Isn't it kind of crazy that the Gameboy Advance got THREE F-Zero games?

[ghostcrew]

I've been playing a good amount of GBA recently and it struck that the console got three whole F-Zero games over it's lifetime. For a franchise that has really only seen six console releases total (the 64DD release was an Expansion Pack really and, lol, 64DD) and that Nintendo has shown middling support for at best, it seems wild to me that they released one on SNES, one on N64, one on GameCube and then THREE back-to-back on the Gameboy Advance. And then... that was it. The series was never to be seen again.

I think a big part of it being.. surprising to me is that, when I think of F-Zero, the GBA games are the absolute dead last entries that I think of. I think of F-Zero X or SNES F-Zero or Sega's amazing GameCube entry. I never ever jump to the GBA as an F-Zero console, yet that was the platform that saw literally half of all the F-Zero games.

Were they even that popular on GBA to warrant three titles? And, if so, why release three games back to back and then totally bin the franchise?

I remember playing a lot of Maximum Velocity but mainly because it was a launch title and of course you play a lot of the launch games.

Did you play any/all of them?

 

[Strings]

I miss getting a ton of series entries on the one system for most things. It's partly why the PS3 generation and beyond have been a relative bummer for me.

 

[FinFunnels]

I only knew about the first one 😲

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Looking back, the early-to-mid 2000s was pretty good for annual or biennial entries in series. Can't speak to the quality of these F-Zero games, but stuff like Metroid, Ratchet & Clank, Prince of Persia, Sly Cooper, and others got 3+ good entries in a relatively short span (short compared to nowadays).

 

[DIE BART DIE]

I'm from the UK. One of my favourite memories is my dad coming home from a business trip to Asia in April 2001, and bringing home a Game Boy Advance and a Japanese copy of Maximum Velocity. I was 12 years old and I can remember showing my friends in school the next day - they were absolutely blown away by the graphics. You have to remember at this point people were still playing Pokémon Silver on the Game Boy Color.

 

[Regulus Tera]

These games tanking the way they did is the reason we haven't gotten F-Zero since.

 

[Forkball]

I only played the first one. It was what you would imagine an F-Zero GBA game to be. A fun note is that it was developed by NDCube, which is now in charge of the Mario Party series and released Clubhouse Games last year. So it's great that they are still around. The sequels were made by Suzak who no longer exists. They made a lot of Japanese exclusive DS games. Perhaps their most notable title is Wario Master of Disguise.

There was an F-Zero anime at the time, which likely led to more F-Zero games. The last title never hit the States because it was released in Oct 2004 in Japan, meaning it was unlikely to be localized until 2005. Nintendo probably thought it wasn't worth the effort since the DS was out.

 

[ghostcrew]

I'm from the UK. One of my favourite memories is my dad coming home from a business trip to Asia in April 2001, and bringing home a Game Boy Advance and a Japanese copy of Maximum Velocity. I was 12 years old and I can remember showing my friends in the school the next day - they were absolutely blown away by the graphics. You have to remember at this point people were still playing Pokémon Silver on the Game Boy Color.

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I had a similar experience with the DS! Also from the UK, my mum went to New York when the DS had launched but hadn't yet come to the UK (there was a four month gap between the US and PAL launches!) so I saved up my Satuday job wages and convinced her to get me a DS and Mario 64 DS while she was there.

Felt very special to have this future tech four months before any of my friends were getting theirs!

 

[Shift Breaker]

Didn't Climax have the course creator mode as well? I never played too much of the F-zero games, but the idea of being able to make your own levels was incredible to me as a kid. Shame it was the only game not released overseas.

 

[balb]

Nintendo gambled on F-Zero during that era with many games and a cartoon and it didn't work out. It's why it's not a thing anymore.

 

[Jumpman23]

I'd love to see Sega do another F-Zero for Switch.

 

[Madao]

the last 2 were massive bombs and what killed the series partly.

they should have kept making one per console.

These games tanking the way they did is the reason we haven't gotten F-Zero since.

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Maximum Velocity sold well. i did over a million just like X on N64.
it was the last 2 that cratered.

I only played the first one. It was what you would imagine an F-Zero GBA game to be. A fun note is that it was developed by NDCube, which is now in charge of the Mario Party series and released Clubhouse Games last year. So it's great that they are still around. The sequels were made by Suzak who no longer exists. They made a lot of Japanese exclusive DS games. Perhaps their most notable title is Wario Master of Disguise.

There was an F-Zero anime at the time, which likely led to more F-Zero games. The last title never hit the States because it was released in Oct 2004 in Japan, meaning it was unlikely to be localized until 2005. Nintendo probably thought it wasn't worth the effort since the DS was out.

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the F-Zero anime led to nothing other than the series dying. it was only greenlit alongside GPL and the series died thanks to this being a big bomb alongside the game selling bad. the anime was a failure even in japan and it was canceled overseas since they only released 18 episodes outside japan (the whole thing was 51 episodes with Climax releasing by the time it ended).

 

[ghostcrew]

I think it's a shame that they didn't explore a 3DS F-Zero game. I feel like it's a franchise that could've been a great demonstration of the 3D effect.

 

[Lynd]

As a point of interest, several years ago someone remade Climax as an advanced F-Zero X fanmod. Pretty cool if you wanna experience it in 3D on the 64.

 

[ghostcrew]

As a point of interest, several years ago someone remade Climax as an advanced F-Zero X fanmod. Pretty cool if you wanna experience it in 3D on the 64.

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Oh, reallly??

 

[ThorHammerstein]

The first was okay though the lack of buttons made it harder to play than the original SNES version and not as fun.
The second and third didn't really feel like F-Zero much at all. Something about the movement in all 3 was just off.
Quite disappointed about that.
I still regularly play the 3 console versions.

 

[ghostcrew]

I still regularly play the 3 console versions.

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I still play F-Zero X all of the time. It's definitely one of my games on the console.

 

[Stopdoor]

Obligatory I have to post my crazy splitscreen GBA setup, 4-player makes these games totally worth it. I like how all three have subtle differences, the first one especially hewing closely to the original and Climax really tightening it up to just a standard 3 out of 3 laps.

I also like how Maximum Velocity was some weirdo far-flung future canon that will seemingly never be mentioned again, see https://www.resetera.com/threads/captain-falcon-is-already-dad.73600/

Also have to always shout out some of the awesome tunes - at least the first one attempted to do some original things and this one is a total banger only maybe let down by being just a bit too tinny.

 

[ghostcrew]

Obligatory I have to post my crazy splitscreen GBA setup, 4-player makes these games totally worth it. I like how all three have subtle differences, the first one especially hewing closely to the original and Climax really tightening it up to just a standard 3 out of 3 laps.

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What is this madness?!

 

[shoptroll]

I have GP Legend. It's good but holy crap the story segments were brutal.

 

[Stopdoor]

What is this madness?!

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You can follow the chain back through this thread lol where I show off this setup

8-player splitscreen Mario Kart

So I made some previous threads showing off some crazy multiplayer setups and being bored in the pandemic, thought I may as well share this new setup. I actually usually host with randoms so even as some things start to open up here, it still seems ill-advised to be hosting any sort of video...

www.resetera.com

 

[ghostcrew]

I have GP Legend. It's good but holy crap the story segments were brutal.

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GP Legend is actually the one that I haven't played. I have Maximum Velocity and Climax.

Brutal as in hard? I always heard that Climax was super similar to GP Legend so didn't ever try hard to get it.

 

[Transistor]

That's three more than the Switch will get

:(

 

[SirNinja]

I only ever played Maximum Velocity. It was alright for a launch title. I found the cars kinda hard to control, except for one of them which handled really well (the JB Crystal, I think it was called?).

I also remember the Tenth Zone East tracks had a banger theme. Here it is with the F-Zero X soundfont:

 

[shoptroll]

GP Legend is actually the one that I haven't played. I have Maximum Velocity and Climax.

Brutal as in hard? I always heard that Climax was super similar to GP Legend so didn't ever try hard to get it.

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Brutal as in hard. I stalled out on the story mode somewhere in the middle. Forget exactly why but I think in hindsight that's just the direction the series opted to go.

 

[Deleted member 36578]

I only played the first two. Never heard of Climax. I fucking love fzero

 

[Kneefoil]

I've played the first two a fair bit. I think I understand why it was these games that ended F-Zero. Racing games were just bad on the GBA's low res screen so it's no surprise the sales dropped after Maximum Velocity, which was a system launch game. I know the games reviewed well, but that was my personal experience with them, and when I played MV, it was still in the GBA's heyday.

 

[megaStryke]

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I'll raise you a "Mist Flow" from Climax:

 

[blame space]

maximum velocity was a great launch game.. i think it did 4 players with 1 game pak? great feature back then

 

[TechnoSyndrome]

GP Legend was an incredible fusion of the 3D games mechanics with the presentation of the SNES game, really loved that one. Never imported Climax even though there shouldn't be much of a language barrier with a racing game.

 

[Stopdoor]

I'll raise you a "Mist Flow" from Climax:

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You know generally I didn't really appreciate GP Legend and Climax's music since it was mostly just lesser SNES remixes, but I can't deny really soaking this one in now it's some good stuff.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

And, if so, why release three games back to back and then totally bin the franchise?

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Game Kult: After a quick survey on Twitter, one of the games French gamers miss the most is F Zero. Nobody really understands why Nintendo hasn't made a new one since 2004. Is there a chance we can see it back on Wii U?

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Miyamoto: [eyes open wide] I am really pleased to hear Twitter's opinion, because since the first episode on SNES many games have been made but the series has evolved very little. I thought people had grown weary of it.
I'd like to say: Thank you very much and try to wait by playing Nintendo Land's F-Zero mini-game.

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I am also very curious and I'd like to ask those people: Why F-Zero? What do you want that we haven't done before?

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[Deleted member 79517]

Never heard of Climax, but I thought it was crazy that F-Zero had an anime at the time. They bet big on F-Zero. That bet must not have had great returns.

 

[scare_crow]

I think you could play linked with friends with one Maximum Velocity cart. My friends and I used to see who could take out the most CPU vehicles. They were yellow -- we called them "banana fodder." Good times.

 

[Duxxy3]

I wish we still had dedicated handhelds with (much) lower specs. Development costs were so much lower for them. Lower risk as well. We still got great games.

I'd love a modern Nintendo DS.

 

[Agent Icebeezy]

I bought these for my Wii U before Nintendo does something like take them from the eshop because they don't want money.

I have my Wii U hooked up to one of the monitors so where I sit. This is above me.

Nintendo needs to give us a new one.

 

[thepenguin55]

I just wish I was a bigger fan of 2D F-Zero. I love F-Zero X and F-Zero GX/AX but 2D F-Zero just has kind of a different feel IMO that has never clicked with me as much as with the 3D games.

 

[ILikeFeet]

I wish we still had dedicated handhelds with (much) lower specs. Development costs were so much lower for them. Lower risk as well. We still got great games.

I'd love a modern Nintendo DS.

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I'm been looking at other sbcs like the raspberry pi and I haven't really seen anything that's much more than a 3DS at best, unless you get a jetson nano or something. but I guess at this point, you might as well just get a second hand cell phone and make games for android

 

[Dark Ninja]

F-Zero Climax was a good attempt by Nintendo or whoever to get close to what GX added to the franchise. Lots of tracks from GX and the attacking felt similar to GX. Obviously doesn't come close but it proved to me Nintendo could keep F-Zero going without AV. But it was too late at this point F-Zero was already dead.

 

[Randomless]

F-Zero Climax was awesome, it's a shame that was the late game in the series.

 

[JershJopstin]

F-Zero Climax was awesome, it's a shame that was the late game in the series.

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It's a fitting name though

Maybe they just don't want to ruin the symbolism

 

[Vague Rant]

I only played the first one. It was what you would imagine an F-Zero GBA game to be. A fun note is that it was developed by NDCube, which is now in charge of the Mario Party series and released Clubhouse Games last year. So it's great that they are still around. The sequels were made by Suzak who no longer exists. They made a lot of Japanese exclusive DS games. Perhaps their most notable title is Wario Master of Disguise.

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Another major difference behind the scenes was that Nintendo sent F-Zero SNES director Kazunobu "Isshin" Shimizu over to NDcube to design and direct Maximum Velocity, while the sequels at Suzak seem like more hands-off affairs. I think the other thing here, at least for me, is that NDcube demonstrated themselves to be a consistently solid developer, while Suzak never did, and I think this extends to the GBA F-Zeros as well. The track designs in the sequels feel so much weaker than the SNES game and Maximum Velocity. Some of the designs just seem mean, with strings of jagged right angle turns that force you to play like it's not an F-Zero game at all.

The story of NDcube is sort of interesting. They are now in charge of Mario Party like you say, but I think most of NDcube today is poached Hudson Soft employees. Hudson was in charge of the early Mario Parties, and NDcube had gone quiet, then when Hudson was bought out, Nintendo basically picked up the whole Mario Party team and reinvigorated the studio that way. The studio released nothing from 2004 until 2009, which was when they became Hudson Soft 2.0 and started releasing the Mario Party and Wii Party games. I feel like I remember reading about troubles at the studio in that intervening period, but I can't find anything about it again now.

If you do want to try any other pre-Hudson "NDcube 1.0" games, the obvious one to recommend is Tube Slider (2003) on GameCube, a futuristic anti-gravity racer (ahem). The main distinction from F-Zero is that every race course is a tube. It's a decent game which is harmed immensely by being released on the same console as F-Zero GX. Their other GameCube game, Pool Edge (2002), is a fairly basic pool/billiards game with nice presentation. Not much reason to play it in 2021, but it was good for what it was 20 years ago. Same goes for the GBA card game collection, Card Party (2002)--it was fine in its day, but now it's just a GBA card game collection.

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

The first one was your standard, mandatory "look, we made a GBA version of a SNES game" title. The second two were low budget anime tie-ins that probably came about from some licensing agreement. The last one couldn't even score an international release and reused tons of assets.

 

[Kazooie]

The games also got successively better with Climax in particular feeling a lot like the (superior) 3d games.

 

[Niroloc]

I wonder if having 3 games on the one system helped kill the franchise with over saturation, all 3 of those games launched within 15 months of each other in Japan which was crazy.

Id love to play Climax someday.

Maximum velocity is the F-zero game I love going back to most theses days, even over GX now. It has great music and I really liked the new generation of machines.

 

[Bard]

I have Maximum Velocity and GP Legend. I've been wanting to buy Climax for years but it's sadly super expensive, don't know if my DS lite would be able to play a japanese GBA game too.

I love GP Legend but I couldn't get into Maximum Velocity for whatever reason, it didn't feel all that good to play to me even though I really like the SNES F-Zero.

I love F-Zero, and I am constantly disappointed at how little Nintendo seems to be willing to give it a new shot. Miyamoto can remake StarFox like 5 times but pulls out this, how can we evolve F-Zero when they haven't even done something as basic nowadays as online multiplayer. It's fucking infuriating.

Anyway, just like most of my favorite Nintendo franchises I have no hope it'll ever return. Part of me just feels like it's because they know they can't make something as good as GX. Wish I could play Climax though, heard it was the best of the GBA games.

 

[Rogue Agent]

Partly why the GBA is one of my favourite systems. 3 F-Zero games and 2 Metroid games. It was like a feast.

 

[ghostcrew]

I've been wanting to buy Climax for years but it's sadly super expensive, don't know if my DS lite would be able to play a japanese GBA game too.

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It would play it!

No region lock other than if the game has functionality with a DS game (like it'll unlock something in a DS game) those two have to be the same region. But no region lock just to play GBA games.

 

[Bard]

It would play it!

No region lock other than if the game has functionality with a DS game (like it'll unlock something in a DS game) those two have to be the same region. But no region lock just to play GBA games.

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I'm definitely interested in it. Maybe once I have some extra cash around I'll try to get a copy.

 

[Niroloc]

I love GP Legend but I couldn't get into Maximum Velocity for whatever reason, it didn't feel all that good to play to me even though I really like the SNES F-Zero.

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It gets a lot more fun to play when you unlock the Sly Joker and especially the Falcon MK 2 they both control way better than the other vehicles.