What makes F-Zero special? What makes it so different from the countless other futuristic racing games that have released since, from Wipeout to FAST Racing to Redoubt? That's a question that took me a long time to answer. If you asked an average person, they'd probably say the speed and proceed to call F-Zero GX their favorite game in the series. But I don't like F-Zero GX all that much, so that's probably not why I like F-Zero. Eventually, I figured it out. I like F-Zero because it's aggressive. It's not just that it's fast, it's that it's brutal. The entire game philosophy is about bashing your opponents into the wall while not crashing yourself, it's a combat racer without any items, only pure, raw guts and adrenaline. And the F-Zero game that best encapsulates this philosophy for me is F-Zero X (side note: prepare for a lot of GX bashing, sorry to those who really like it).
F-Zero X is a simple racing game at its core. You race slick futuristic-looking cars through simple futuristic-looking courses at blisteringly fast speeds. There aren't any items like in something like Wipeout or Mario Kart, the only way to win in an F-Zero race is to master the course and play aggressively. Where the original F-Zero kept things pretty simple, only really allowing you to accelerate, brake, steer, and lean into turns, X makes a bunch of fundamental changes that the rest of the series, even F-Zero 99, would continue to use. First off, there's the boost system. In the Mode 7 games, you get a boost after every lap which you can use to get ahead. In F-Zero X, your boost is tied to your car's energy. If you lose all your energy, your car explodes and you automatically lose the race. This forms a brilliant risk-and-reward system where you have to weigh if you want to take the risk and lose some of your energy for some additional speed, or play it safe even if you may not make it to first. GX and 99 bring back this system, and they're all the better for it. F-Zero X also adds a spin move that, if well-timed, can allow you to bash enemies out of the way. This is really your only form of combat, meaning you have to get up close and personal with your opponents to excel. Both of these mechanics feed into F-Zero's central philosophy incredibly well because they both force the player to be aggressive and take risks. In comparison, GX is more focused around simply being fast and never stopping your momentum, while X feels more built around that combat side of F-Zero which I'm way more of a fan of.
However, F-Zero X wouldn't work as well as it does if its controls aren't spot-on, but thankfully they feel incredibly tight. X makes it easy to pull off turns with confidence even at fast speeds, and the tracks feel perfectly built around the controls. I really like X's lineup of tracks, the difficulty curve is spot-on as they progressively get more complex at a steady pace. There's also quite a solid amount of gimmick variety, as tracks will throw it half-pipes, pipes, cylinders, huge jumps, and weird banks that play around with gravity. It all culminates in a brilliant final cup with some absolutely devious and wild turns, along with a throwback of Mario Kart 64's Rainbow Road that actually plays better than the track it was originally based on, and a deceptively brutal and endlessly memorable final course shaped like a giant hand. Seriously, Big Hand may look super silly on the surface but it does not mess around. As far as difficulty goes, I think X strikes the perfect balance between being tough but fair. It's a very fast and challenging game, but thanks to the perfect controls and difficulty curve, it feels manageable and accessible. Compared to GX which goes way too far by requiring high level play from the get-go and locks a ton of content behind its horribly unbalanced Story Mode, X's difficulty feels far more satisfying.
On a content level, F-Zero X also offers a lot that keeps me coming back. With 24 tracks and 30 racers to play as, it's a pretty beefy racing game especially for the N64, but there's also a ton of side modes. There's the usual fare like Time Attack and VS multiplayer, but there's also the stellar Death Race mode where you have to take out all the other racers on an exclusive course. It baffles me that we never got anything even similar to this outside of maybe F-Zero 99, because it fits F-Zero's gameplay loop to a tee. But my personal favorite game mode in F-Zero X, and one of my favorite game modes in any racing game period, is the unlockable X Cup, a fifth cup that is entirely procedurally-generated. This means that every time you play the X Cup, you will get entirely different tracks with unique layouts and gimmicks, essentially giving F-Zero X an infinite amount of content. I'm going to be honest, the X Cup is a big element of why F-Zero X is my favorite. It makes X such an easy game to replay because I can just play a round of X Cup and experience something entirely new. Granted, there is a lot of jank involved as sometimes the turns can be kind of ridiculous, and the AI isn't always well-equipped to handle these random tracks, but that's part of the appeal. You'll never know what you're going to get, you might get something on par with Nintendo's official tracks, or you might get the F-Zero equivalent of a Little Timmy level.
But if that all still isn't enough content, F-Zero X actually got an add-on exclusively on the Nintendo 64DD. Of course, that means I haven't been able to play it, but it's still really cool and I still want to talk about it. Probably the best game on the 64DD was the F-Zero X Expansion Kit, which came with 12 new courses that are even more complex than the hardest base X tracks, culminating in a sequel to that game's final track called Big Foot. Brilliant. It also added a rock remix of Rainbow Road to that track based on Rainbow Road, so that's neat. But the real boon is that the Expansion Kit added both a Car Maker and a Course Maker. The car maker let you design your own vehicles with a bunch of parts, something that GX would also add in the form of the Garage. But even cooler was that Course Maker where you could make your own tracks, and pretty much all of X's mechanics were there. You could make loops and sharp turns, add in gimmicks like the pipes and cylinders, change the background, all with an incredible level of control over how it all looks. F-Zero Climax would also get a track editor and that was amazing too, but 3D track editors are incredibly rare outside of Trackmania which makes the F-Zero X Expansion Kit feel incredibly impressive and special for managing to do this when it could.
Graphically, F-Zero X is one of the biggest technical achievements on the N64. While the car and tracks models are quite simple and the backgrounds don't have too much going on, that's all because Nintendo wanted this game to reach a smooth, uncompromised 60fps. Keep in mind, as I said in my Sin & Punishment post, this is an N64 game. This is a console that struggles to consistently hit 30fps, and the most blisteringly fast racing game on the system manages to reach a consistent 60 with no lag and zero stutters. I'm not even a frame junkie, I couldn't care less most of the time, but it's hard not to admire what Nintendo accomplished here. Outside of the simple models though, F-Zero X easily has my favorite aesthetic out of any game in the series. GX may look really stunning for its console, but its clean sleek futuristic look feels increasingly generic as time goes on. F-Zero X goes for a gritty, death metal aesthetic to it instead, and it rocks so hard. I love the comic book look of the menus, how aggressively the cars slam into each other during a race, and of course, that phenomenal soundtrack. F-Zero X's music is entirely death metal, which is kind of unusual for Nintendo, but fits the game's energy so well and is easily one of the best soundtracks on the N64. Filled with badass riffs, chill-inducing guitar wails, stellar remixes of SNES tracks, and sometimes just straight-up thrash metal, every single tune in F-Zero X is phenomenal and gives the rock fan in me so much serotonin. GX has some good tunes, but it doesn't come anywhere close to being this raw. Honestly, I don't think anything else Nintendo's made is this raw.
Overall, F-Zero X is easily my favorite game in the series and one of my favorite racing games period for how well it's aged. With its aggressive gameplay loop, wild track designs, comic book aesthetic, and banging death metal soundtrack, X has a grit and chaotic vibe to it that none of the other entries in the series have really been able to capture. And with a wide array of tracks, racers, and modes, not even getting into the X Cup and Expansion Kit, F-Zero X still offers so much years down the line.
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