Original Release: Nintendo, 2004, Game Boy Advance
This Japan-only entry was the final release for the F-Zero series (to date), but goes back to the SNES sprite-scaling roots.
F-Zero Climax (GBA, Nintendo, 2004)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: Coming soon!
Review by: C. M0use
While the original F-Zero for SNES was decent, especially for a near-launch title, I always felt like it was just a looser/slidier watered-down version of Mario Kart and not really worth playing. I didn’t feel the series really came into its own until the N64 installment. F-Zero Climax was actually the final release for the series (after the Gamecube entry), but still just reinforces for me that the 2D sprite-scaling entries for this series should be skipped over.
The courses feel too confined and sloppy, with the only thing saving the playability being that it’s pretty easy to place well shortly after starting if you have any prior experience with the series. Some of the key control elements also go unexplained until you just play around with everything in-game; there’s a secondary boost that can only be used once per lap, and the default control scheme doesn’t include a brake button for some reason!
The game’s best points are a ton of courses and gameplay modes stuffed onto this little GBA cart, plus a very basic track design mode that lets you drop an assortment of tile types on a grid. The aesthetics are also pretty good, at least by GBA standards. Pretty good background detail, the faux-Mode-7 scaling is some of the smoothest work on the system, and though the sound work is mostly nostalgia tracks they’re done pretty well. Only complaint here is that the poor announcer is often WAY behind the action (“You’re pulling ahead!” just after you hit something and drop back four places).
Big time F-Zero fans might want to check it out just for that track editor, but if you’re holding it to the standards of the bigger console entries you’ll probably come away disappointed.
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