One of the big announcements of yesterday’s Nintendo Direct presentation was confirmation that the Kyoto-based company has been working on F-Zero 99, which is available now for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers. Takaya Imamura, who worked the designer for the original F-Zero title for the Super Nintendo system quickly took to social network X to express his thoughts on the announcement and lavished it with praise saying that he would personally like to send his appreciation to mastermind behind F-Zero 99, as the concept is brilliant and that he could “feel the love” put into it. He closed by saying that he looks forward to the revival of the classic IP in the future.
“A bold arrangement while respecting the original elements! I could feel the love for F-Zero. I would like to express my greatest appreciation to the creator. I sincerely look forward to the revival of the IP on this occasion.”
it doesnt say anything about the future
“I sincerely look forward to the revival of the IP on this occasion.” It’s translated using DeepL.
The battle royale formula actually translates very well to F-Zero. Everything about this one feels more hands-on and impactful than anything Tetris 99, Super Mario Bros. 35, or Pac-Man 99 ever did.
Sure, it’s not what we expected or asked for when it came to bringing back F-Zero, but I believe that if this does well (and judging by people who’ve played it, the number of people playing it, and how fast it is to get into games, it’s doing exceptionally well), this could just be the beginning of a revival. There could be more to come, and this diehard F-Zero fan sincerely hopes so.
Yeah, honestly? It pretty much is F-Zero, no ‘battle royale’ caveats included. F-Zero X and GX had huge amounts of racers on the track at once, and all the games have had cars exploding, whether it’s your own fault or if you bashed other machines into the barriers enough. So this is really online F-Zero fully realised. If we do ever get a full new successor to the older games I will honestly be disappointed if it doesn’t play somewhat like 99. It’s really the most fun the series has ever been.
This is wonderful and beautiful. Sure, like others, I wanted a totally new F-Zero title, but having this revival of the original is something that genuinely pleases me, and to see an original designer possess such joy and satisfaction with this iteration of F-Zero and to express such feelings also makes me happy!
I sincerely hope this leads to both a GX remake and a new entry. Not sure why Nintendo didn’t shop it out to the Fast RMX team years ago.
I believe the Shin’en team has publicly stated that they’d rather do their own thing than work on the established IPs of others. The past decade of their works corroborates this.