F-Zero 99 - Feb 2 24 (??? - Big Bluish)
5F-Zero 99 quietly got an update that adds new, original courses to the game…or at least remixes of existing courses, though with pre-existing backgrounds. For most people playing F-Zero 99, they won’t ever know it exists because you have to be on the main menu at the right time when a particular time rolls over. Then, the “F-Zero 99” option will have what looks like a momentary graphical glitch. Selecting that shortly after that graphical glitch will replace one of the options with a course known as “???.” This will be one of three (at the time of this writing) courses. Both times I tried it out I got the same course, so I’ll keep looking for the other ones and showcasing them after I encounter them.
The three courses are as follows:
1. An alternate version of Mute City (which I’ll call “Mutish City”), which incorporates a lengthy gap requiring you to aim your vehicle’s nose upwards to get the distance needed and not crash
2. An alternate version of Big Blue (which I’ll call “Big Bluish,” which is what turned up both times this time around), a mirrored version with added land mines and jumps over the water
3. An alternate version of White Land (which I’ll call “Whitish Land”), which has Death Wind’s wind and a different layout
That graphical glitch shows up for only about one-eighth of a second, short enough that you might not notice it. You might also not get the mystery course if you enter TOO early, as you’ll instead get a pre-existing room. (You can tell because the room is already at or near full capacity when you enter.) It also only turns up randomly, between about 65 minutes to 95 minutes between each other based on reports. Together, that’s how most people not informed about the ??? courses would never know they existed until sheer luck, they see one. It’s also why I showed the main menu and the lobby: so if you didn’t know about it prior, so you can identify it when it comes up.
The “???” option in course selection will, of course, not show you its map.
1:01 - Race #1
Course: ??? (Big Bluish)
Mode: F-Zero 99
Vehicle: Wild Goose
Rivals: JimmyDuke, Tyreceius, Jeb, サハラ’ (Sahara’)
There were a lot of high-ranked players playing in this one! 63 racers in this one were of S* rank or higher, which I think is a new record. I don’t know how we got such a high concentration of them, just that I found it a bit unusual to see my rivals placing pretty much everywhere in the ranks at the beginning of each lap. I just thought it was the nature of a ??? course, but I think new content like this specifically gathers the people with their ear to the ground regarding F-Zero 99, who were likely deliberately waiting for this race to turn up. I just initially thought this was being divided between those who know the ??? course and those (like me) who don’t.
5:00 - Race #2
Course: ??? (Big Bluish)
Mode: F-Zero 99
Vehicle: Blue Falcon
Rivals: Wheeler, StarinBcat, Gawa シ, DJ KK
I was hoping to get another one of these ??? courses, but so far, I’ve only been able to play on this one. This has the least amount of changes, to my knowledge, though the addition of all of those mines and the jumps over water do increase the difficulty a lot. This was now also not my first time around, so I was more comfortable playing and didn’t havce to mentally focus entirely on surviving. There were also way fewer S* players than before (39 in this one—still a lot, but not the elite room I found myself in earlier). Nevertheless, there were a lot of Crash Outs in both of these. This course can do a number on your vehicle because of the added hazards.