F-Zero 99 - ??? (Fiery Field)
5After “Big Bluish” comes another mystery track—this time, it combines Fire Field and Mute City, even including music that sits between the two themes. The background and track also combines them, with what appears to be isolated segments of city or industrial buildings surrounded by a sea of magma and the overall layout of Mute City I but with Fire Field elements in them. This one is more complicated, so I’ll list them in order:
1. The straightaway that begins a lap now has mines in two rows parallel to the straightaway, like in Fire Field’s beginning. This version has no pit stop.
2. Turn 1 has been replaced with a chicane consisting of two consecutive sharp turns, the latter of which has an offroad segment to help you slow down and make the turn better.
3. There’s a fork in the road where Turn 2 would normally be. Both turn right, but the outer one has the only pit stop on the track.
4. The offroad segments following Turn 3 in the original Mute City are now lava pits, which rapidly eats away at your vehicle’s durability as you travel over it.
5. The straightaway after Mute City’s Turn 5 now has a strip of lava in the middle, with magnets on the left and right pulling you towards it.
6. Mute City’s Turn 6 (and final turn) was originally a regular hairpin turn but now has terrain on the inside of it to help you corner better.
My video covering “Big Bluish” featured only two races, but with a better idea of timing when I’d get the mystery courses, this video features four races, one for each of the four vehicles.
00:00 - Race #1
Course: ??? (Fiery Field)
Mode: F-Zero 99
Vehicle: Golden Fox
Rivals: Smashbro67, Lombardi88, H-LeCoutre, Yuta
I told Lombardi88 when this one would be and that this is a different one than the previous mystery courses, and what do you know, they’re in this race and got assigned as one of my rivals. This is the same Lombardi88 you may have seen in the past from Mario Kart Wii all the way up to Ninjala. I should’ve figured how rough this race really would be, not just the track itself but the competing racers, when my durability was down to 60% just from bumping around in the pre-race stretch of track!
03:25 - Race #2
Course: ??? (Fiery Field)
Mode: F-Zero 99
Vehicle: Fire Stingray
Rivals: けいちゃん (Kei-chan), Gorro, Kovacs, HeroOfTime
You’d think with a name like “Fire” Stingray, it’d be good on a fiery racetrack. Maybe it is, but I just don’t have the skills to use the Fire Stingray to its best potential, and ultimately, this wound up too much for me. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising how much of a battering I took driving the Golden Fox that the Fire Stingray, which, while not quite as fragile, is still not exactly a titanium box, that this happened.
07:05 - Race #3
Course: ??? (Fiery Field)
Mode: F-Zero 99
Vehicle: Wild Goose
Rivals: ahlan, ゆゆゆ (Yuyuyu), JacobGates, ロン (Ron)
The WIld Goose is probably the one vehicle that COULD drive into the lava pits after the pit stop and not really care. The durability will decrease each lap unless you KO someone, however, because it recovers from pit stops so slowly. You might also notice that every race here has over half of the field consisting of people with an “S-star” rank. It’s a very brutal group any time a mystery track turns up!
10:24 - Race #4
Course: ??? (Fiery Field)
Mode: F-Zero 99
Vehicle: Blue Falcon
Rivals: JT zero, atonyc, bobbi, Herowho
Through all four of these races, I just withstood those lava pits and instead saved the Skyway for the chicane near the start. Perhaps I should just take that chicane and instead save the Skyway for the lava pits so that I can do something about keeping my vehicle’s power up and allowing me to continue boosting. That’s especially so with the Golden Fox.