F-Zero - Extinct?

Many moons have passed since last I wrote about the F-Zero series but it has rarely strayed far from my thoughts. Featuring most often among these thoughts is my desire to see a brand new F-Zero game. It has been some 16 years now since the last one - Climax for the Game Boy Advance - and despite ample opportunities for sequels on the Wii, WiiU, DS/3DS or Switch, there hasn't been so much as a whisper.

This continues to be a great source of sorrow for me, not to mention confusion, but never have I sought an explanation for what must be considered a significant oversight on Nintendo's part. According to my subsequent research however, the answer only serves to confuse me even more. The great Shigeru Miyamoto has reportedly said that they stopped producing new F-Zero games because there was little new they could add to the series. This, combined with the fact that other developers started releasing their own futuristic racers, meant that Nintendo didn't want to make any new F-Zero titles unless they could find something new to bring to the table, but they couldn't so they stopped. Now, I can understand Nintendo's, particularly Miyamoto's desire to be innovative - that's basically what Nintendo have always been about, certainly in terms of hardware - but most developers' idea of innovation or progression in a game series is simply to release a sequel/reboot for the latest hardware that takes advantage of the new system's abilities. Why couldn't Nintendo do that for their own systems?

F-Zero Series - Part 9

Well, it's been a few years now since I last took a look at the F-Zero series here at Red Parsley, mainly because I've already covered every instalment, but I still enjoy playing each of them to one degree or another. The Nintendo 64 game is without question my favourite but few gamers would argue that it was the SNES original that had the biggest impact, and for those of us that grew up with it, every corner of every course is consigned to memory. Despite that, I still fancied revisiting them and thought it might be worth taking a closer look at all of them. Therefore, whether it stands to cause pangs of nostalgia, or perhaps even give new insight into a game you (somehow) knew little about, here are the courses of F-Zero...

Knight League - Mute City I

This much-visited location, presumably the location of the F-Zero league head-quarters, is the 'biggest city on all the Space Federation Planets' and is where each of the three leagues start. Its first course is obviously the simplest, featuring nothing trickier than a right-angle turn, a ramp which might send an inexperienced racer over the edge of the course, and a hairpin to round off the lap, but overall Mute City shouldn't cause any problems on even the highest difficulty level...

Top Five F-Zero Games

As regular readers here may have noticed, I’m rather keen on Nintendo’s splendid F-Zero series. It therefore makes me mighty sad that they’ve ignored the series for a worrying eight years now (and counting). Fortunately, unlike fans of some other forgotten series’, we F-Zero fans at least have a decent number of games to flange around with. None of them are bad games in my opinion, and I’ve now covered each of them fairly in-depth here at Red Parsley so I’d like to think I’ve got a good overall impression of the series as a whole. So, as a final evaluation of the series, here’s its Top Five entries:

All the individual F-Zero reviews here at Red Parsley can be found here...

5. F-Zero GX (2003)

Anyone who’s perused my F-Zero reviews here will know that GX received the lowest score of any of them, so why’s it here in this list? Well, as I said at the start of the feature, no F-Zero games are actually bad, just varying degrees of good, and although GX disappointed me considerably, it’s still the most technically advanced entry in the series and therefore offers the kind of hyper audio/visual experience that even the N64 game can’t match. Everything is significantly more detailed, especially the previously-plain backgrounds, and the attention-to-detail is remarkable – you can even see the pilots operating the controls through their cockpit windows! Sadly, the gameplay didn’t see a similar level of improvement – quite the opposite in fact. It’s still an exciting racing game but the precise controls and intricately-paced action has largely been replaced by a fluorescent, adrenaline-surge of an experience. It is quite an experience though!

F-Zero Series - Part 8

F-Zero Climax (2004)
By: Suzak / Nintendo Genre: Racing Players: 1-4 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Game Boy Advance
Also Available For: Nothing

It sounds quite scary to say but, at the time of writing the F-Zero series has reached a somewhat startling 22 years old! In all that time, the concept of the game has changed very little over the course of eight releases on four very different systems (or five if you count the 64DD) but has the series evolved technically? The first three releases were all rather ahead of their time from this point of view - the SNES original wowed gamers worldwide with its use of Mode 7, the N64 game was blisteringly fast and turned the previously flat courses into nauseating roller-coaster rides, and the GameCube title brought all the details and special effects bang up to date, but aside from the 'data disk' releases, the other games in the series have been exclusive to the Game Boy Advance and have accordingly reverted to the style of the original game. F-Zero Climax constitutes what is to date the last game to bear the famous name, but does it continue this trend, or give the series the send-off it deserves?

F-Zero Series - Part 7

F-Zero GP Legend (2003)
By: Suzak / Nintendo Genre: Racing Players: 1-4 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Game Boy Advance
Also Available For: Nothing

Everyone knows the F-Zero series rules more than any other racing game series in the history of the universe so it's slightly odd that Nintendo hasn't thought to expand the franchise to other potentially profitable areas. Until now, that is! Indeed, unknown to me (because it didn't make it to the UK, as usual) there was an F-Zero anime series produced in 2003 known as GP Legend which centres around good old Captain Falcon, Dr Stewart, and a new 'good' character called Rick Wheeler (or Ryu Suzaku, depending on where you live) and their battles against Zoda, Black Shadow, and the other 'bad' characters. It was a good idea which, at the very least, adds more to characters from an already character-heavy series and, in a move that would make Capcom proud, it wasn't long before there was a game of the series of the game too!

F-Zero Series - Part 6

F-Zero GX (2003)
By: Amusement Vision / Nintendo Genre: Racing Players: 1-4 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo GameCube
Also Available For: Arcade

It's hard to say for sure what the most popular F-Zero game is, but for a good few, including me, it's F-Zero X. It truly was, and still is, an absolutely phenomenal racing game, and a rare recipient of a 10/10 score here at this very blog. If there's possibly one thing about it that could be improved though, most would agree that it's the graphics. Super-fast they may be, but they are also largely devoid of detail, especially the backgrounds. It seems Nintendo listened to this slight criticism of their otherwise flawless game, for when the series returned to their main console (accompanied by an arcade counterpart) after a brief GameBoy-related diversion, it was in this area of the game that they sought to impress, and they enlisted some help.

F-Zero Series - Part 5

F-Zero: Maximum Velocity (2001)
By: Nd Cube  Genre: Racing  Players: 1-4  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Game Boy Advance
Also Available For: Nothing

The original F-Zero was widely credited with kick-starting not only the futuristic racing game sub-genre, but also arcade-quality racing games on home systems generally. The acclaim it received was well-deserved too - it was fast, exciting, and original. It was also a launch game for the SNES and did a perfect job of showcasing Nintendo's new hardware, so when the time came for another of their new hardware releases, what better choice of game to entice prospective buyers? So, the release of the much-anticipated Game Boy Advance was duly accompanied by this, the third full release in the F-Zero series (discounting the 64DD's Expansion Kit), but could it do for the GBA what the original did for the SNES?

F-Zero Series - Part 4

F-Zero X Expansion Kit by Nintendo EAD (2000) - Nintendo 64DD

Nintendo certainly do their best to get the most out of their hardware don't they? The Famicom had its Disk System, the SNES had the SuperFX chip and also had a CD-ROM in the final stages of development before being cancelled (which went on to become the PlayStation, of course), there was a million Game Boy variants, something paralleled more recently with the multiple DS releases, and then there's the N64. Already heavily criticised for making the console cartridge based, did Nintendo try to rectify this by releasing a CD system for it? No, they decided the best way to boost flagging N64 sales was... another Disk System. Released only in Japan, the 64DD (Disk Drive) sat beneath the N64 and allowed it an additional 64MB (coincidence?) of optical disk storage. Long delayed and, unsurprisingly, a commercial failure, only nine games were released for the 64DD. Today the system is almost solely sought out by collectors and enthusiasts for just one of these games - F-Zero X Expansion Kit.

F-Zero Series - Part 3

F-Zero X (1998)
By: Nintendo EAD  Genre: Racing  Players: 1-4  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo 64
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console

Despite being a highly accomplished racing game, the original F-Zero was perhaps most highly regarded for its admittedly impressive technical prowess. When news of a full sequel (F-Zero 2 was more like a 'data-disk') on Nintendo's brand spanking new 64-bit powerhouse emerged, mouths began to salivate at the prospect of what wonders might befall gamers. However, when it finally arrived it wasn't as instantly mind-blowing as many gamers were expecting. After the bar-raising the original did, a similar advancement was expected here, but the graphical detail was actually notably inferior to most of the other N64 games that had been doing the rounds, nevermind markedly better. This was apparently done on purpose by Nintendo so they could achieve a constant silky-smooth frame-rate of sixty frames per second. Their decision wasn't met with much enthusiasm at first though. Was it worth the risk?

F-Zero Series - Part 2

F-Zero Grand Prix 2 (1997)
By: Nintendo EAD  Genre: Racing  Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Super Famicom Satellaview  First Day Score: 23,900
Also Available For: Nothing

You know, it can be really frustrating, but Japanese gamers so often seem to get a much better deal than European, or even US gamers, frequently receiving extras that the rest of us have to do without. A good example of this was the Satellaview system for the Super Famicom (SNES). Looking much like the proposed SNES CD-ROM add-on, the Satellaview was a device that allowed Super Famicom owners to download updates for some of their games, or even new games altogether. They were usually released in weekly installments, and one of the highest profile games to receive the Satellaview treatment was the mighty F-Zero. Initially, a limited 'remix' of the original game was released in several installments via the service, but before long a 'proper' sequel became available too.

F-Zero Series - Part 1

F-Zero (1990)
By: Nintendo EAD Genre: Racing Players: 1 Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo SNES  First Day Score: 27,200
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console

I have always been of the opinion that it's gameplay that counts, not graphics, hence my love of older games (increasingly in preference to new ones, in fact). This is my view and I stand by it. However, if there always seemed to be one genre that belied that stance, it's that of the racing/driving games. The way games of this type play, specifically the vehicle handling and play modes in my experience, has always been of the greatest importance, and that will always remain the case too, but due to the somewhat restrictive nature of the hardware available during the early years of the industry, we rarely saw examples of any kind. When we did, with the exception of a small number of classics, they were not often particularly spiffing. Either too much effort was put into making them look as pretty as possible, with the design and gameplay ending up tacked-on afterthoughts, or they simply couldn't make them look remotely convincing to start with. Then along came the SNES.