F-Zero 99

[dataDave]

Is anyone else playing this? It’s all so masterfully executed. An absolute dream come true for any fan of F-Zero.

Don’t let the chaotic nature of the trailer throw you off. This is pure breakneck SFC/SNES F-Zero once you boost past the pack and settle into a top 10 spot. Racing along in first place is so tense, as one slight deviation from the perfect race line will guarantee someone catching you up. I’m very surprised how they’ve made racing without weapons this much fun.

GPs are the best. Knight League is exactly how it is in the original game, only the bottom 20 are eliminated after each round. Survive that and Queen League opens up for you. Similar to how Tetris 99 worked.

EDIT: Scratch that, it seems Queen and King leagues will come at a later date. I just won a Knight League GP and only earned a few bits for my machine and player card.

[Nu-Eclipse]

I genuinely feel that F-Zero 99 would go a long way to being viable if Nintendo release a physical version of it with a Switch Online 1-year sub at a massively subsidised price like they did with Tetris 99.

[fuse]

Played an hour or so of this tonight and had a great time with it. I find it quite funny that they make you do CPU-only races with 25 and 50 racers first, just to try and prepare you, but even still it does nothing to quell the chaos that kicks off in the game proper. Honestly felt a bit of sensory overload - in the best way possible - and actually found myself laughing involuntarily at what was going on in a room by myself. I particularly love how the races start in the pre-circuit bit and how they all converge in different ways to spread out the pack.

Given how little I've played of Tetris 99 and how non-competitive I am at that, it still felt like you could treat that as a single player game and just focus on your game. There is absolutely no chance with that in this - you are getting right into the thick of it whether you want to or not, and it's glorious.

[dataDave]

Once you're consistently reaching tenth or above the GPs become a lot more intimate and personal.

Here's a nice example. The GP leader screwed me out of a decent finish on Sand Ocean, so I got my revenge on him during the following race. After batting a couple of chancers back I used the opportunity to boost myself and close some space between me and second place (the GP leader). He has an accident and I can see he's smoking, so I quickly squeeze in another boost before he can make use of the pit, slamming him into the side for a rebound and takedown. This is my third takedown of the entire GP so far, so I get a full energy tank back as my reward which all but guarantees me the win.

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Despite winning the final two rounds I still only came 6th overall. Better luck next time!




You've really got to play aggressively in order to score KOs early on in the GP. They carry across over the entire stretch. I also get the feeling that most players really don't know their way around the tougher tracks, as I have a much easier time after Mute CIty.

I genuinely feel that F-Zero 99 would go a long way to being viable if Nintendo release a physical version of it with a Switch Online 1-year sub at a massively subsidised price like they did with Tetris 99.

I'd like that for the simple fact that it'd pretty much guarantee them not pulling the plug on it until they pull down the Switch's online functionality in its entirety.

[ItsThere]

Can't add anything to what Dave has said but this is awesome. Really fun. Will play more of it.

[Atticus]

Blasting through the tutorials I was thinking here we go, the old magic is still there. First race proper I'm like, wow this is busy ... I'm going to have to ... I've exploded

It's absolutely brilliant but I have to recalibrate my F-Zero brain to incorporate battling ... not just threading a needle.

[dataDave]

This game is pure crack. I can't put it down at all. I switched over to Golden Fox momentarily, scored a couple of wins, and then went back to Wild Goose for the durability and killing potential. I'm hooked on scoring KOs in order to expand my pride meter for later on in the GP. This circumvents the Wild Goose's very slow pit recovery and compounds nicely with 97%+ of players not really knowing Sand Ocean, Death Wind or Silence too well meaning I can hunt down GP leaders and pressurise them with large amounts of boost after they over-extend - which hopefully leads to a kill and my bar refilling. I say 97%+ because there's always bloody one, isn't there? xD Usually Japanese.

Once I unlock all of the WG liveries and decals I'll switch over to Fire Stingray perhaps.

This is probably going to end up being my most-played Switch game. It's already my GOTY.

[ItsThere]

How are you getting consistent KO's Dave? I can't seem to manage any apart from on the last lap.

[dataDave]

How are you getting consistent KO's Dave? I can't seem to manage any apart from on the last lap.

I'll purposely nudge and spin attack the grey bumper cars/snails on the first race, and sometimes Big Blue. This puts me behind a little, but it's worth it over the course of the GP for the meter extension. I'll then net sparks for the Skyway in order to regain any lost ground. Once I'm back in a top five spot I'll keep an eye open for any players who've over extended their boost and are on fire. Killing one of those for a full pride meter is almost always a guaranteed first place finish.

[MarioMark]

I'm having an absolute blast with this game, a nice surprise and addictive. Initially I was disappointed that we weren't getting a new F-Zero game, but after playing it so much already, I've realised this is all I need.

I've still not won a race yet though

[dataDave]

I think if this was all new machines, tracks, and music it wouldn't even have half as much draw. It's such a weird emotion having 98 other players sharing this absolutely classic, overly familiar gaming turf.

Maybe one day we'll see Ace and Joker Leagues with new tracks. No biggie if not. The four existing machines are also very well balanced, possibly perfectly so. I can't really see the requirement for any more. I say that as someone who prefers F-Zero GBA, with it's wide plethora of content, over the limited-by-comparison original by quite a margin.

Like I said before, this is exactly how Nintendo should be handling all of their old IP instead of carelessly dumping ROMs on NSO. Maybe not giving everything the 99 treatment, but at the very least porting stuff to run natively on the hardware in 16:9, just like how M2 carried out all those Sega ports. How many times have I been bleating precisely that over the last few years? The only thing I'd personally add to this is a low-res mode with CRT shadow mask shaders, the way Sonic Mania did it. Again, I'm not even missing something like that at all because the game is just so good overall.

It also seems to be growing in popularity as the days go on, after a week in. This should easily be more than enough of a litmus test for Nintendo to drop a new game on us at some point in the near future.

Also, hats off to them for actually using dedicated servers for this. Not that P2P would be anywhere near possible, of course. This is more than enough reason for me to resub to NSO. I've had one DC in what must be 30 hours of play, and I'm pretty certain that was because I was playing remotely with my 5G mobile hotspot.

Now, hurry up and give us a special edition physical release with books and tat please.

[fishbowlhead]

Is this going to get a physical release at all?

[Nu-Eclipse]

Is this going to get a physical release at all?

Tetris 99 remains the only "99" title that has had a physical release to date.

Out of the other "99" titles, Super Mario Bros. 35 was a limited digital release that was shut down and Pac-Man 99 will be closed next month.

So...the odds aren't good.

[fishbowlhead]

Poop.

[ItsThere]

It is so good though. SO so much fun. I am rank B in skill now but have yet to win a race!!

I will get there. Fire Stingray may be too fragile for me to get the win so am moving to Chubby Goose