Entryhazard
Banned
Spoiler alert: this topic may contain some pretty controversial ideas and possibly not everyone will agree with the upcoming propositions. These come from a fan who has played almost all the game of the franchise (I missed only Climax). I heavily played GX which I consider, obviously, the superior version of all the games.
I often hear that F-Zero doesn't need to be rebooted, and that a simple HD version of GX should suffice. I kinda disagree.
On one hand, sure, I would be totally down for F-Zero GXU. On the other though, I'd like it to take a different path, while mantaining the core of the gameplay intact.
F-Zero, in my opinion, has a strong and unique style which I fear Nintendo doesn't want to pursue. In fact, I'm afraid that if a new F-Zero does indeed come out in a few years, it would be watered down in the attempt to broader its (sadly) very little fanbase. That's basically why I think Nintendo didn't put spin-off specific characters like E. Gadd or even Diddy Kong as playable characters in Mario Kart 8: they want it to be as general as possible.
Anyway, probably because I'm a fan and not a developer, I hope F-Zero pursues its amazing comic-like style and finds an even stronger personality. In this topic, I'll analyze various aspects of a possible new F-Zero games, from graphics to story, from gameplay to music, trying to find how, in my opinion, F-Zero should be when he makes its glorious comeback.
And hey, you can put your own ideas I guess. I apologize in advance if my English fails me here and there, I'm Italian and it was 2 AM here when i wrote this wall of text, please understand.
Oh, one final thing: I'll use F-Zero GX for comparison. Act like the other games don't even exist, GX is the starting point so I'll compare everything to it basically.
OK, let's start.
- GAMEPLAY
Let's start with something easy. GX's gameplay was near perfect. I liked the fact that you could use the boost only from the second lap, and the energy meter made totally sense. The drifting worked perfectly and I even liked the two attacks, the spinning one especially. In my opinion, the other one, even though extremely more useful, could be ditched. I like to think at F-Zero races as a surviving thing, not a battle royale, and the ones who played at Master difficulty know that to win the cups you basically had to kill everyone in sight with that attack.
The spinning attack should be a little more powerful, yes, but at the same time even more riskier. In fact, this move should be considered illegal in the tournaments. You can do it obviously, but at your own risk: if you use it, you will be able to destroy some of the other ships, but you will receive a penalty for it. You would still race, but if you die, you would be put back on the track with less energy. If you do it more times, you could risk to be banned from the race.
This seems punishing, but you could want to do it just to push back one particular opponent which is topping your points in the tournament. Basically, you drag him down by risking your own health.
Other than that though, I tried to come up with a new mechanic which adds something interesting to the gameplay but doesn't sound forced. This idea popped in my mind. Basically, one button is left to the vertical rockets. This could be pushed as the stronger news about the game. How does it work? I'll try to explain it.
Basically, every ship now has a couple of rockets on the back of the vehicle. These are extremely powerful, one-time only items that could be used for the skyrocket technique. You press the button, and they launch you into the air. This isn't a simple ascension though, since the rockets basically EXPLODE, and by doing that they skyrocket your ship in a parabolic direction. Once you're in the air, you barely can control the ship and you'll have to position it the best way for the landing (like in Excitebike). The move itself already removes half of your health (and can be used just once for every race), and if you can't use it well, it could potentially destroy your ship.
Also, the faster you're going when you're doing this, the longer and the higher you'll fly.
You can use this technique for simply advance faster in a straight road (with this move, you can reach double the velocity you have normally), try to make a shortcut between to parts of the level, or trying to reach a higher part of the track which maybe is faster. Obviously, if you suck at it you could easily skyrocket yourself out of the track into the oblivion.
I don't know, maybe it would be broken as hell, but I think it'd look funny and a lot of adrenaline to the race. Oh, and obviously 30 racers at once stays a thing, because that was awesome.
- GRAPHICS
This will probably end up being the most controversial part of the topic. F-Zero GX's graphics were stunning and realistic. A return to that style wouldn't be bad sure, but I always loved the comic-like images that were part of the menu of F-Zero X. That is the thing that comes to mind when I think of Captain Falcon, and I think that the graphics should embrace the style.
What I'm thinking of is a semi-cell-shaded graphic style, still extremely detailed on the effects (boost flames, rain, scratches on the ships etc etc) but more simple for the general look of the game. Many GX tracks, while looking awesome, were pretty aseptic and empty (I think of Trident for example).
Take a casual viewer: the game should remind him of something like Micro Machines: tiny ships racing each other. GX looked more like a Formula 1 race. In that sense, a cell-shaded but still mature graphic style (take MadWorld, for example, or Okami) would look great and actually reflect the comic-like characters pretty well. I don't know how it would actually look, but I'd even like a mixture of styles, even if it seems a clash at first: tracks and ships are cell-shaded, effects like explosions or environmental details like rain or mist could be photo-realistic.
This would be reflected in the menu, obviously: comic-like representations of Falcon & co. would come back exactly as they were in F-Zero X.
Also cutscenes could be something like a mixture between a cartoon and a comic book: divided into windows, but with the characters still moving at times. I imagine them to be extremely over-the-top and ridiculous, full of colors especially.
- AUDIO, MUSIC
GX's soundtrack was OK, but I always thought that rock wasn't the most appropriate music genre for the game. This is the thing I'm going to write in this topic of which I'm most absolutely certain: for the next installment F-Zero should completely delve into electro-industrial music, especially EBM (which stands for electronic body music for those of you who may don't know it).
In this regard, the Wipeout series totally got it right: that's exactly what I think Nintendo should pursue with F-Zero. Find a group of artists who work in the genre and make them do a bunch of music for the game. I personally love electronic music in all of its aspects, but I'd like F-Zero to concentrate on the harder, more crude and rough style of the industrial genre. Take artists like Front Line Assembly, the latest Skinny Puppy, :wumpscut:, iVardensphere or even musicians from the aggrotech sub-genre (Combichrist are the most famous ones, but I was thinking about much less known projects like Grendel, Psyborg Corp., Darker Days Tomorrow or T3RR0R 3RR0R). I don't even know if any of you listen to this stuff honestly, if not try it out.
Remove the distorted vocals for the track music obviously (maybe leave them for the specific songs of the racers like the ones who appeared in F-Zero GX?) and push the strong, danceable beat in the races. This teamed with strong, colorful visuals should result in something pretty cool, in my opinion.
Lastly, of this I'm not sure, but it would be fun to have some type of commentary during the racers. Again, it should comical and pretty exaggerated, like the one in MadWorld
- STORY MODE / CHARACTERS
Yes, it's a racing game, but that doesn't mean that it can't have a story mode. GX did, even if it was very simple and pretty short. Keep it simple and pretty straight-forward, but expand on the length.
In this sense I thought that the story mode should be constructed in a tree-like scheme. You have the principal trunk of the tree which is the protagonist's storyline (who SHOULDN'T be, in my opinion, Captain Falcon, but a new character like Rick Wheeler). From this principal storyline, many branches start to expand, every one of them with a different character. Let's say that you have 20/30 chapters with your protagonist (like the ones in GX story mode), and just 5, 10 tops for the other characters. Many of them would simply be little missions, time attacks and trials-based races, while the principal ones will involve the most part of the plot.
I also thought that the tree structure should start from a point in time at the bottom, and when rises, it means that time passes. So, when a mission is lower compared to another, it means that it's also placed in time before that. In that way the more you progress in the game, the more missions you unlock, some of them even back in time and unrelated to the plot, which could explain the backstory of a certain character (I always liked the idea of going back a couple of hundred years and show the old tournament in which The Skull used to race).
I didn't think about the story honestly, because anything really should suffice, it's just a pretext. I like the idea of not having Captain Falcon as the protagonist, but putting him behind the curtain, leaving him as a legendary-like figure, which appears rarely and seems ungraspable, until the end in which he makes a glorious comeback.
For the characters, many from the series could be cut really (John Tanaka anyone?) and they should concentrate on non-human characters. Make a whopping roster of 100 characters, why not. Create many of them basing their appearance of an already existing creature in the science fiction genre, making them a parody or a simple throwback. Some of them could be mock-up of other existing videogame characters. Wonder Red, Fox and Samus Aran could totally make a cameo appearance.
- ONLINE MODE
This should be a big part of the game. It needs to be way bigger than Mario Kart 8's. Aside from the usual races, there should be some kind of annual (of maybe monthly) online tournament mode which declares the best player of a specific country and maybe even the world.
The players with the best results in races (highest races played / victories ratio) get selected to be part of the tournament and if they win, they are officially recognized online as the US Champion, for example. The title can't be randomly lost, but there needs to be a pre-organized official race to put it into the competition.
Obviously, this seems complicated to actually put into action because, well, people maybe don't have the time to follow the schedule. In that case there should be a ruleset that protects the mode, obviously, like, if you don't play at least once every week online or something like that, you're not eligible to participate in the tournament. It would become specific for the competitive players, and casual racers won't be a part of it.
That's pretty much all that I thought about the next installment of F-Zero. I'm sorry for the wall of text, and I'm sorry if these ideas sound dreadful to some of you (I bet they do). I had fun writing this up anyway, these ideas (or wishes) floated in my head for the last year so I decided to write them down. What do you think? What are your ideas, if you have any?
Oh, last thing: the title should totally be F/X. Just that, F/X. Sounds cool.
I often hear that F-Zero doesn't need to be rebooted, and that a simple HD version of GX should suffice. I kinda disagree.
On one hand, sure, I would be totally down for F-Zero GXU. On the other though, I'd like it to take a different path, while mantaining the core of the gameplay intact.
F-Zero, in my opinion, has a strong and unique style which I fear Nintendo doesn't want to pursue. In fact, I'm afraid that if a new F-Zero does indeed come out in a few years, it would be watered down in the attempt to broader its (sadly) very little fanbase. That's basically why I think Nintendo didn't put spin-off specific characters like E. Gadd or even Diddy Kong as playable characters in Mario Kart 8: they want it to be as general as possible.
Anyway, probably because I'm a fan and not a developer, I hope F-Zero pursues its amazing comic-like style and finds an even stronger personality. In this topic, I'll analyze various aspects of a possible new F-Zero games, from graphics to story, from gameplay to music, trying to find how, in my opinion, F-Zero should be when he makes its glorious comeback.
And hey, you can put your own ideas I guess. I apologize in advance if my English fails me here and there, I'm Italian and it was 2 AM here when i wrote this wall of text, please understand.
Oh, one final thing: I'll use F-Zero GX for comparison. Act like the other games don't even exist, GX is the starting point so I'll compare everything to it basically.
OK, let's start.
- GAMEPLAY
Let's start with something easy. GX's gameplay was near perfect. I liked the fact that you could use the boost only from the second lap, and the energy meter made totally sense. The drifting worked perfectly and I even liked the two attacks, the spinning one especially. In my opinion, the other one, even though extremely more useful, could be ditched. I like to think at F-Zero races as a surviving thing, not a battle royale, and the ones who played at Master difficulty know that to win the cups you basically had to kill everyone in sight with that attack.
The spinning attack should be a little more powerful, yes, but at the same time even more riskier. In fact, this move should be considered illegal in the tournaments. You can do it obviously, but at your own risk: if you use it, you will be able to destroy some of the other ships, but you will receive a penalty for it. You would still race, but if you die, you would be put back on the track with less energy. If you do it more times, you could risk to be banned from the race.
This seems punishing, but you could want to do it just to push back one particular opponent which is topping your points in the tournament. Basically, you drag him down by risking your own health.
Other than that though, I tried to come up with a new mechanic which adds something interesting to the gameplay but doesn't sound forced. This idea popped in my mind. Basically, one button is left to the vertical rockets. This could be pushed as the stronger news about the game. How does it work? I'll try to explain it.
Basically, every ship now has a couple of rockets on the back of the vehicle. These are extremely powerful, one-time only items that could be used for the skyrocket technique. You press the button, and they launch you into the air. This isn't a simple ascension though, since the rockets basically EXPLODE, and by doing that they skyrocket your ship in a parabolic direction. Once you're in the air, you barely can control the ship and you'll have to position it the best way for the landing (like in Excitebike). The move itself already removes half of your health (and can be used just once for every race), and if you can't use it well, it could potentially destroy your ship.
Also, the faster you're going when you're doing this, the longer and the higher you'll fly.
You can use this technique for simply advance faster in a straight road (with this move, you can reach double the velocity you have normally), try to make a shortcut between to parts of the level, or trying to reach a higher part of the track which maybe is faster. Obviously, if you suck at it you could easily skyrocket yourself out of the track into the oblivion.
I don't know, maybe it would be broken as hell, but I think it'd look funny and a lot of adrenaline to the race. Oh, and obviously 30 racers at once stays a thing, because that was awesome.
- GRAPHICS
This will probably end up being the most controversial part of the topic. F-Zero GX's graphics were stunning and realistic. A return to that style wouldn't be bad sure, but I always loved the comic-like images that were part of the menu of F-Zero X. That is the thing that comes to mind when I think of Captain Falcon, and I think that the graphics should embrace the style.
What I'm thinking of is a semi-cell-shaded graphic style, still extremely detailed on the effects (boost flames, rain, scratches on the ships etc etc) but more simple for the general look of the game. Many GX tracks, while looking awesome, were pretty aseptic and empty (I think of Trident for example).
Take a casual viewer: the game should remind him of something like Micro Machines: tiny ships racing each other. GX looked more like a Formula 1 race. In that sense, a cell-shaded but still mature graphic style (take MadWorld, for example, or Okami) would look great and actually reflect the comic-like characters pretty well. I don't know how it would actually look, but I'd even like a mixture of styles, even if it seems a clash at first: tracks and ships are cell-shaded, effects like explosions or environmental details like rain or mist could be photo-realistic.
This would be reflected in the menu, obviously: comic-like representations of Falcon & co. would come back exactly as they were in F-Zero X.
Also cutscenes could be something like a mixture between a cartoon and a comic book: divided into windows, but with the characters still moving at times. I imagine them to be extremely over-the-top and ridiculous, full of colors especially.
- AUDIO, MUSIC
GX's soundtrack was OK, but I always thought that rock wasn't the most appropriate music genre for the game. This is the thing I'm going to write in this topic of which I'm most absolutely certain: for the next installment F-Zero should completely delve into electro-industrial music, especially EBM (which stands for electronic body music for those of you who may don't know it).
In this regard, the Wipeout series totally got it right: that's exactly what I think Nintendo should pursue with F-Zero. Find a group of artists who work in the genre and make them do a bunch of music for the game. I personally love electronic music in all of its aspects, but I'd like F-Zero to concentrate on the harder, more crude and rough style of the industrial genre. Take artists like Front Line Assembly, the latest Skinny Puppy, :wumpscut:, iVardensphere or even musicians from the aggrotech sub-genre (Combichrist are the most famous ones, but I was thinking about much less known projects like Grendel, Psyborg Corp., Darker Days Tomorrow or T3RR0R 3RR0R). I don't even know if any of you listen to this stuff honestly, if not try it out.
Remove the distorted vocals for the track music obviously (maybe leave them for the specific songs of the racers like the ones who appeared in F-Zero GX?) and push the strong, danceable beat in the races. This teamed with strong, colorful visuals should result in something pretty cool, in my opinion.
Lastly, of this I'm not sure, but it would be fun to have some type of commentary during the racers. Again, it should comical and pretty exaggerated, like the one in MadWorld
- STORY MODE / CHARACTERS
Yes, it's a racing game, but that doesn't mean that it can't have a story mode. GX did, even if it was very simple and pretty short. Keep it simple and pretty straight-forward, but expand on the length.
In this sense I thought that the story mode should be constructed in a tree-like scheme. You have the principal trunk of the tree which is the protagonist's storyline (who SHOULDN'T be, in my opinion, Captain Falcon, but a new character like Rick Wheeler). From this principal storyline, many branches start to expand, every one of them with a different character. Let's say that you have 20/30 chapters with your protagonist (like the ones in GX story mode), and just 5, 10 tops for the other characters. Many of them would simply be little missions, time attacks and trials-based races, while the principal ones will involve the most part of the plot.
I also thought that the tree structure should start from a point in time at the bottom, and when rises, it means that time passes. So, when a mission is lower compared to another, it means that it's also placed in time before that. In that way the more you progress in the game, the more missions you unlock, some of them even back in time and unrelated to the plot, which could explain the backstory of a certain character (I always liked the idea of going back a couple of hundred years and show the old tournament in which The Skull used to race).
I didn't think about the story honestly, because anything really should suffice, it's just a pretext. I like the idea of not having Captain Falcon as the protagonist, but putting him behind the curtain, leaving him as a legendary-like figure, which appears rarely and seems ungraspable, until the end in which he makes a glorious comeback.
For the characters, many from the series could be cut really (John Tanaka anyone?) and they should concentrate on non-human characters. Make a whopping roster of 100 characters, why not. Create many of them basing their appearance of an already existing creature in the science fiction genre, making them a parody or a simple throwback. Some of them could be mock-up of other existing videogame characters. Wonder Red, Fox and Samus Aran could totally make a cameo appearance.
- ONLINE MODE
This should be a big part of the game. It needs to be way bigger than Mario Kart 8's. Aside from the usual races, there should be some kind of annual (of maybe monthly) online tournament mode which declares the best player of a specific country and maybe even the world.
The players with the best results in races (highest races played / victories ratio) get selected to be part of the tournament and if they win, they are officially recognized online as the US Champion, for example. The title can't be randomly lost, but there needs to be a pre-organized official race to put it into the competition.
Obviously, this seems complicated to actually put into action because, well, people maybe don't have the time to follow the schedule. In that case there should be a ruleset that protects the mode, obviously, like, if you don't play at least once every week online or something like that, you're not eligible to participate in the tournament. It would become specific for the competitive players, and casual racers won't be a part of it.
That's pretty much all that I thought about the next installment of F-Zero. I'm sorry for the wall of text, and I'm sorry if these ideas sound dreadful to some of you (I bet they do). I had fun writing this up anyway, these ideas (or wishes) floated in my head for the last year so I decided to write them down. What do you think? What are your ideas, if you have any?
Oh, last thing: the title should totally be F/X. Just that, F/X. Sounds cool.
