The F-Zero franchise is finally back and what are your thoughts on this?

Dear futuristic racing fans in the Giant Bomb forums

When I was watching Nintendo Direct September 2023, I was expecting it to be an all-new 3D F-Zero game to feature similar gameplay to F-Zero GX, but it turned out to be an SNES Mode 7 style racing game, and the objective for this game is to race against 99 opponents on the same time to win, I hope Nintendo Switch's successor will have a proper new 3D F-Zero installment.

I really liked F-Zero GX and would have happily blown the dust off the Switch Lite to play a remaster/remake/successor to that game. This, unfortunately, doesn’t interest me at all. I won’t lie, this is fairly disappointing news to me.

You can't have your cake and eat it too

I think this looks cool and I will try it out (though not for long since I'm no pro F-zero player) but it's definitely not what I wanted. I would be much more excited for a true new F-Zero game or even a remake of the Gamecube game.

This seems like the project you launch when people want a new F-Zero and you put out a cheap project to prove that demand's not really that high so you have something to point to when you refuse to actually make a full new game.

Having a 99 player race wherein you lose health every time you bump into players is certainly a choice.

I'm just glad they finally made another game after so many years. Hopefully, it was worth the wait.

Who knows, if this thing becomes big enough, it might convince Nintendo to make a full game.

I'm gonna try it as soon as I get home from work. I'm excited but I always am after a '99' game release. But unfortunately, it doesn't ever last long. Not with Tetris, not with Pac-Man and not with Mario. Perhaps this will be different? Let's see

i appreciate the 99 series from a distance- but they really aren't my cup of tea when i get the itch to play those original games.

that said this looks like a fun remix- hopefully this leads to a new f-zero now!

Part of me is bummed out that it isn't a new F-Zero release or even a straight port of GX/AX.

Another, louder, more slovenly part of me is ready for this to be shoveled directly into my mouth by daddy Nintendo like the French ladies with the milk in that meme. A rework of the best SNES game? Yes please. Thank you sir.

It looks fun. I'll try it. But yeah, I really want a brand new one.

I've now tried it for a couple races. It's...fine. It sort of plays like F-Zero but since you're in a massive pack of cars you get pinballed around even more. There's a reward system and daily logins. For a game that is included with my subscription it's a value add I guess but it's not exactly a game changer. Though it does change the game of F-Zero quite a bit.

I was honestly hoping for something simpler. Rather than having to worry about energy, eliminate whoever's last at regular intervals. Maybe they tried that in testing and it produced races that were way too long.

My thoughts: I think it sucks balls that the first F-Zero in decades is tied to Nintendo's worthless paying online system :) I'm not paying for a service I won't use to fiddle with the reanimated corpse of a once beloved franchise. I have the SNES cartridge, I can fire that up any time.

Luckily, the release schedule is so packed that I'll forget about its existence completely by next week. So will everyone else.

"Hey, you love that thing and want us to do a modern version of it, right? Well, what if we half-ass it into a different format, make it impossible to actually race, and yank it offline in about three months? What? That's not what you want at all? Well, I guess you don't really want F-Zero to make a comeback, so... see ya in another twenty years!"

I'm often reminded of this interview, which always highlighted for me Nintendo's philosophy of only making a game if it does something new. Also their ignorance of what gamers actually want.

This seems like it would be a cool side mode in an actual full F-Zero game.

I'm not an F-Zero fan, but I am a Metroid fan, and I imagine if I were an F-Zero fan, right now I would feel a lot like I did when Federation Force was announced. Just a complete misunderstanding of what people are actually looking for.

You know, I had this exact idea a while back. So all of you are the crazy ones.

If you want Nintendo to make a new F-Zero, the best way to tell them is to play this. Or at the very least download it.

I don't think I'll like this but it's a cool idea. The racing genre is kinda stale so I'm glad a big company like Nintendo is fucking around and finding out.

@justin258: I don't know. Federation Force was disappointing because of the ugly art style and non-Metroid like gameplay, while this game seems to be right in the classic F-zero style and gameplay. Also, this seems like such a small project, I don't think it's going to take much time away from any other F-Zero project that may or may not be in development. I really hope that if that happens they also include a mode like this, because that sounds crazy fun. I'd say just take this as a little appetizer and keep up the hope that someday we'll see the main course we all want.

@wollywoo: The issue is not that this will take development time away from F-Zero but the risk that if this flops Nintendo will say "oh well people don't REALLY want a new F-Zero." It's this weird thing that game companies do where they produce something in the same franchise that's not The Thing that people want and then if it doesn't do well they blame the franchise instead of the fact that it wasn't what everyone was asking for.

That's the Metroid comparison. They kept making a bunch of "Metroid" games that were not an actual Metroid game and then using that to say that Metroid doesn't sell well. They did eventually make Dread and it was not a massive commercial hit but it probably did okay given its budget (there are rumors that the same external team is making a sequel) and it was a critical hit, showing that Metroid isn't really a dead franchise, it's just that nobody wants random spinoffs.

Let's see this in some other genres too. Night Trap 99. Leisure Suit Larry 99.

@sparky_buzzsaw: They made a movie based on Leisure Suit Larry 99. It was called "Eyes Wide Shut."

What I want to know is why they haven't made Wario Ware 99. That seems like the most obvious to me.

I would also accept Duck Hunt 99 and, of course, Madden '99 99.

Jokes aside, this game is really weird. I do not understand why they eliminate the bottom 19 competitors when about that many usually get KOed anyway. There seem to be like 4-5 tracks to choose from and people always vote for Mute City I or Big Blue so you end up on those tracks over and over. There's some kind of progression where you get cosmetics and level up but it's not explained well.

It's not a bad game because at its core it's F-Zero, but it just makes me want to play F-Zero, which I already can.

If nothing else it's a reminder that F-Zero X is on the NSO Expansion Pack.

After trying the game I'm not really sold on the idea. 99 people pinballing into each other at break-neck speed while desperately trying to stay alive is a little too much chaos to be able to win consistently but maybe I'm just not good enough at F-Zero.

@allthedinos: I loved playing F-Zero GX before, and it needs to get remastered one day.

@judaspete: I did give a try on F-Zero 99 on Switch, it's fun to play.

Say NO to remastered/HD games

What? I don't see anything problem about games being remastered, well, it's ideal for those who never played them or wanted to relive their fun memories.

I grew up with F-Zero X. I count F-Zero GX in my top ten, and possibly top 5 games of all the time depending on which day you would ask me. I have zero attachment to the SNES game outside of giving it a shot on switch online and thinking eh I guess this would have been cool for its time.

My initial reaction to 99, mostly because of the GX remaster rumours, was very negative.

But I have been playing this almost non-stop and having a blast. The changes to the original F-Zero to bring it more in line to X/GX (boost mechanics, lap count, attacks) do a lot to make the moment to moment gameplay click with me. But the real thing is that this is easily the best implementation of the 99 formula. I feel much more like an active participant in the match first of all, and the super quick matchmaking combined with the relative short length of any given race make it so easy to just keep coming back. The initial feeling of being pinballed around at the mercy of the pack fades away really quick once you figure out some of the suprisingly deep strategies of each vehicle's strengths/weaknesses and when best to hold back or pull out front to build/use the skyway on each track. I do imagine the later more expert courses they add down the line will be a massacre though.

Best surprise of the year for me. Really, really happy with it. Would still love a GX remaster though...!