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F-Zero turns 30 years old today!

That's right, it's been three decades since the original game released on the Super Nintendo and a little over 16 years since F-Zero Climax, the last entry in the series, released exclusively in Japan.




For me, F-Zero, along with Super Mario World and Donkey Kong Country were among my very first gaming experiences. I wonder if Nintendo have anything planned for this racing series in the future? I think that even a re-release of F-Zero GX would get fans pretty excited and sell well enough. What are your thoughts?
 

Romulus

Member
Glad Wipeout VR came along to carry the torch above and beyond anything else.

GX is amazing though, love playing it at near 4k 60fps
 

Romulus

Member
Wipeout Omega Collection is great. I was playing it just the other day, but not in VR because that made me dizzy. But it's not F-Zero. The feels man.

The nostalgia is real, AND even the moment to moment gameplay is tighter sometimes, but its really hard to form an opinion of a VR game when you get dizzy. It's a completely transformative experience. Takes Omega from great to incredible.
 

Tesseract

Banned
Mario Kart is superior, Nintendo made the right choice in dropping this franchise.
tenor.gif
 

Seraphym

Member
Started on F-Zero X, which at the time was insane. The sense of speed was amazing.
Played the original and GBA titles later, which were not as much fun.
However Sega's GX was/is such a well polished game. Such a pure distillation of what made the series great.
It is such a shame that Nintendo has no real interest in newer games in the series.
 
redout is aces btw, brilliantly tuned
Man, I wanted to get into that game, but I just could not get the controls to feel good and intuitive to me. Having to drift and turn and tilt the nose on corners, not to mention managing breaks and boost, was just too much for my old brain/reflexes. :(

Edit: Also, game is fucking FAST. Lol
 
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BabyYoda

Banned
That and Mario Kart are still my fave Nintendo racers ever, I still like to listen to the superb Mute City music. They don't make them like that anymore. The move to 3d really didn't enhance those series imho. I'd happily take new entries if they used updated mode 7 effects (they'd also have to come to the PC, as I'm not paying Nintendo's greedy prices). Diddy Kong Racing was imo the best true 2d racer on the N64 out of the big three though.

The SNES version of F-Zero was really fun on the Mega Drive mini as well, before I deleted it :p (don't pirate games kiddos, it''s not worth it, you can't put a price on a clean conscience).
 
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-Arcadia-

Banned
X and GX are so amazing, or at least X was for the time. It’s been so long, I could be boomering. As much as I love, love, love GX as an unholy, brilliant combination of arcade Sega and Nintendo, I’ve always had a soft-spot for X, which feels a bit more Nintendo-like to me.
 

DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
SNES F-Zero is one of my favorite games ever.

That said, the game on harder difficulties isn't that fun. The collision system makes the racing rage inducing.


That game was super tough to beat King League on Master difficulty. I could only do it with the green car that took a lot of damage IIRC.
 

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
This is one of the most responsive, twitchy racing games I own. The later games never really clicked for me but I love the SNES one, I dunno why. I didn't play it as a kid so it isn't nostalgia. Something about the track layout and absurd speed make you feel like a pro when you race a track properly (all boosts, all shortcuts, optimal turns, etc)
 

reptilex

Banned
WHY TF hasn't Nintendo released an F-Zero since GX/AX? This is fucking beyond me.

They're milking Mario, Zelda, Pokemon over and over and are killing their valuation and assets by letting their backlog rot. At least we heard about Metroid Prime, and there was a Starfox few years ago but WHERE THE HELL is F-Zero???

Fuck Nintendo for this completely degenerate lack of backlog sustainment.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
Still remember when I went to TRU to buy SimCity, but it was long OOP, and bought F-Zero Players Choice or whatever it was as I didn't have enough money for a full priced game. Not going to say I didn't miss playing SimCity but man F-Zero was such an awesome game, I dumped hours and hours into it.

F-Zero GX could be released tomorrow, with no changes whatsoever, and it would be one of the best games on whatever platform it came out, and one of the best games of the year. It has not aged a day.
 
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-Arcadia-

Banned
WHY TF hasn't Nintendo released an F-Zero since GX/AX? This is fucking beyond me.

They're milking Mario, Zelda, Pokemon over and over and are killing their valuation and assets by letting their backlog rot. At least we heard about Metroid Prime, and there was a Starfox few years ago but WHERE THE HELL is F-Zero???

Fuck Nintendo for this completely degenerate lack of backlog sustainment.

People don’t buy it; it doesn’t get made. As simple as that.

If people actually bought Metroid and F-Zero, you wouldn’t be able to crowbar Nintendo off the franchises. But as they are, dedicating limited top-tier talent and time, that could go to better returns, or even just safe ones, to these two doesn’t tend to make sense.

That Prime 4 is happening, and that Nintendo keeps trying with Metroid (albeit constantly farming it to others) is somewhat of a miracle.

In this hobby, artistry has to unfortunately be accompanied by business sense. It isn’t what ’should be made‘, as much as it is, what ’should and needs to be made’.
 

Tesseract

Banned
People don’t buy it; it doesn’t get made. As simple as that.

If people actually bought Metroid and F-Zero, you wouldn’t be able to crowbar Nintendo off the franchises. But as they are, dedicating limited top-tier talent and time, that could go to better returns, or even just safe ones, to these two doesn’t tend to make sense.

That Prime 4 is happening, and that Nintendo keeps trying with Metroid (albeit constantly farming it to others) is somewhat of a miracle.

In this hobby, artistry has to unfortunately be accompanied by business sense. It isn’t what ’should be made‘, as much as it is, what ’should and needs to be made’.
LividConsciousCondor-size_restricted.gif
 

Komatsu

Member
People don’t buy it; it doesn’t get made. As simple as that.

If people actually bought Metroid and F-Zero, you wouldn’t be able to crowbar Nintendo off the franchises. But as they are, dedicating limited top-tier talent and time, that could go to better returns, or even just safe ones, to these two doesn’t tend to make sense.

F-zero has always sold well.

F-Zero (SNES): 2.85 million
F-Zero X (N64): 1.10 million
F-Zero Maximum Velocity (GBA): 1.05 million
F-Zero GX (NGC): 1.8 million (according to Nagoshi, 2018 interview)

If you include Climax and the VC figures for F-Zero SNES, the franchise has sold more than 7 million units, an extremely respectable figure, especially given that 2 of the 4 consoles it graced had a smallish user base. It sold more than Fire Emblem (excluding all post-2004 releases, so that we can compare similar time frames), Kid Icarus, Pikmin and Xenoblade, all active franchises.

There's no reason whatsoever for Nintendo to hold on to the franchise besides the fact that all of its consoles since 2006 have been underpowered compared to the competition, and visual oomph was always a huge part of F-Zero, ever since it came out blowing people's minds with Mode7.

Nagoshi and SEGA have said more than once they'd happily develop another title if Nintendo would let them.
 
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