Game:

F-Zero (1990)

Duration: 49:42

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Hello again folks! This time for my 99th run (literally) and with the sudden rise of F-Zero 99 I figured why not do the original SNES release.

I have mixed feelings with the original F-Zero. It's graphically impressive for a launch title and it's super smooth. The sense of speed the game gives as well with it's mode7/sprite scaling is dead on. It's the difficulty and tracks that make it frustrating.

Though the games story and description of each track/planet is pretty neat. Basically billionaires in the future crave for some excitement and made a deadlier version of F1 Racing. At first people hated it due to how cruel the race is but eventually grew fond of it and wanted more of this grand prix racing now dubbed as F-Zero.

The controls are pretty simple since it's just accelerate, the brakes and turning your ship left and right. Though the main gimmicks in this game are the ships themselves and the hazards that appear in each track.

There's a total of 4 ships with their own unique trait, the Blue Falcon is a good balance between speed and grip.
The Golden fox has faster acceleration but very little grip on the track making it very slippery to use. It also has very little health making it the weakest ship.
The Wild Goose has average acceleration but it has good grip and a generous amount of health.

Last is the Fire Stingray aka the best ship in the game. It's got slow acceleration but it's the fastest out all 4 ships. It has very good grip and it's slow deceleration makes catching up to your rival cars easy. The drawback of this ship however is the acceleration and speed, it's a bit of a double edged sword since one bump or slip can severely set you back unless you have Super Jet on you. The speed can become an issue as well when you make those sharp turns (*cough* Death Wind II)

Bottom line, pick any ship besides the Golden Fox. Wild Goose and Fire stingray are good beginner ships to start with.

On to the tracks, the main gimmick of each track are the hazards and boosts. The hazards mostly seen through out each track are the guide beams, touch it and you're ship gets damaged. There's also mines, touch it and it can send your ship sliding left or right. The rest of the hazards are seen only in their designated planets, the side magnets from port town would be a good example since it drags the players towards them and damages them. The worst hazard here are the bumpers that get in the way of your ship. One little bump from them can slow your ship down and recovery at that point can be hard depending on which difficulty you're in.

It does however have some stuff that aid player throughout the track. There's jump panels, Dash Zones and the Pit Runs near the start of the track that heal your ship.

All the hazards are fine, it's mostly those accursed bumper racers that mess you up a lot. They become a big nuisance the moment they appear in sharp turns. This issue is very noticeable the moment you play it on Expert and Master level.

The game is very fun up until standard level, but Expert and Master is where the AI starts getting cheap. Expert is very doable but Master Level is where one little slip up can cost you the entire race. The enemy AI will always go into full speed when you play in Master Level, even if you try to knock them out of the track they'll still come back. Add in a badly placed Bumper vehicle then your ship will have a hard time recovering at that point.

To make matters worse there's the ranking system. Basically you have to be in a specific rank to stay in the race. Say the requirement is that you stay in 3rd place, if you place 4th then you lose. It does however have lives in which the game calls Spare Ships. In the event you crash out or you get outranked, you can try again and use your spare ship. You get another spare ship if you score 10k points. If you want some enjoyment out of F-Zero then stick to Beginner and Standard.

The games Graphics on the other hand is pretty impressive, each track is unique and colorful and the game is smooth like butter. The music is really good too, Big Blue perfectly captures the sense of speed this game offers.

Overall, it's a great but challenging racing game. Many things can go wrong in each track, it's either you bumped into your opponent or screwed up in a sharp turn. It does make up for it with the boosts seen in each track such as the pit runs to restore your health. The Super Jets are also useful since they give you short boosts but use it in the wrong spot and it will fire back on you. The music is great and the controls are tight. Just give it some practice and soon enough you'll get the hang of those sharp turns and skillfully dodge those accursed orange bumper vehicles. It's playable in Switch Online so give it a whirl!

If you like my runs be sure to check out the group I'm in if you want to see us play more good ol fashion retro games!
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