It's fair to say F-Zero 99 on the Nintendo Switch is our game of the last six months. We've clocked a fair old whack of time on it! Super addictive and competitive, it's become our go-to post-work game. And that's a lot of hyphens.
When we first played it in September 2023 we thought it was brilliant, but presumed we'd tire of it soon enough. Nonsense!
Quite the opposite has happened and we're more enthralled with it than ever before, logging our in-game wins and status up and revelling in the incredible challenge it provides.
When You're an F-Zero 99 Addict and Pushing for Glory
Yes, then, this is on the Nintendo Switch and you'll need the subscription Online Membership to access it (and all the other virtual console goodies). Totally worth it just for this one game alone!
Nintendo has a habit of making these unbelievably addictive, brilliant fun racing games.
The amount of hours we've thumped into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (and the Wii U original) totals a fair old whack. As we've played that one so much, the arrival of F-Zero 99 was a welcome change in gaming routine. We usually give it a whirl for an hour or so each evening to enjoy the intense racing action.
As we've played that one so much, the arrival of F-Zero 99 was a welcome change in gaming routine. We usually give it a whirl for an hour or so each evening to enjoy the intense racing action.
Maybe bag a win or two. But you really do need to school yourself with this title, the element of luck isn't there anywhere near as much as with Mario Kart.
It's all about skill and a highly refined driving style. You also need confidence—the final lap is always crazy, with all sorts of obstacles to overcome. You need nerves of steel to hold it together.
It's a magnificent game so this feature is part tribute, part F-Zero 99 guide for anyone looking to get started.
The Subtle Complexity of F-Zero 99 is What Makes it Special
The remarkable thing about F-Zero 99 is its complexity. The little intricacies of driving the best way that all add up to make you a competitive front-runner.
However, when you first play the game you'll be more interested in simply surviving.
You have a power boost bar for a speed hike, but overdo it and your craft will have no energy left and you'll explode in a ball of flames. This means each race is a carefully structured, strategic effort to be as fast as possible, but to survive. You do see some new players flooring it with the boost, getting way ahead, then exploding with two laps left as they've overdone it.
Nintendo Life has a great F-Zero 99 Tips & Tricks guide to get started.
Our advice? Well, it's a very competitive game and you'll need plenty of practice to get anywhere. The most immediate goals:
- Choose your preferred ship to pilot
- All four have a different style that may/may not suit you
- Learn the tracks
- There's a specific practice mode for this—use it!
- Master your strategic use of energy management
- Feather the engine (tapping A around corners)
- USE THE SHOULDER BUTTONS! Really helps with sharp turning
- Take risks
New players will find themselves using the game's Skyway regularly, which you get after collecting yellow Super Sparks (these fall off other drivers).
This launches you onto a special above-track roadway. It can really launch you back up the order.
If you become a consistent front-runner, it becomes quite rare to get the Skyway at all. You just don't get as many Super Sparks. But it's a handy tactic if you make a stupid mistake at some point, as the Skyway can launch you back into the action quickly.
Really, though, you need to get a grasp on the basic mechanics.
The little things, such as holding down when your ship lands (otherwise you'll lose speed) and spin attacking at the right moment. It takes practice! But as it comes together you'll start to bag wins and revel in the competition.
Choose Your F-Zero 99 Ship!
This is super important as every race you have to sling your vehicle around. Each one offers something different—in a good and bad way. The four crafts are (with their pros and cons):
- Blue Falcon: Fantastic handling and a good speedy boost. It's a great all-rounder and a solid option to get started with. So, great for beginners! Just be wary of its limited boosting on speed tracks, but great potential on the twisty-turny ones.
- Golden Fox: Super fast acceleration! Constant boosting! Very quick energy generation, too, when you're powering back up. Our ship of choice, just be wary of its poor handling and greater capacity to explode. One for risk takers.
- Wild Goose: Good old sturdy higher speed running! It's a trusty craft and with a high top speed and some great handling. The major downside is its stunningly slow boost regeneration, meaning you'll only be boosting at limited intervals.
- Fire Stingray: Immense top speed, boosting capacity, and feathering the engine with this craft almost make it invincible. But! Its acceleration is abysmal. Make an error and you lose masses of momentum, ruining progress and dropping you down the order. Tricky to master, but arguably the best ship if you can tie it all together.
Our preferred ship is the Golden Fox. It blasts off the line, allows for loads of boosts consistently around each circuit, and that nippiness means can get at the front and then push on to stay there.
We stuck with the Wild Goose for our first 500+ races and only won six races. Then we went off to learn the tracks properly, improve our driving, and naturally found the Golden Fox to be our ship of choice.
We've since won over 150+ races with this ship!
It's our favourite, but there are downsides. It's tricky to control (very slippery), you'll get baffed around a lot, top speed is low, and you have to take some insane risks to win. You'll blow up more often with this ship, but it provides the best opportunity to make a break for it at the start.
And it's a real challenge on the longer pro-tracks. For some of them, such as Silence, it's pretty crap on them. But for the super fast tracks it's a beast.
It's our favourite as it's a thrill to get the thing around circuits, but you're often at risk of blowing up. So, be careful;!
The Legend That is F-Zero 99's Susan
When you play the game you get to see people's usernames. Over time, you get used to seeing familiar faces and spotting who the top-tier players are (we're not one of them!).
We've consistently seen someone called Susan in F-Zero 99. She's a a better player than us and when we're up against her in races and get close... we know we've done a great job!
It's always fun to see her there in the races now and we kind of have a reverence to the Susan legend. We don't spin attack into her and treat her with respect! And to be fair, she's a great competitor to race against.
Some players have this obnoxious habit of veering across the track to spin attack you. It's very annoying and overly aggressive.
Susan is proof that's not necessary. Although, to be fair, she doesn't have to be aggressive as she's often just way out front being very fast indeed.
She also uses the Golden Fox craft with a similar decal design to us (yellow and black), which she's able to wring more speed out of us than us, too. But we're always chuffed on the rare occasion we beat her. Or, more often than not, at least run her very close.
All hail, Susan!
And Misa!
There's another player who regularly kicks our butt called Misa. Turns out he's got a YouTube channel documenting his antics and a Twitch stream. He uses the Golden Fox, too, but in a cool shade of blue.
You can see how bloody fast he is above.
The game is all about these little micro-adjustments to find you time here and there. That and the capacity to limit mistakes over a full-race run.
As with Susan, Misa is a top-tier player with three-stars (an in-game sign he's one of the best—we have one star next to our name, for example).
And Cursing F-Zero 99's Bumpers
One thing we've not mentioned yet are the often infuriating obstacles the game throws at you.
From lap 2, the F-Zero 99 starts introducing the likes of bumper vehicles. These block the track and you have to manoeuvre around them, with the need to predict their patterns around corners. These things have ruined many a race for us!
Add to that the red bumpers... there are no words for these bastards!
Hit one and it'll explode, depleting a huge wodge of your energy. On the final lap the game mercilessly hurls many of these onto the circuit, making it an almost literal minefield. The result is the final lap can be a manic experience as you try to navigate the red bumpers, whilst maintaining speed and pushing for positions.
It gets crazy. People blow up and you can never tell quite what'll happen.
So, as infuriating as the things can be... we wouldn't want anything else. They've got to be there as they add this thrilling, unnerving quality as the laps tick by. You never can rest up easy as you can be in the lead, then suddenly you've got several red, grey, and blue (player controlled) bumpers veering at you.
Whilst it's infuriating in the moment to lose a race win (or a good result) this way, it's the same for everyone. That unfairness is just part of the F-Zero 99 experience.
It also ensures each and every race is mayhem—especially on the final lap.
Anything goes! And it also makes every win feel very well deserved indeed. Rather than being a game-ruining inclusion, it's one of the defining features of what makes the game so great.
The Joy of Those F-Zero 99 Tracks
There are some immense tracks on this game. It launched with 15, then a mirror mode came in earlier this year. So there are 30 tracks and some of them are absolute bangers.
We wouldn't say there's a dud one, although White Land II (Mirror Mode) still leaves us cold (not least as it's an ice level).
Whereas we adore both versions of White Land I, favouring the mirror track. Although you can watch the dude below on the normal layout and the range of tactics you can use to win.
Sand Ocean is another favourite of ours. Below is a good example of the Fire Stingray's limitations and incredible perks. We've found it's easily the fastest ship to use on this track, at least a second faster than all others.
However, you just have to overcome that super slow start.
This does highlight why it's essential to master the tracks. There's no good going into them without a clear map of what's ahead in your memory bank.
To do well, you must know every nook and cranny, every competitive edge is essential in this game.
That's why it's so awesome! Although there's an element of luck and unfairness in there, it's a title where the best players can eek out a second or two on the rest. All through slightly refined driving styles.
Study the art of F-Zero 99 and you can be a master!
Or you can be like us, an above average player who can occasionally cut it with the very best. The rest of the time just revelling in the game's madness. It's a modern masterpiece and we think a greatly underrated gem.
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