F-Zero: Welcome to the Future!

[Leon Retro]

The whizz of the crafts slicing around the track- the slow brownies in your way as you shoot past them with a nitro- Oh no! an exploding craft is in your way as it menacingly darts left and right in front of you and then boom it explodes- smash you're in the fizzing electric wall - Back in the race the symphony of sound and racing pleasure keep you transfixed as you fight to take over green and stop pink from bullying you in to the wall, and then the final stretch and across the line- 1st place is yours as the triumphant fizzing pleasure fills your mind- Welcome to F-Zero!



My favourite game of all time? It has to be F-Zero on the SuperFamicom/Nintendo.

The moment my eyes witnessed the games majestic abstract world I was in awe. My ears came alive with the sound of what turned-out to be Mute-City and the visuals just fueled my mind with pleasure. I took hold of the joypad and entered this new experience as Captain Falcon. Slicing around the track in sheer bliss- like no game in history this was unique. A true defining point in my gaming life that affected me like no other title.

Even today this game still triumphantly screams playability and beauty- so well crafted and solid in design, this is a game that transcends simple categorisation and stands aloft the gaming world with the mighty few as a AAA title.

Go play F-Zero2 if you want a new challenge!

[MonkeyWrench]

Transcends simple categorisation? So it's more than just a racing game then?

[wheelaa]

Its art.

Prefer wipeout 'grumbles'

[Duddyroar]

Agreed. F-Zero will always hold a special place in my heart. It was the first game I ever saw running on the Super Famicom and it looked amazing. The music was also fantastic - Mute City and Port Town being my faves. Even the recent updates can't beat the original, IMO.

Wipeout isn't anywhere near as good - F-Zero had a better 'world' and filled it with cool characters, whereas Wipeout strikes me as a bit faceless and bland.

[Leon Retro]

In my eyes this game is a work of art. It trancends being just another racing game and brought the Future Racing genre to prominence. The game has inspired a myriad of simlar titles including the infamous Wipeout series.

I like the newer F-Zero's and some of the Wipeout series- Powerdrome( the new one) is nice and Quantum Red Shift was fun, but for me the original F-Zero is a game I cherish; every bit of binary code in the rom is enriched with magic.


What makes me mad though is the total lack of genuine heart-felt respect for this game. Sure it is a ten a penny title and was everywhere you looked back in the day, but that is simply because it was popular. It's popularity and lack of rarity seems to make people dismiss the title as uninteresting, when it is a beautiful deep experience.

This was Nintendo at their best. MarioWorld-Pilotwings-F-Zero-Mario-Kart and all their other SNES classics. All these are AAA titles that I still enjoy and play just like they are fresh. It amazes me how well they have stood the test of time- and I can't stand it when people go on about obscure weak titles when games like these are the only games truely worthy of praise!

One last thing... Captain Falcon is the man!

[Leon Retro]

Agreed. F-Zero will always hold a special place in my heart. It was the first game I ever saw running on the Super Famicom and it looked amazing. The music was also fantastic - Mute City and Port Town being my faves. Even the recent updates can't beat the original, IMO.

Wipeout isn't anywhere near as good - F-Zero had a better 'world' and filled it with cool characters, whereas Wipeout strikes me as a bit faceless and bland.

Good to hear another F-Zero fan exists!

I like all the tracks, but obviously Mute City has a special place in my heart because of the music. White Land is a fave, and makes me realise how much the music suited and enhanced the tracks. Who can forget Fire Field getting to this track was worth it.

I played it today and realised how tight the gameplay and overall design is. Everything from the sound-effects of the crafts to the track design is done with a lot of passion. I really enjoy the immediacy of the experience- there isn't anything that gets in the way of the fun.

My only wish would be for this game to garner more recognition as the AAA classic it so clearly is. The retro scene hasn't really acknowledged it, and top50 games of all time never mention it.

I could play this game until I'm Big Blue in the face; just one more go I think, this game is in my blood!

[MonkeyWrench]

Wipeout was inspired by the original Powerdrome, not F-Zero (the developers words, not mine). Other than the futuristic setting there's very little in the way of similarities between the two.

[Tychom]

For me it's still the best in the F-Zero series and one of the best racing games ever made. I prefer the feel of the drift and tapping thrust to get around corners so much more than the almost on-rails feel and blinding speed of the 3D versions.

Skimming across corners catching the electro barriers feels superb as you take a perfect line to fly in over the right angle - again a feeling completely missing from the 3D versions.

If there's one thing I find missing from more recent Nintendo racers and the thing they got absolutely spot on with F-Zero and Mario Kart then it's got to be the courses.

I feel that they've swapped the tight twisting courses of these games for larger more open courses. Perfecting that line - the right combination of drift, thrusting, breaking and rudder in F-Zero's case - to get around the bends is no longer half as important. I particularly have to look at the evolution of Mario Kart towards it's vast weapon-heavy hairpin-lite tracks with sadness.

The tight square bends of Silence and ever twisting White Land track will always stay with me.

Oh and the music, elevator music, it's adorable.

[Mad Gear]

One of the best games EVAR!!!1.

The graphics still look ace today and the music really shouldn't work but it does.

Zooming along, playing catch up, your energy ebbing away. You tight turn round the bend barely brushing the energy sapping edge. You're gaining on the leader, warning sirens are going, the ship is throbbing under the strain. You take another sharp bend pefectly only to be met by a flashing backmarker. You try to avoid contact, the heat from the leaders craft warms your face. Somehow your ship appears to have some sort of magnetic property drawing the backmarker closer. The backmarker clips your ship, exploding on contact. You try your best to rectify the ship but even with your best efforts your course resembles a ping pong balls, darting from barrier to barrier untill finally BANG, course out.

[Mayhem]

Fire Field. Master difficulty. First place.

If you could do that, you could do anything.

(and I did manage it a couple of times... usually it was second or third)

[Wil]

Seeing F-Zero plus SMW and Pilotwings just blew me away back in 1990!

F-Zero is pretty much the only racing game I ever put serious time into - constantly shaving fractions of seconds off of a race record, only pausing to run downstairs and phone my SFC F-Zero-owning mate and brag!

Then he'd do the same to me a few minutes later.

Oooh, time to dig the cart out again.

Wil - feeling the SFC love!

[brokeback]

I love f zero. but not as much as I love lebonese food. I got a vegetarian lebanese wrap today from the lebanese deli round the corner from work and it's truly awesome.

flatbread with green bean and walnut salad, humous, chillies, tomato, mint and corriander salad with a side salad of long beans with red paprika sauce. all for just ?3.

All the people at work looked at me like a maniac as I feasted on it. They ask me things like "why don't you get a bacon balm?" and "there's a chippy next to work"

[Leon Retro]

I feel that they've swapped the tight twisting courses of these games for larger more open courses. Perfecting that line - the right combination of drift, thrusting, breaking and rudder in F-Zero's case - to get around the bends is no longer half as important. I particularly have to look at the evolution of Mario Kart towards it's vast weapon-heavy hairpin-lite tracks with sadness.

The tight square bends of Silence and ever twisting White Land track will always stay with me.

Oh and the music, elevator music, it's adorable.

Have to agree! This game has such tight design it is all about being on the edge, pushing the machine within the confines of the electric fenced track. The same design sensibilities can be seen in Mario Kart and it's similarly tight gameplay.

Mario Kart changed dramatically on the N64 and GC, and imo lost all the excitement and gripping gameplay. F-Zero has fared better with the great N64 title and even the very Daytona-esque GC version is a fantastic experience. The Snes version is still my favourite though... I prefer the graphics, tunes and most of all the experience!

I will have to look on the credits for this game, the guys that designed this are geniuses!

[Leon Retro]

One of the best games EVAR!!!1.

The graphics still look ace today and the music really shouldn't work but it does.

Zooming along, playing catch up, your energy ebbing away. You tight turn round the bend barely brushing the energy sapping edge. You're gaining on the leader, warning sirens are going, the ship is throbbing under the strain. You take another sharp bend pefectly only to be met by a flashing backmarker. You try to avoid contact, the heat from the leaders craft warms your face. Somehow your ship appears to have some sort of magnetic property drawing the backmarker closer. The backmarker clips your ship, exploding on contact. You try your best to rectify the ship but even with your best efforts your course resembles a ping pong balls, darting from barrier to barrier untill finally BANG, course out.

Great description of living on the F-Zero edge! I have been in that situation so many times, but it just makes me focus harder and I nearly always come through with super skill to cross the line in 1st place.

[Duddyroar]

I think alot of F-Zero's impact was down to the fact that it was one of the first Super Famicom titles. After spending a year with the Megadrive, seeing the rich colours, smoothly rotating tracks and hearing the crystal-clear music of F-Zero just blew me away. More so than any other launch title, before or since. I think if F-Zero had been released later in the life of the machine it would be even less well-respected.

Having said that, few SNES titles come close to the polish of this game.