Review #234: F-Zero GX

 Forever he will be my hero~♫

 Remember F-Zero? Y'know, that little SNES racer that featured all kinds of Mode 7 hijinks? You probably don't, while it does have a bit of a cult following, the last game in the franchise was a GBA game, and the last console iteration was the one featured here, F-Zero GX. What makes F-Zero awesome, what makes it stand out from the crowd, is its futuristic setting, as well as the incredibly fast speeds it boasts.

 The game features 4 main modes: Grand Prix, VS(Up to four players), Time Attack and Story Mode. There's 4 cups of 5 tracks each, as well as a 'super secret' fifth cup, for a total 26 tracks(There's a bonus one!). There's also 41 different racers, all with different pilots. And allow me to ramble for a bit, I'm a huge fan of character design, and this field is both to be commended and criticized in this game. The male characters are all hilariously over the top, there's Super Heroes, Aliens, Skeletons what have you, and they've the mannerisms, unlockable endings and backstory(Which can be read in the 'Pilot Profile' in-game!) and they are awesome! Female characters don't have it as good, the backstory, some of the endings and even some of the mannerisms are equally as good, but... they all share the same body with a different head, all humans by the by. All of them wear a colored top and a colored metal thong, the colors might be different, but the designs are the same. A couple of them actually bare their midriffs, but that's as different as it gets. It's a bit disappointing, since they did such a great job with the others! Lest I forget, each of the 41 racers gets their own unique theme song, and 10 different phrases for when they win a GP, how's that for attention to detail?!

 In this game, you will race your ship though all kinds of tracks, filled with tubes in which you can ride the walls, when you are riding inside them anyways as sometimes you'll race over tubes, there's gaps in the tracks, sometimes even forks that take you all over the place through hoops and loops.... Needless to say, the tracks are all sort of insane and designed with style in mind, and they are so amazing thanks to that. There are no weapons in this game, although you can ram the other racers and even destroy them, retiring them out of the remainder of the race, instead the focus is on speed. Throughout the track there are dozens of Boost pads that'll give you a boost in speed, and once you reach the second lap, you are allowed to boost in exchange for health(You can restore it by going over purple tiles over the tracks). The game can get pretty exhilarating as you reach higher and higher speeds, as you try to keep said speed, but also being careful not to fall off the track, remember, that'll retire you out of the race completely!

 Which brings me to the game's biggest issue, or asset if that's your thing, the steep learning curve. You'll have to learn how to best drift in order to keep your speed going, you'll have to learn the tracks so that you know what is coming and how to best deal with it, as well as when to or not to boost, so that you don't end up flying off-track into your game. This is a racing game that hates your guts and will kick your butt, but, but if you get the hang of it, it's also one of the most exciting racing games you'll ever play. Sadly, the game is a bit too hard for its own good. In order to unlock the fourth cup, you have to beat the first three cups in Standard or harder. Fair enough. The problem with Grand Prix is not the racers, not the rubberband AI, but the track itself. Falling of track or having your ship destroyed will cost you the race. You get 2-5 continues depending on the difficulty setting. Unlocking the 5th Cup is a pain in the butt for many reasons. You have to place first in every cup in the Master difficulty setting, no easy feat, and then you have to buy them, which more likely than not will involve farming 'Tickets'. This holds true for 10 of the unlockable racers, these can only be unlocked by finishing each chapter of the Story Mode in Very Hard. Story Mode is all kinds of insane hard, sure the cut-scenes are phenomenal and worth it, but Very Hard requires almost perfect precision. Oh, and each chapter of the Story Mode must be bought with the very same tickets, and unlocking 'Very Hard' means finishing the chapter on the other two difficulties.

 So you see, unlocking stuff is both tedious and hard. You earn tickets by placing 1st-3rd on Grand Prix Cups or unlocking and defeating Staff Ghosts in Time Attack(These only pay out one time), and these Tickets are used to buy everything. The game has a nice little 'customization' feature that lets you build your own ship. Pretty cool, but parts must be bought with the same tickets you use for Characters, AX tracks and Story Mode chapters. It doesn't matter how much you liked the game, grinding for all these tickets is not fun, and coupling it with the incredibly hard difficulty, if you plan to unlock everything, as well as the high difficulty curve... let's say that the game can be frustrating as well. Oh, and the 'Death Races' in which you had to be the last racer standing through unending laps from F-Zero X are gone, which made me all kinds of sad.

 The graphics are not as good as you think, but better than you'd expect. The backdrops are pretty gorgeous, but if you pay attention, tracks and ships are made up of pretty simple shapes. Hard to fault it, as it keeps the framerate at a steady 60 no matter how fast you are going, with 30 racers on the track at the same time. Pretty impressive. The CG cutscenes are a bit... dated, some cross the uncanny valley, particularly the females trying to be 'sexy'(Which is all of them, sadly). It's... it's creepy, particularly Jody. And the animation... well, at least they are funny and have nothing to do with the gameplay! The soundtrack is made up of Techno-Rock, and it's amazing, it's the kind of music that wouldn't be out of place in a Dynasty Warriors game, and I love it. And did I mention that each racer of the 41 gets their own theme song? And each track has its own song?

 F-Zero GX is on of the most exciting racing games you'll ever find. The difficulty curve is steep, and unlocking everything may be an herculean effort, but the game is oh so much fun, provided you can get the hang of it.
 8.0 out of 10