If you’re expecting this to be a love letter to F-Zero X, one of my favorite childhood video games, then you’re right. For those familiar with the 1998 game released on Nintendo 64, you could easily imagine a remaster of F-Zero X being an acceptable use of Nintendo’s resources. F-Zero X had all the base mechanics to make the ideal racing game.

The AI is competitive and wildly unpredictable. The tracks range from simple to challenging and demand the player adapts to different driving styles. The cast of characters are fully realized and distinguished with vehicles designed to match their personas. Each track has a specific soundtrack to add to the experience. Most importantly, the driving mechanics are intuitive and smooth. Did I mention this game was made 20 years ago?

F-Zero X is the sort of game you can pick up right now and fully enjoy.

The last F-Zero title released in the United States was back in 2004! F-Zero GP Legend, slightly based off of the short-lived anime series, was made exclusively for the Game Boy Advance. F-Zero GX, which was the last major console version in the F-Zero series, was released in 2003 for the GameCube to critical acclaim. F-Zero GX didn’t sell particularly well, accruing 410,000 total sales while being regarded as expensive to make. Having not owned or played GX, I can’t argue for or against it, thought the critical response was mostly positive.

I would be remiss not to say that the F-Zero series wasn’t a staple of the gaming culture in the United States to begin with. F-Zero X sold just north of 380,000 copies in the United States. The long forgotten Perfect Dark sold over a million.

As I said at the top, a remaster of F-Zero X is perfectly acceptable as an option, but I’d prefer more boldness if possible. I’d suggest the creation of a new F-Zero game. All the features in F-Zero X I talked about above are the essentials. A new F-Zero game should at its base have competitive AI, smooth driving, an appropriate soundtrack, and a roster of unique characters.

What is not needed is whatever this was supposed to be:

Be it a successor to F-Zero or an equivalent of Wipeout, it gets a stiff na from me and the gaming public. Call me a nostalgic homer, but this trailer doesn’t evoke the wonderment and mysterium F-Zero had.

To make the game graphically appealing would be expected with today’s technology. F-Zero X did receive a share of criticism for not being graphically up to par apparently… As someone who played Legend of Zelda and Mario games on the N64, I think the point is a tad mute, but I was much too young to be paid to criticize. The counterargument to the graphics snobs was that the games processing power focused on rendering 60 frames per second with 30 cars visible at once. I’ll take gameplay enhancements over graphics rendering. Point being, a 2018 graphical rendering of Captain Falcon’s “Blue Falcon” would be polished, shiny, reflect flares of light and all that other fancy Hollywood business.

Online multiplayer would be an obvious development focus. F-Zero’s racing engine I think better suits online play versus racing sims where one jackoff can ruin your session by driving like a moron. You can certainly crash into other vehicles in F-Zero, but your vehicles health has an energy bar attached to it. If you run out of energy, the car explodes. You lose energy either when you boost, or you crash into another car. It’s a fantastic risk-reward system that rewards the clean drivers and hampers the wreckers. A 30 or more online race F-Zero style has a lot of potential. I like to think of F-Zero as the perfect balance between sim racing and the nonsensical Mario Kart style of racing. The racing focus airs between skill and speed without resorting to banana peels and blue shells to level out the competition. F-Zero X was ahead of its time as it would’ve been a great online multiplayer racing game.

It would be assumed by someone as unknowledgeable as myself that Nintendo would have the rights to the F-Zero franchise. But even if we exist in a hypothetical world where the rights were up for grabs, I’d still rather have a company within the Nintendo sphere develop a new F-Zero game. In a video game market saturated by microtransactions and online focused gameplay, Nintendo continues to be the yang to the gaming industry’s yin. Nintendo has had boneheaded decisions aplenty, but they’re a head, shoulders, and deluxe editions above Sony and Microsoft in the department of making video games geared for casual gamers. The sort of gamers like myself who want to buy a video game for $60 and have a worthwhile single player experience. Games where what you buy is what you get. The last thing an F-Zero game needs is loot boxes and premium content locked behind a paywall.

The last paragraph is an important hypocritical for me because I own a PlayStation 4 and haven’t had a Nintendo console since the Wii. I reserve my right to judge the market for what it’s provided me with. Since buying the PlayStation 4, I’ve noticed the market for video games I want to play is hampered because the single player experiences aren’t what they used to be. If Nintendo was to develop an exclusive F-Zero game for the Switch, then I may be saving up some money to become a Switch customer.

The last racing game I had on a Nintendo platform was Mario Kart Wii, and I poured countless hours of my teenage life into that game. The online mode functionality was very good for a long time. The base game delivered the usual Mario Kart experience that can be enjoyed by yourself or alongside friends. The online racing offered players to test their skills amongst the world. Mario Kart does require an advanced skill level if you want to win races, but it adds an element of arcade-style play with race-wrecking potential power-ups.

A new F-Zero title can focus more on developing skill in precise cornering and energy management. In high-quality simplicity, you can find consumer desire. F-Zero had mastered that simplicity. All it’s asking for is a modern update.

With a core concept so rooted in what gamers love about racing, any other features added to the game are icing. Whether it be the characters or playable game modes, if the racing is fun, the game will no doubt be a success. Especially in a market drought where racing games are so specifically targeted to their niche audience. Where’s the racing game that offers the perfect balance of simulation and arcade racing? F-Zero filled that void. Not by offering both features separately, but by blending them together. That particular nuance is important if you enjoy skillful at a game while still having fun.

As a final note, I am well aware this piece is piling on top of a years of discourse from Nintendo fans that have been pleading for another F-Zero game. I wrote this piece for two reasons: