ChurtFumpus

I do have some frustrations about the first new F-Zero in over 18 years being an online-only experience that will someday expire and be unplayable, but I'm not factoring that into my review to be fair. It's super fun. Classic F-Zero works incredibly well as a large-scale battle royale like this, especially with the new mechanics and features introduced here. It's well-balanced, with every machine feeling different with their pros and cons, with all 4 feeling viable. Customization and unlocks feel great too, and the different modes provide a bit of variety to the game that I seriously enjoy. The only real con I can think of to mention is the lack of courses to race on. The normal "99" mode only contains four, while the tournament modes and Pro Series only add three to that for a total of 7. I'm hopeful there'll be updates that add a few more courses in the future, since they didn't add every course from the original game. There is enough courses to make this entry fun, so it's not a huge gripe, but it is enough to knock it down from a 10 for me.

It's a unique game with a rather obvious influence on a lot of games that came after it. It does a fantastic job of making you actually want to explore the world, interact with everything, and learn about the inhabitants. There's a few nitpicks I have, like the game not explaining some mechanics very well or being somewhat slow and tedious in a few spots. But it is an older game that expects you to have read a manual, which is available online and I highly recommend you flip through it a bit before you play so that you're not too lost or frustrated.

Artwork looks great, the soundtrack is pretty good, but the core gameplay feels just a little bit lacking. I enjoyed it, but the controls feel a bit awkward and not quite as responsive as they should. It's also frustrating that the game isn't very colorblind friendly. It'll set dragons as objectives, with no other indication aside from color as far as I can tell. When you can't distinguish color well... It's frustrating to say the least.