F-Zero 99 is Fantastic, Challenging Fun!
17th September 2023, 9:10 PM
So, recently rumors of a new F-Zero game surfaced. I wasn't sure whether to believe them or not given how long it has been -- like 15 years since the last entry on the GBA -- but... it happened! F-Zero has returned... as a multiplayer-only game in the "99" line of titles with graphics and tracks taken from the original Super Nintendo F-Zero game. It's chaotic and intense but is pretty fantastic once you get used to it. This is the fourth Switch 'battle royale' game, and the third from Nintendo itself.
Tetris 99 is outstanding and still is quite popular, but the big question is, how long will this game be available for? Because while Tetris 99 is still available and supported, the other games in this category of sorts of Nintendo Battle Royale games are not. Super Mario 35 was announced as a time-limited title and was indeed shut down as scheduled. I have no idea why they made the game time limited, but I didn't like it all that much anyway; the physics were just a bit off, not quite NES Mario physics and very far from NSMB. As for the other one, Pac-Man 99, the game is a Switch exclusive but is run by Namco. The game is about to be shut down. I have no idea why Namco is shutting it down now, and it's really unfortunate that they are because from what I played of it it's pretty good, but I do admit I was probably part of the problem, I wasn't playing it much. I presume player numbers must not have been that high, unfortunately. Too bad.
So, the rocky history of these games leaves me skeptical about F-Zero 99's future. I hope that this game is more Tetris 99 than Mario 35! F-Zero 99 is really good, it'd be a shame if it vanishes for no reason at some time not that far in the future. I recommend playing this game while you can, it's really worth it.
As for this game, as I said, F-Zero 99 is SNES F-Zero but with 99 racers and some new features. The game controls a lot like the Super Nintendo game, so control is responsive and feels great. The game feels designed to be played with a D-pad, though; analog controls exist but are incredibly twitchy, I hate the feel of this with analog. So that Switch analog stick will sit there unused like usual... heh, with the kinds of games I mostly play on Switch I rarely use that thing. This game works fine as it is, but better analog controls might have been nice. I know Nintendo wanted to prioritize being able to play this game with a d-pad because they wanted the game to play well on the Switch Super Nintendo-style controller, and that was a good decision, but the analog controls need a bit of work. The other thing that needs work is the options menu, which has some missing options that should exist. Audio volume options are badly needed, for example; the music in this game is way too quiet, and you can't turn it up. It's kind of annoying to have to turn my TV volume way up just for this one game, ten back down for anything else. There also isn't an option to dis[play the speed in miles per hour, which is a bizarre oversight to make. The speed in this game doesn't matter much, but it should not have shipped only in kilometers per hour, those numbers are somewhat meaningless to me. But really, that's it for issues as far as controls and options go, everything else is good.
As far as the gameplay goes, F-Zero 99 starts with the Super Nintendo game, but builds off of it to fit its new genre and for new control and game features that have been added in. This isn't just the Super Nintendo game with lots of cars, there are new game mechanics present. First, the track designs, while extremely faithful to the original, have perhaps been expanded in width to fit the larger field. Each track has an opening start area as well, a fan-shaped area where all the cars start before driving towards the games' starting line in the course. This solves the starting-line issue with so many cars in a fair way. But as far as game mechanics go, there are two major changes. First, the boot system of the rest of the series has been put in this game, so boosting boosts away your health. I really like that this mechanic is here, it adds a lot to the game. Boosting, hitting a wall, or bumping other vehicles reduces your energy. If you run out of energy or go off the track on a jump, you explode and that's it, you lose; there are no second chances in a race in this game. Each track has a recharge pit area that heals some of your energy.
The second, and probably most important, new ability is about the superboosts to the Skyway. This new super-boost ability has been added. When you damage other vehicles with a spin attack -- another feature from later F-Zero games back-ported to the original here -- you build up a super meter. You can also build up this meter by collecting yellow orbs which drop when other players do damage to eachother or touch a yellow AI vehicle. Once the meter is filled, if you hit the boost button instead of doing a normal boost you will go up into the sky to the Skyway, a second path in the air above each track. You stay on this more streamlined course for as long as your now-rapidly-depleting boost meter allows. Timing your uses of the superboost is one of the most important skills you will need to learn in order to do better at this game, because where you start a superboost can have a large impact on how much ground you gain from it. You will only get a couple of superboosts per race most of the time, since the meter takes a while to charge up, so you need to use them well. This mechanic is not something any previous game in the series has any analog to, and I'm not sure if I like it all that much overall because it allows you to avoid the challenging parts of a track and sometimes gain a large advantage through just using a boost well instead of through good driving skill, but it is an interesting mechanic that is key to the game.
Beyond that, F-Zero 99 is mostly a lot like SNES F-Zero, just in modern resolution widescreen and with the insane, intense chaos of 99 human-controlled racers on the track, all driving around and whacking into eachother. This is a wonderful game with solid rewards for play, as you level up your racer and unlock more car colors and titles for the current selection of four vehicles. As for content though, right now that is the games' main problem. F-Zero 99 just doesn't have much to offer. So far, 7 of the 15 tracks from the original Super Nintendo game are playable. The rest aren't in yet and apparently will be added later. And of those seven, only four, the first four tracks from the Knight Cup, show up in the regular F-Zero 99 mode; the fifth, Silence, never does for whatever reason. As great fun as this game is, playing Mute City I over and over and over gets old after a few hours, you know? As for the other two tracks, one track from each of the other two cups is currently present, with White Land I from the second cup and Port Town II from the third. Port Town II is definitely my favorite track in this game so far, and I hope that it's not too long of a wait until the other harder tracks are playable in F-Zero 99.
Some more tracks beyond that would be nice, too, and more cars. The easiest thing to add would be the 10 tracks and 4 cars from BS F-Zero 2, the Satellaview game. I presume that Nintendo has copies of those tracks, because only half of them are currently available; the BS F-Zero 2 game we know is based on the Practice rom for BS F-Zero, which included the four new cars and five of the new tracks, while the other five new tracks were only in the main two week versions with Satellaview streaming audio, neither of which has a publicly available rom. There are a few videos on Youtube of them being played with the original streamed Japanese voiced dialog, though, which is neat. There are more SNES-style tracks from the GBA games of course, or they could make new courses, but it'd be pretty fantastic to finally see BS F-Zero return, and for everyone to be able to play the five lost tracks...
Overall, I love F-Zero 99. It needs more tracks, but other than this this game is really good, very addictive stuff. I've played a decent number of hours of the game so far since its release after the Direct last week and certainly will play more.
Tetris 99 is outstanding and still is quite popular, but the big question is, how long will this game be available for? Because while Tetris 99 is still available and supported, the other games in this category of sorts of Nintendo Battle Royale games are not. Super Mario 35 was announced as a time-limited title and was indeed shut down as scheduled. I have no idea why they made the game time limited, but I didn't like it all that much anyway; the physics were just a bit off, not quite NES Mario physics and very far from NSMB. As for the other one, Pac-Man 99, the game is a Switch exclusive but is run by Namco. The game is about to be shut down. I have no idea why Namco is shutting it down now, and it's really unfortunate that they are because from what I played of it it's pretty good, but I do admit I was probably part of the problem, I wasn't playing it much. I presume player numbers must not have been that high, unfortunately. Too bad.
So, the rocky history of these games leaves me skeptical about F-Zero 99's future. I hope that this game is more Tetris 99 than Mario 35! F-Zero 99 is really good, it'd be a shame if it vanishes for no reason at some time not that far in the future. I recommend playing this game while you can, it's really worth it.
As for this game, as I said, F-Zero 99 is SNES F-Zero but with 99 racers and some new features. The game controls a lot like the Super Nintendo game, so control is responsive and feels great. The game feels designed to be played with a D-pad, though; analog controls exist but are incredibly twitchy, I hate the feel of this with analog. So that Switch analog stick will sit there unused like usual... heh, with the kinds of games I mostly play on Switch I rarely use that thing. This game works fine as it is, but better analog controls might have been nice. I know Nintendo wanted to prioritize being able to play this game with a d-pad because they wanted the game to play well on the Switch Super Nintendo-style controller, and that was a good decision, but the analog controls need a bit of work. The other thing that needs work is the options menu, which has some missing options that should exist. Audio volume options are badly needed, for example; the music in this game is way too quiet, and you can't turn it up. It's kind of annoying to have to turn my TV volume way up just for this one game, ten back down for anything else. There also isn't an option to dis[play the speed in miles per hour, which is a bizarre oversight to make. The speed in this game doesn't matter much, but it should not have shipped only in kilometers per hour, those numbers are somewhat meaningless to me. But really, that's it for issues as far as controls and options go, everything else is good.
As far as the gameplay goes, F-Zero 99 starts with the Super Nintendo game, but builds off of it to fit its new genre and for new control and game features that have been added in. This isn't just the Super Nintendo game with lots of cars, there are new game mechanics present. First, the track designs, while extremely faithful to the original, have perhaps been expanded in width to fit the larger field. Each track has an opening start area as well, a fan-shaped area where all the cars start before driving towards the games' starting line in the course. This solves the starting-line issue with so many cars in a fair way. But as far as game mechanics go, there are two major changes. First, the boot system of the rest of the series has been put in this game, so boosting boosts away your health. I really like that this mechanic is here, it adds a lot to the game. Boosting, hitting a wall, or bumping other vehicles reduces your energy. If you run out of energy or go off the track on a jump, you explode and that's it, you lose; there are no second chances in a race in this game. Each track has a recharge pit area that heals some of your energy.
The second, and probably most important, new ability is about the superboosts to the Skyway. This new super-boost ability has been added. When you damage other vehicles with a spin attack -- another feature from later F-Zero games back-ported to the original here -- you build up a super meter. You can also build up this meter by collecting yellow orbs which drop when other players do damage to eachother or touch a yellow AI vehicle. Once the meter is filled, if you hit the boost button instead of doing a normal boost you will go up into the sky to the Skyway, a second path in the air above each track. You stay on this more streamlined course for as long as your now-rapidly-depleting boost meter allows. Timing your uses of the superboost is one of the most important skills you will need to learn in order to do better at this game, because where you start a superboost can have a large impact on how much ground you gain from it. You will only get a couple of superboosts per race most of the time, since the meter takes a while to charge up, so you need to use them well. This mechanic is not something any previous game in the series has any analog to, and I'm not sure if I like it all that much overall because it allows you to avoid the challenging parts of a track and sometimes gain a large advantage through just using a boost well instead of through good driving skill, but it is an interesting mechanic that is key to the game.
Beyond that, F-Zero 99 is mostly a lot like SNES F-Zero, just in modern resolution widescreen and with the insane, intense chaos of 99 human-controlled racers on the track, all driving around and whacking into eachother. This is a wonderful game with solid rewards for play, as you level up your racer and unlock more car colors and titles for the current selection of four vehicles. As for content though, right now that is the games' main problem. F-Zero 99 just doesn't have much to offer. So far, 7 of the 15 tracks from the original Super Nintendo game are playable. The rest aren't in yet and apparently will be added later. And of those seven, only four, the first four tracks from the Knight Cup, show up in the regular F-Zero 99 mode; the fifth, Silence, never does for whatever reason. As great fun as this game is, playing Mute City I over and over and over gets old after a few hours, you know? As for the other two tracks, one track from each of the other two cups is currently present, with White Land I from the second cup and Port Town II from the third. Port Town II is definitely my favorite track in this game so far, and I hope that it's not too long of a wait until the other harder tracks are playable in F-Zero 99.
Some more tracks beyond that would be nice, too, and more cars. The easiest thing to add would be the 10 tracks and 4 cars from BS F-Zero 2, the Satellaview game. I presume that Nintendo has copies of those tracks, because only half of them are currently available; the BS F-Zero 2 game we know is based on the Practice rom for BS F-Zero, which included the four new cars and five of the new tracks, while the other five new tracks were only in the main two week versions with Satellaview streaming audio, neither of which has a publicly available rom. There are a few videos on Youtube of them being played with the original streamed Japanese voiced dialog, though, which is neat. There are more SNES-style tracks from the GBA games of course, or they could make new courses, but it'd be pretty fantastic to finally see BS F-Zero return, and for everyone to be able to play the five lost tracks...
Overall, I love F-Zero 99. It needs more tracks, but other than this this game is really good, very addictive stuff. I've played a decent number of hours of the game so far since its release after the Direct last week and certainly will play more.
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