this game's hurdles. Ironically, I would say this is one of their PS1 games that's aged the best and anyone interested in Fromsoft's backlog should check this out.

This is a game i can always come back to for another playtrough and have a good time. As someone who absolutely loves turn based strategy RPG'S (it may be my favorite genre), and loves to experiment, this series is a mix made for me. A while ago i did a 100% completion to get the postgame judge missions, and then you see just how deep this game is. There are some systems that you can miss out on completely when you do a normal playthrough, but are needed to get all the missions. For example monster capturing with a hunter and using the monster bank with a morpher, learning everything with the blue mage when you control monsters with a beastmaster, etc. Sometimes you can miss whole questlines by not checking the rumors regularly or not doing all the dispatch missions. There are so many references to the older main games, Square loves to do that. The graphics are colorful and gorgeous, peak 2d. There are some amazing music tracks in here. Some people seem to complain about the law system, but there are so many ways the game gives you to get around it. In the end the developers just wanted people to not do the exact same tactics each map. If this was the best system to archive that is debatable, but it's an unique system and nicely integrated in the story.

About the story: i can see how it can be hit or miss depending on the person consuming it (like almost all art and media). When i played this game for the first time i was around 12/13 and was in i think the most difficult period of my life. I sheltered myself from the real world problems (like bullying, which is the whole reason the final fantasy Ivalice world got created in this game!) and escaped into games. This story really resonated with me, for that reason. It can be amazing to work yourself up in games and lose yourself in them, but in the end you can't run away from the real world forever. I still love games a lot (evidently), but back then it was a reality check i really needed and i can't believe something that made such an impact on me was a spinoff of a spinoff and on the gba of all things. This game will always stay close to my heart, and i thank the writer(s?) to try subject matter like game addicition that you never see in this kind of game, or any game title for that matter.