Beating F-Zero GX's Story Mode for the 1st Time, 23 years after its Release

In 2003, our parents got my brother and I F-Zero GX and we were really pumped. We had learned about Captain Falcon through the Super Smash Bros series where he was a superhero looking bounty hunter famous for landing his "FALCON...PAUNCH!" on foes and he became a favorite for my brother and I in Smash 64 and Melee. We also learned that Captain Falcon came from a futuristic Racing series called F-Zero where machines go at insanely fast speeds to survive and win races. Not to mention we had high hopes for GX since one of our favorite racing games was Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer. A game that while much easier than GX (though the Abyss course in Racer is brutal) had a great sense of speed as well and had awesome track designs that made us fall in love with this style of racing game. Finally we got to play an entry in a series where the Man who says "SHOW ME YOUR MOVES" as a taunt in Smash comes from and from a series that we thought had a similar style to one of our favorite racing games.

When playing F-Zero GX we certainly had a great time playing it but I wouldn't say were we that good at it. While we struggled with the Novice difficulty on the first few cups as first since we didn't entirely understood the controls we eventually got enough practice to win the Ruby and Sapphire Cup on Novice Difficulty many times. This was our way of farming Tickets to unlock all the other Machines in the game since you start with the Original 4 from the very 1st F-Zero on SNES and you get tickets to unlock more pilots. Heck we even unlocked what we thought was the full roster of the game buying the 26 other machines. Tickets can also purchase parts for customizable machines and chapters for that very tough story mode. As a kid I thought Chapter 1 was definitely doable but it was chapter 2 that was such a shocking jump in difficulty. My brother and I failed many times but we eventually beat it. Chapter 3 was our stopping point where we found that mission too hard as we couldn't get the upper hand on the A.I. Basically we just customized machines and played the Ruby and Sapphire Cups over and over to unlock more content and even tried the Emerald Cup but we never rated high on that cup.

I revisited F-Zero GX during College where I brought my Wii down to my dorms but also brought Gamecube Games and Controllers to play some of those beloved Gamecube Classics such as GX and a few other titles such as Soul Calibur II and Simpsons Hit and Run. We didn't have the Memory Card on hand that had all the unlocked racers so I had to start from scratch again but I'd argue this session made me love F-Zero GX even more. It really donned on me that I don't think I've played a Racing game that could match GX's sense of speed from the insane Boost Power your machine can get after completing the first lap. Plus I got to enjoy the courses much more and developed better memory on where to turn and boost on courses such as Multiplex in Aeropolis and Aero Dive in Port Town. But also I revisited Story Mode and once again, was struggling mightily with Chapter 3 but after many attempts I beat that chapter on 1 night. I yelled in Joy when this happened but my roommate was confused as to why I was cheering all the sudden. Then I unlocked Chapter 4 and one thing I wasn't good at in GX was attacking and since this was an attack based chapter I could never get pass this chapter.

It had been 12 years since I last played F-Zero GX and while I still have my Wii AND my copy of F-Zero GX, I opted to play it again on Switch 2 on Gamecube NSO. On the last day of 2025 I played against my brother in some online races and despite playing it on a new platform and controller, muscle memory must have kicked in and was able to pick it up with ease and in every race against him despite my lag. Then in the last 2 weeks, I thought it would be fun to tinker around and play F-Zero GX again on NSO and even see how far I could get in that Incredibly Difficult Story Mode. Turns out that after many deaths and failures, I beat all 9 chapters! And let me tell you, it was one of my most proud achievements I've done in a video game! This was something I actually thought I could never do for years. I was actually quite shocked that Nintendo, Sega and developer Amusement Vision (now known as Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio) collaborated to make such a brutal collection of story challenges where you played as Captain Falcon. They were way harder than racing on 150 CC in another 2003 Nintendo racing game, Mario Kart Double Dash. But after making some shocking progress, I locked in and was determined to beat this story mode once and for all. I was even recording the finishes of some of my chapters since I forgot to record on others but I got proof on some of them (I'll link those finishes to my Bluesky Account ScreamingMadden). From here on out this article will break down each chapter of the story mode I completed but also go into some detail of what else I was able to accomplish in my recent playthrough of F-Zero GX. Even talk about my growth in playing GX and getting better at playing the game

Prologue and Chapter 1: Captain Falcon Training:

The Prologue of this story mode shows off who is really the big bad of the Story Mode. In F-Zero X there wasn't a story mode in that game but there was one character who was considered the most diabolical of the X Roster and he's Black Shadow. He is the self proclaimed king of evil that's wanted by the Galactic Federation who looks like Batman with Devil Horns but still participates in the F-Zero Grand Prix with his Black Bull Machine despite being a wanted criminal. In the Prologue we see the Black Bull get decimated by a purple F-Zero Machine and Black Shadow is being choked by a new villain who we don't know the name of yet. Black Shadow pleads for one more change and gets that final chance from his even more evil boss.

Shortly after Chapter 1 starts and many different pilots of F-Zero are watching a TV program where Black Shadow is cutting some kind of Wrestling Heel Promo laughing at his competition. Meanwhile Captain Falcon just walks past the crowd of Jobber Pilots (and Pico since he's an OG Pilot) and he enters his secret base using Eye detection Security and there his Blue Falcon machine is ready for the Captain to start a training course. This is where the chapter begins where Captain Falcon races on an oval course and has to collect 25 capsules within 80 seconds. There's not much to say in this chapter. It was a fairly easy chapter on normal difficulty then and it still is fairly easy now. I beat this on my first try and moved on. Though I will say I tried this mission again on Hard and the difficulty jump was huge. This time I had to collect 30 capsules within 70 seconds and I couldn't beat it. What's crazier is that I've heard this chapter is one of the hardest chapters on the very hard difficulty! Yes for a story mode that's notoriously brutal, the devs have the audacity to include Hard and Very Hard Difficulties to each chapter.

Chapter 2: Goroh the Vengeful Samurai:

Here's one of the early chapters that gave my brother and I lots of trouble back then. In this Chapter Samurai Goroh is salty that Captain Falcon beat him in the previous Grand Prix, claiming he stole the prize money from Goroh's Clan of Thieves. Goroh then compliments how nice looking the Blue Falcon is and claims if you lose a race at Red Canyon (a setting that has been home for standard GP courses in F-Zero SNES and X but is only here as a Chapter course) he had to forfeit his machine. Just when Captain Falcon is about to depart basically thinking "Fuck this" Goroh puts his Katana on Falcon's throat, and his gang readies their arms. After Goroh insults Falcon for not acting like himself for backing out of the challenge, Falcon accepts the challenge and Goroh backflips to show the checkpoint they must reach first to win. Oh and this chapter has a killer cover of Red Canyon.

This was a pretty hard chapter when I first played this game because here, Goroh's Fire Stingray is the first machine to inform the player that the CPU Machines have infinite boosts whereas you have a Finite amount of Boost Power that is also your life bar. So while the A.I. can use boosts with little to no consequence, you have to be careful about your boost power which is frankly unfair. On top of that there are rolling boulders that get in the way and you gotta dodge them all to keep up with the Fire Stingray. Heck in 1 instance I used a Boost near Goroh and he boosted too, but we both ran into the same boulder and were idle which made me think you can exploit the A.I. Overall I felt like I figured out this chapter fairly quickly. I died 5 times all from driving off course or from a Boulder. But I figured out the method of this chapter by following Goroh and using about 2 boosts within the first half of the race to keep up. Eventually I also got a good groove in dodging the Boulders and saved about 3 boosts near the end. It felt pretty dang good to do so knowing that I saved enough boosts and while Goroh was masterfully dodging Boulders it was slowing him down and I saw my chance with the opening and boosted my way to the checkpoint. It took me 6 tries to beat this chapter and that felt awesome! I do also want to note that this is the only chapter that I beat on Hard Difficulty and yeah there were more boulders to dodge but my strategy of boosting a little early and conserving the boost power to the end worked out again after a few more failed attempts.

Chapter 3: High Stakes in Mute City

This chapter has some of the most Yakuza side mission energy I've seen. After Falcon beats Goroh he goes to a bar where lots of stuff is happening from a bar brawl between the Superhero pilot Super Arrow and his arch nemesis Zoda to T Rex pilot Bio Rex getting drunk scarfing down a beer. We then see the 97 year old pilot Silver Neelsen rant angrily about how betting is a scam and yelling what he can do with just 1 coin. Then a pilot knocks the coin off his hand the coin rolls right into Captain Falcon's hand while the Bartender and another pilot Dr. Clash looks at the coin in awe for some reason. Then Neelsen tries to get the coin back but sees Captain Falcon and is begging him to enter the bet race. While Falcon is trying to clam Neelsen down the announcement of registration closing soon is played and Neelson pulls Captain Falcon away w/ Falcon responding "HEY! WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE TAKING ME?! WAIT?!" Seriously watch the cutscene for this chapter because the hilariously bad voice acting is at its peak with entertainment here. Then Neelsen gives Falcon a pretty poor disguise as a Jester Pilot and enters the Race as "FAMICOM" with low odds despite the Blue Falcon clearly being stated as his vehicle which you'd think that would ruin the disguise huh?

As stated before, this was the chapter that gave me the most trouble in the past. My brother and I couldn't beat this chapter as kids and I eventually beat it in college. Revisiting this chapter again I'm reminded of how brutal it was. You're up against 11 other Racers with infinite Boosts and you gotta beat them in a turn heavy short course with a few ramps. It took me 30+ attempts to beat this chapter again. What I learned is that Shoulder Button Drifiting (or strafing) was huge for me to get some early leads and there's one section that has 2 ramps that if used wisely can cut corners and get you in the lead. However when I failed getting in 1st on the final lap I noticed a CPU racer would boost ahead of me around the final turn and I couldn't keep up (usually it was Billy the Monkey Pilot who thwarted me). What I did on my winning run was boost as I was strafing on the final turn and kept boosting to stay ahead. When I beat that mission, I was yelping in joy very much like I was in college. I'd rank this as the hardest of the first 4 chapters in the game because the CPU will use those boosts to their advantage in many unfair ways but I still prevailed and now Silver Neelsen is a richer man.

Oh and I couldn't find anymore individual cutscene videos so here's a video that has all the story cutscenes.

Chapter 4: Challenge of The Bloody Chain

Here we go! Here's the wall from the past that I couldn't beat before! So after Chapter 3 is beat Neelsen gives Falcon a share of winning money for his efforts winning the bet race. Just as Falcon is about to accept the payment he is reminded that Black Shadow is reeking havoc in the Lightning area as Shadow dances around like a lunatic (seriously this game's cutscenes has some hilarious mo cap). Captain Falcon tosses the money towards Neelsen and runs to the Blue Falcon to confront Black Shadow. However on his trip Falcon is ambushed by Michael Chain and his Bloody Chain Gang of Wild Boar machines. Michael Chain is also I pirate I guess since when he sees Falcon he yells "BOYS! THE PARTY'S JUST GETTING STARTED" in the most Pirate sounding voice I've heard in a video game. I think he was very close to saying "YARGH!"

As stated before I could ever get past this mission in college because I was never well acquainted with the Attacks in GX. I knew there was a side attack and a spin attack but I never used them much at all especially the spin since I felt it slowed me down. In college I'd just boost into one of Chain's goons and hope it knocked it out. Here on Switch 2 the side attack button was assigned on the Y button but I found that to be not ideal so I changed the side attack button to the L Button since the R Button was the spin attack at default. Once I changed the controls, I was doing much better on this chapter! I found using the Side Attack L was the most efficient in taking out Chain's goons to get a little more boost power and the spin was good if I was surrounded by a lot of Wild Boars. One time I beat Michael Chain to the checkpoint but it was a failure since the game wanted me to take him out AND reach the checkpoint first! It wasn't enough to simply outpace the Bloody Chain. But on my 11th try I got to Michael himself and landed a spin attack and a couple of Side attacks to knock him out. But a few of his goons got ahead of me and I boosted my way to the checkpoint and by a hair, I completed the mission! I was shouting even louder in joy since I had never gotten this far in story mode! I finally got a good grasp on the attacking and frankly this chapter wasn't that bad once I got used to attacking. There's so many goons to defeat and there's ample opportunities to knock them out to get more boost power and use that to one, lower the enemy count and 2 catch up and beat Michael Chain. From here, I got some genuine faith that I could indeed beat this story mode. I knew it wouldn't get easier from here but I believe that its possible now that my previous wall was taken down. Here's the finish link, but also this was how narrow the win was. I got in 1st place with 4 METERS LEFT!

Chapter 5: Save Jody!:

So Captain Falcon reaches the Lightning Area and sees Galactic Federation Mechanic John Tanaka outside all tired and telling Falcon that fellow Galactic Federation colleague Jody Summer is still in the exploding Lightning Plant. Falcon races to find Jody in need of saving and gets her into the Blue Falcon to escape the collapsing Lighting Plant. Also for some reason Jody has some interesting hair tech in the cutscene as if each hair strand is its own polygon. What is this? Triple H hair from the PS2 WWE games?

This chapter was pretty freaking hard. This became the toughest chapter yet since I had 50 seconds to escape the plant and I must use your boost power to dash out of the plant. The course is generous with boost capsules to collect to give me more boost power but as I went through the challenge doors start closing in from the side and I had to memorize where the doors close. Sometimes they close from side to side and other instances they close from top to bottom and I had to adjust the Blue Falcon to move into the opening that's available. Oh and some cylinders can be in the way too. I had so many failed attempts on this chapter as I boosted but would often not turn enough to bypass the opening and halt right after I hit a door, which would often ruin the run. Also when I was about to exit there are 4 boost pads that help you boost out of the plant but you need to aim the Blue Falcon PERFECTLY in order to escape or else if you are a little to the left or right you could hit a part of the door, stay idle and blow up when time is up. That happened to me a few times. But eventually even when hitting a few things on the side, I managed to finally escape and aim the Falcon boosts perfectly after 50+ tries. I yelled on big "Let's Go!" after that! That chapter was pretty rough in difficulty but it was purely a skill based challenge to boost your way to a rescue. Strafing helped in the end to aim better in between gaps.

Chapter 6: Black Shadow's Trap:

Finally Captain Falcon confronts Black Shadow for causing the destruction of the Lightning Area. But Falcon probably should have known better to try and convince Black Shadow to settle this at the Grand Prix because Black Shadow laucnhes this Lasso Hadoken(?) as Falcon to trap him. Then Black Shadow summons Captain Falcon's evil doppleganger Blood Falcon out of the Lasso (which looks really weird in the cutscene) to plant a bomb on the Blue Falcon and both Black Shadow and Blood Falcon force the Captain in the Blue Falcon to have the Bomb blow his machine up with him in it.

This then leads to the next chapter's structure which is to not go below 700 km/h or else the bomb will detonate. This chapter somehow outdid chapter 5 for being more difficult. Compared to chapter 5 its considerably longer since Chapter 5 had you escape within 50 seconds whereas in Chapter 6 Captain Falcon must drive on a course that can last 2 minutes and 40 seconds to complete from beginning to end without hitting any obstacles or vehicles too hard to go below the deadly speed limit. First time I did this I ran into a big vehicle from behind and died there. Then the things that consistently got me were very tight turns, a narrow bridge with walls that if I pinball around will get the bomb active and a path of Dirt mounds that I had to boost through or else they slow you down that is then followed up by the tightest turn in the whole course. This was a ROUGH Chapter to get through since it's an endurance run of staying above a speed limit and the course has its shares of obstacles to mess you up. Eventually I did some Time Attacks to practice doing some snaking like turns and that helped me get through some of those hard turns. But on my final run I managed to boost past the dirt mounds and still hit that wall on the really tight turn but it wasn't enough to slow me down and I was able to boost through smaller dirt mounds to continue which the course had a few spiral turns to deal with but it wasn't too bad since I managed to survive and complete the course. Once again I got a big pop completing this stage since this one took me quite a while to beat. Would have been nice if this course was maybe 30 seconds shorter but ultimately I survived the bomb trap.

Now from here I want to take a quick detour from the story mode because I want to briefly talk about my time with the Grand Prix Cups in GX. As I went through Story mode I got Tickets for clearing the stages but those story chapters in the shop got increasingly expensive so I had to put some time into the Cups to earn more tickets to buy the chapters. That in itself was a cool journey as there I felt actual progression in getting better at F-Zero GX!

The Grand Prix Cups:

When revisiting these cups I went with Novice Difficulty to start since its been a while since I did these. But honestly my muscle memory kicked in going through all the courses in the Ruby and Sapphire Cups. I remembered the very easy layout of Casino Palace's Split Oval, Sand Ocean's Surface Slide where you don't get any boost pads or healing on the slide itself and how tricky it was to land on certain tracks in Mute City's Serial Gaps. Ulitmately I did great in both Cups getting a perfect 500 Points on the Ruby Cup and winning enough points get 1st at the Sapphire Cup. The Emerald Cup was where things got challenging. Courses like Fire Field's Cylinder Knot were tricky in that you are on a cylinder and needed to memorize the ideal route and you had to know where to utilize the boosts on Green Plant's Intersection. But I managed to do remarkably well on Casino Palace's Double Branches finding the ideal paths and using strafing to maximize the usage of boost pads. Lightning's Half Pipe was where things got tricky as for most of the race the machines are racing on a half pipe track with no guardrails and one bad turn or boost can send you flying. I died a few times on this track even when I was trying to master my strafing on it. But once I finished the course I had a great time on it knowing when to strafe and using boost power at the best instances. Might dare say Half Pipe is one of my favorite tracks in the game. Then came Big Blue's Ordeal which is a course filled will risky jumps and tight turns and while I had trouble on some of those turns I did good enough to maintain my 1st place ranking on the Emerald Cup and winning the cup for the first time!

It felt great to win all of these cups on Novice, but I went back and played all of these on Standard. Going back and forth between Jody's White Cat and the Blue Falcon I won all of these Cups on Standard which had tough but not too hard A.I. and I saw something happen that I never saw when I was younger, unlocking the Diamond Cup! I had known about the Diamond Cup before but never got good enough at the game to actually unlock it and here it is unlocked for me to race on! I played the Cup on Novice so the A.I. wasn't too hard, but it felt surreal to race on these courses not only for the first time, but even winning some of these tracks on my very first try! I beat Sand Ocean's Lateral Shift and Fire Field Undulation on my very first try and it felt amazing to do that on courses I never raced on before but also have become some of my favorite tracks. I also came in first for Cosmo Terminal's Trident and Aeropolis' Dragon Slope but I also died on those courses so those aren't first try wins. Phantom Road's Silm-line Slits was the final course of the Cup and it definitely took its Rainbow Road inspiration to heart having a multi colored road that had some tight corridors and traps for anyone taking too much time to heal. After dying a few times I finished the race at 7th place but still got enough points to win the cup. I learned when you beat the Diamond Cup on Novice Mr. Zero of F-Zero TV can ask for an autograph. Since I used the Blue Falcon to win the Diamond Cup, I got Captain Falcon's autograph and now I know what that looks like.

So while I played the Cups to farm tickets for Story Mode, that in itself was an awesome experience. I saw that I got better at F-Zero winning the Emerald Cup for the first time and even winning the cups on Standard was huge progress in me getting better at this game compared to how I played in the past. Heck I want to go back at some point and do more cups to not only unlock more characters but also try more cups on the Expert Difficulty and see how I fair there. Back to the Story mode:

Chapter 7: The F-Zero Grand Prix

Here we go, here's the Story Mode's Grand Prix. Which is not a collection of 5 race courses to race on but rather 1 track that's on Mute City. The cutscene starts with an intro of the many Pilots competing in the Grand Prix which felt reminiscent of the cut intro to Episode 1's Pod Race intro that introduced nearly EVERYBODY in the Boonta Eve Classic. We see pilots like Pico and Samurai Goroh who sadly doesn't get a pop. Then we see Black Shadow confident he took care of Falcon but Captain gets introduced and both spare some trash talk before the race begins.

Let me tell you, THIS IS THE HARDEST CHAPTER IN STORY MODE! But how? This should be like those Races on the standard Grand Prix mode right? On Normal Difficulty it shouldn't be too bad right? Well here's the thing. All the CPU racers are aggressive and will attack you and each other and they have those infinite boosts to worry about. Plus Black Shadow and Blood Falcon have specific perks where they have higher health than the rest of the 27 CPU racers so they are very difficult to knock out. But not only are the CPU Racers hard to deal with but the track itself is full of traps where there are burning pads that can make you lose health, icy turns that you can turn off the course and even a narrow bridge with no guardrails. This is a course that would fit perfectly in the latter portion of the Diamond Cup. I went with a Max Speed build to start and despite me dying at times, I did finish from 10th to even 2nd place but that wasn't enough. In one Run I did eliminate Black Shadow but Blood Falcon was so ahead I couldn't keep up. In fact, more often than not I'd see Blood Falcon's Blood Hawk took the lead but let Black Shadow win in the end. It was like these 2 had an evil Shake and Bake strategy from Talladega Nights. I then tried an acceleration build but I did even worse as I kept falling off the bridge making the Blue Falcon more sensitive to turns. I went back to the Max Speed Build.

After dying so many times, I did one thing that was the only thing I did in the Story Mode chapters. Create and use a suspend point on the final lap of Chapter 7. Well, I did make a suspend point for chapter 6 but didn't use it. I didn't feel good about doing this but on 1 lap I was in 3rd behind the Evil Duo and from there I loaded my suspend point to try and win. I died a few more times or finished below 1st after loading my point. But on my winning lap I knocked out Blood Falcon and got a boost to get ahead of Black Shadow. After getting the boosts from a healing strip I managed to finally get above Black Shadow and win the race. This was the chapter I was the least excited about clearing because yeah I finally beat chapter 7 but I used a Suspend point for it so this was my one handicapped victory. I'd like to get back to this chapter and clear it in 1 clean run. But Captain Falcon wins the Grand Prix belt and the villain who bossed around Black Shadow in the prologue comes in and makes Black Shadow Disintegrate. He then reveals himself to be Deathborn, F-Zero Champion of the Underworld and wants Captain Falcon to face him off in a race tomorrow with the belt for a challenge that could decide the fate of the Galaxy.

Chapter 8: Secrets of the Champion's Belt:

The next Day Captain Falcon enters the Underworld and sees Deathborn waiting for him. He brings the championship belt to Deathborn who is very happy he did because apparently both Falcon's belt and Deathborn's Hell Belt make up everything light and dark in the galaxy respectively and if both are together the champion of both could have the power to do some awful stuff. Deathborn wishes to turn the whole galaxy into ashes and darkness as he makes his speech with his Claw impression from Inspector Gadget. Of Course Captain Falcon ain't gonna have that and gets ready to race Deathborn in Hell itself.

So here's the thing, this course was brutal and one that I kept on failing many times. The Course itself is generous with healing pads so I'll give it that but there are all sorts of mines planted on the course which will eat up health. Although those Mines are good to hit early on so you get a speed boost and catch up to Deathborn and his Dark Schneider(?) vehicle. Wait what is a Schneider? But what makes this course so hard are some unforgiving tight corners that I had to master and not have much error on or else Deathborn will keep a comfortable lead. There were many turns that I had trouble on a Max Speed build that I eventually tried the Acceleration Build instead. Granted I still lost many times whether it be from hitting a mine that at times forced me to crash off the stage or by not beating Deathborn but I noticed I was doing better overall on the Acceleration. I was making better turns and found myself finishing closer to Deathborn. I also learned that the CPU wasn't too crazy since its one racer and if I'm smart, I can get Deathborn to spin attack me if I'm nearby but boost past his attacks since spin attacks slow the machine down. Though yeah, I was learning these lessons after many failures because there would be so many tight turns or wall hits that ruined my momentum and I kept losing. But on my winning lap I did a boost on a mine filled road, got one bump on the side but positioned myself for a boost to bypass Deathborn, cause him to attack to slow down and then I boosted my way to victory! This chapter also has my favorite mission cleared cutscene since Deathborn sounds like the Cookie Monster as he falls to his death. Then Falcon gets both belts that form into one and he swears to protect it from any evil out there. But LET'S FREAKING GO! My excitement for story mode was renewed here since I beat this without Suspend Points and finally figured out how to surpass the Dark Schneider! By then I knew I was close! It felt like the end but I knew there was 1 last chapter remaining to finally beat this Insanely hard story mode.

Chapter 9: Enter the Creators:

Just when things were looking up as Falcon had the belt frame on a wall, all the sudden the belt starts talking to the Captain. It turns out that the one true religion of the F-Zero Universe is some kind of in universe Polytheistic Religion as there are 3 Gods who are inside the belt who refer to themselves as The Creators. Apparently they had planned for this all along wanting Falcon to win so they can capture Falcon's soul. Maybe when the Underworld belt merged with the GP's Belt, the Creators got corrupted and got this desire to act like Shang Tsung from Mortal Kombat? Overall this story has been pretty nonsensical but when the 3 Creators pop out of the belt and form their own Blue Falcon Machine to challenge Captain Falcon for his soul, Captain Falcon does NOT TAKE ANY SHIT and is up for the challenge!

So for the final chapter of this rather hard story mode, this one delivered on the difficulty.The track is set in the Phantom Road setting with no guardrails at all, no boost pads or even any hazards like mines or fire. It has 1 health strip before the lap checkpoint and that's it. Plus this race is set up like beating a Staff ghost race since the Creators' Falcon acts like a Ghost and you have to beat its time. Perhaps this is a meta chapter as your final challenge is to beat the time of a developer's ghost. This was a course that actually took me 15-20 tries to complete the first lap alone! I was making so many turns that were too much or wasn't turning hard enough that I was constantly falling off a cliff. Plus I kept on making mistakes even after I completed the first lap boosting in areas where I couldn't react well enough to turn and fall off again. I was using a Max Speed build for this chapter but like Chapter 8, swapped with an acceleration build. Found this change better because it helped me turn easier on the tight corners. But I kept falling on both the first and second laps even when I was making progress. However, on my one and only run completing all 3 laps, this was where I locked in. I had enough practice to memorize the turns, boost when it was ideal and react appropriately to staying on the track. When I did all of these things and when I completed all 3 laps for the first time, that was when I beat the final chapter of GX's Story Mode.

That moment when I beat the final chapter was some of the happiest moments I had playing a video game. I really didn't think beating this whole Story Mode was possible years ago. I was yelling in joy but also got teary eyed at the same time. I managed to beat all 9 story mode chapters and I was sharing that final chapter's finish on Discord and with my brother via text. My Brother congratulated me but above is a picture similar to what he showed me where he pointed out that I must have been freaking out at this moment because this looks like doom. Internally I was scared, but strafing was clutch and was the key save to getting me to clear the chapter. It was such an incredible feeling to beat this final chapter knowing that I can say that I beat F-Zero GX's Story Mode, something that is quite a feat to accomplish even on its base normal difficulty.

Conclusion:

I have beaten many hard games before this playthrough. Such games include Mega Man 1-3, Mortal Kombat, Castlevania Rondo of Blood, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Cuphead, Celeste, Cook, Serve, Delicious 3(?!) and Elden Ring. But I don't know if I have beaten anything as hard or have had as gratifying of a credits roll than beating F-Zero GX's story mode. Is the Story Mode unfair at times with the A.I.? Yes. Should AV implemented an Easy Mode for first time players? Absolutely. Is the Story and the voice acting even any good? Not at all but I personally still love the cutscenes for how ridiculous they are. But also this was a game I started playing in 2003 and my brother and I didn't get far in the Story. I got a little farther in college but that was it. Being able to beat GX's Story mode on the Switch 2 in 2026 was something that was unexpected but something I'm very proud of doing years later. Considering that I played this game a lot back then but moreso for Grand Prix Cups this feels like a really special achievement in my mind. Granted Chapter 7 is the one chapter I used a suspend point for but otherwise being able to beat most of these chapters on a suspendless run felt incredible. This journey will certainly not be forgotten as I was consistently excited seeing that I cleared a story chapter after many failed attempts. Compared to my past playthroughs my brother and I unlocked everyone on the base roster. Guess how many Machines I unlocked while going thru story mode? 6 Machines. One of which is Deathborn's Dark Schneider which costs 20 tickets after you beat the Story Mode. There are even more characters to unlock by beating the chapters on Very Hard and beating all the chapters on Hard (Spade), but I'm not ready for that yet. Combined with my triumph in the story mode and enjoying the Cups on Standard difficulty and experiencing the Diamond Cup for the 1st time, I think it's safe to say F-Zero GX is my favorite Racing game of all time. The sense of speed is unmatched to this day, the track designs are terrific and mastering the more advanced controls feels great. Plus the music is incredible. In fact, gonna end this article with a link to the credits song.