Padge Plays! Retro Edition: F-Zero (SNES - 1992 - Nintendo) - Futuristic Racing At It's Best!
1Welcome to Padge Plays! Retro Edition
This time around we're kicking tyres and lighting fires in the futuristic racer F-Zero, one of the first racing games released on the SNES back in Europe in 1992! A Nintendo original, this game broke the mould with the use of the Mode 7 graphics enhancement that allowed a background layer to be rotated and scaled on a scanline-by-scanline basis which bought a sense of scale and movement never encapsulated before on a home console... and the game itself was awesome in itself! I have fond memories and getting this with my Super Nintendo on one Christmas and I was enamoured by the inclusion of a comic within the instruction booklet which brought weight to the world you were racing in along with a purpose to those racing in it.
In this episode I play through the Knight League with Captain Falcon, a bounty hunter seeking out his prey on the race course whilst reminiscing the wonder of receiving the game back when I was younger, more impressionable and not nearly as cynical!
So join me as we try to keep up with the pack and not blow up too much in F-Zero!
- ABOUT THE GAME -
F-Zero is a futuristic racing game where players compete in a high-speed racing tournament called "F-Zero". There are four F-Zero characters that have their own selectable hovercar along with its unique performance abilities. The objective of the game is to beat opponents to the finish line while avoiding hazards such as slip zones and magnets that pull the vehicle off-center in an effort to make the player damage their vehicle or fall completely off the track. Each machine has a power meter, which serves as a measurement of the machine's durability; it decreases when the machine collides with land mines, the side of the track or another vehicle. Energy can be replenished by driving over pit areas placed along the home straight or nearby.
A race in F-Zero consists of five laps around the track. The player must complete each lap in a successively higher place to avoid disqualification from the race. F-Zero includes two modes of play. In the Grand Prix mode, the player chooses a league and races against other vehicles through each track in that league while avoiding disqualification. The Practice mode allows the player to practice seven of the courses from the Grand Prix mode.
F-Zero has a total of fifteen tracks divided into three leagues ordered by increasing difficulty: Knight, Queen, and King. Furthermore, each league has four selectable difficulty levels: beginner, standard, expert, and master.
F-Zero is set in the year 2560, when humanity's multiple encounters with alien life forms had resulted in the expansion of Earth's social framework. This led to commercial, technological and cultural interchanges between planets. The multi-billionaires who earned their wealth through intergalactic trade were mainly satisfied with their lifestyles, although most coveted more entertainment in their lives. This resulted in a new entertainment based on the Formula One races to be founded with vehicles that could hover one foot above the track. These Grand Prix races were soon named "F-Zero" after a rise in popularity of the races. The game introduced the first set of F-Zero racers: Captain Falcon, Dr. Stewart, Pico, and Samurai Goroh. IGN claimed Captain Falcon "was thrust into the limelight" in this game since he was the "star character". An eight-page comic was included in its SNES manual that carried the reader through one of Captain Falcon's bounty missions.
You can check out the game on the Nintendo website here:
https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Super-Nintendo/F-ZERO-277171.html
Alternatively you can look at the game on Vimm's Lair here:
https://vimm.net/vault/1212
You can read more about the F-Zero franchise here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Zero
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In this series I will be playing some well known and less well known games all the way from yesteryear through to the present, sometimes from consoles and sometimes from the thousands of PC games available either through websites such as Steam, Good Old Games (GOG), as abandonware, (Home of the Underdogs) or through emulation software. (Such as WinVice C64)
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Whilst you're here check out my other videos!
Check out the Padge Plays! The Ultimate Playlist here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkLG67k4e7kfilvf8XbNHiLBUlFOoc7Ga
Curious Expedition - Alpha & Beyond:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkLG67k4e7ketGibm_1wLE8yy2ZR4D_lM
Curious Expedition 2 - Alpha & Beyond:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkLG67k4e7keblRhFfovqwbYUu-1ygTPb
#FZero #Racing #SNES #RetroGaming