[Playing…] F-Zero GX

I recently discovered that I couldn't transfer my game F-Zero GX from one Memory Card to another for reasons that only the game knows, so I thought maybe it was a good time to start a new game on my favorite Memory Card, where I have all the important Gamecube games.

The task was not going to be a one-day thing, since F-Zero GX It is a game with a very high difficulty and with a lot of unlockable content (to give you an idea, we start the game with the 4 pilots from the SNES version, so we have more than 40 to unlock, and that is not counting other unlockable elements).

I'm not very skilled at racing games so I don't usually play them, and it's been many years since I played racing games. F-Zero GX, so it was good to rediscover it after so long.

This game has the grace of having been created by Amusement Visions, after an agreement between SEGA and Nintendo, who at that time were also allied with Namco to create arcade games with the board known as Triforce. From that strange three-way marriage, games like the two Mario Kart of Arcade (with Pac-man among its runners) that unfortunately were not adapted to Gamecube and F-Zero AX, which was brought to Gamecube to add some new features and more content, becoming F-Zero GX. As a curiosity to say that the exclusive content of F-Zero AX can be unlocked in F-Zero GX if we are very good at playing.

The technical invoice of F-Zero GX It is surprising, its graphics are very good and its circuits are full of details that can go unnoticed due to the speed and fluidity of the game.

Although what really impressed me about this game was discovering its story mode, where we will live the adventures of Captain Falcon and based on videos and races, many of them on exclusive circuits and with totally new elements based on the events of the story, such as a circuit that we have to do without dropping below a specific speed, since if that happened a bomb that Blood Falcon hooked to our ship would explode.

That story mode is interesting (and difficult) enough to be a game in itself, but as I said, this game is full of unlockable content, so it's just one of the many things we can do to entertain ourselves.

In addition to competing in the Grand Prix, Versus, Time Trial, we can create our own ships (and even draw symbols to stick on them) that we can use in the rest of the modes, giving us the pleasure of completing the Grand Prix with our favorite personalized gadget, piloted by the driver we like the most from the extensive roster.

Although it's no use having the most incredible ship in the world if we don't learn to control it correctly, and this game requires almost perfect control if we want to progress in our careers. Obviously it is very important to memorize and internalize the circuits, especially their energy recovery zones, mine zones or deceleration zones, but above all we have to remember the curves, because that is where we will have to use the L and R triggers to be able to make them as tight as possible, thus saving a few seconds of time (or in the case of very tight curves, saving ourselves a collision with the wall). Monitoring the energy bar of our ship is vital, especially because when we activate a Turbo it is reduced considerably, so we have to know when we can abuse the turbos to try to achieve a victory.

Sometimes we will find ourselves in the situation that the race has become impossible for us and we are running out of lives to try more times, at that moment the best thing is to bring out our violent side and use our attacks (X or Z buttons) to hit laterally or rotate our ship violently, in the hope of damaging the rival ships and causing their automatic defeat. For every 5 competitors that we eliminate in the same race we will get an extra life, so this violent attitude (not without risk, by the way) is more than justified.

During the race the game will tell us where our rival is (the runner closest to us in the classification) which can also bring out our violent side, since if we eliminate him, it will make things much easier for us in the classification. If we are skilled in the art of destroying other people's ships, we can eliminate more than one direct rival in the race and thus be able to score a large number of points from the rest of the competitors.

Having said all this, it may sound like this game is more about hitting each other than reaching high speeds, but I'm telling you that's not the case. It is quite difficult to eliminate rivals, unless they are close to us, and both lateral attacks and the turning of the ship can cause the ship to go out of control and cause us to suffer damage and a significant loss of speed. We must keep in mind that the more speed we reach, the more dangerous it is to make sudden movements (such as attacks) and that even any turn can make us lose control at specific moments (I recommend using the L and R buttons). Also, don't think that the rest of the pilots are going to watch you try to beat them, quite the opposite, the moment you make a mistake (or your energy is low) you will see how they come after you to finish you off.

To be honest, I've gotten better results by focusing on racing my best than trying to eliminate my direct rivals, but the joy of being able to do both and solve the competition for yourself is too tempting to contain my desire for angry driving.

Although I have to admit that the hours have flown by while playing F-Zero GX (and I'm not particularly good and I've killed myself quite a few times) there was one element that I barely remembered and that I've never really liked: the sound section.

The sounds are very good, but the melodies that play while we run are extremely forgettable. It is true that some include small parts of famous songs from the series, but it is almost anecdotal and the end result is something totally insipid. This is quite sad because the soundtrack of F-Zero of SNES and F-Zero of Nintendo 64 were much more powerful and lively. This time they have opted for some electronic music that I would prefer they had saved and although you can unlock some classic songs, it turns out that there are only a couple, so the result doesn't improve much either.

When you enter the character menu (where the history of all of them is detailed, as well as the data on their ship), you discover that each character has their own musical theme and there is a lot of variety in style between them. So we can hear electronic, rock, sinister themes worthy of the opening of a television series about the character. Most of those themes fit quite well with the corresponding pilot and some of them are even sung.

The fact that there is so much variety and quality in the driver themes is to be applauded, but it also adds to my feeling that the racing themes are bland and boring.

In any case, the musical section is something totally personal (I'm sure that more than one person will prefer this soundtrack to the one the previous games had) and it can't bother a game that has a very good technical section, diverse game modes and a very high taste for detail.

When I finished my game with this game I couldn't help but feel enormous disappointment when I remembered that this game, from 2003, is the last F-Zero that Nintendo has launched for a home console and that at the moment there is no plan to recover this saga at least in the short term.

It is true that Captain Falcon survives as a mass idol in the saga Super Smash Bros., but it seems a shame to me that the more than 40 pilots of this franchise (each one with their own story) have fallen into oblivion, along with their saga.

Mario Kart It is Nintendo's star racing game and I think that has done a lot of damage to this saga, but the truth is that both only share a genre and are totally different in tone, gameplay and story. Let's hope that one day we will see characters like The Skull, Mighty Gacelle, Octoman or Pico get on their ships to compete once again.