How to play F-Zero GX

F-Zero GX was a high speed, futuristic racing game created by Nintendo in the year 2003, for the popular Nintendo Gamecube system, it was given very high ratings for it's impressive graphics, amazing soundtrack, and unprecedented high speed racing. The only problem the game saw was a high difficulty gap and a sharp learning curve for newer players to get behind, especially to those who hadn't played a game like it before. That's where this guide comes in.

The Basics of F-Zero

Before we get into more advanced topics, we should cover the basics for the game. First we have our main menu.



Here you will see 9 different tabs, Grand Prix, VS Battle, Time Attack, Practice, Story, Replay, Customize, Options, and Pilot Profiles. Should you be first starting F-Zero GX, your best bet is to start on Practice, here you can test out your machines and learn the courses. Another aspect to touch on is the Controls.
The controls are fairly straightforward, but there are some tricks in the controls I wish to teach you. Pressing both trigger buttons on the Gamecube controller activates drifting, which is sharper and more accurate than the sliding, this allows you to quickly and accurately turn corners, but only use it when you have to, as with normal sliding, Drifting slows your machine down. The Side attack can be used to eliminate enemy contestants, handy if you want to take out a racer who is bothering you or to get a 1up in the Grand Prix mode. (To get a 1up in Grand Prix, you must kill 5 racers in a race.)
Once you've practiced enough, you should attempt to complete one of the cups in the Grand Prix, the three cups available to you are Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, for beginners you should start on Ruby, from there you complete Sapphire, and then onto Emerald, (If you complete all three cups on Standard difficulty, you unlock the Diamond cup.)

Another important detail is your Heads Up Display.
The most important thing on this hud is the energy bar in the upper right corner of the screen, this energy bar is your health, when you lose it all you're still in the race, but if something touches your machine you will explode, and will be forced to restart the race. Your boosting ability (The Y Button) feeds off of your energy, and depending on the stats of your machine, your boost will vampire either more or less energy, but, make sure you use your boost efficiently, as without it you seriously handicap your chances in a race, but use it too much and you risk the possibility of defeat as well. The next feature is the number on the top of the screen, that is your ranking in the race, yes, you read that right, the maximum amount of racers is 30. On the bottom right you see your current speed and a map of the track, the P1 is you, the CPU is the highest placing AI on the track. On the farthest left of the screen you see the top 6 racers, the top being 1st place, the bottom being 6th, when you enter this chart, there will be bright yellow icons surrounding your pilot's picture.

Advanced Lessons in F-Zero

Now that you know the basics of F-Zero GX, you are now ready to enter Advanced territory.

When picking a machine, your first question should be, "Does this machine have good stats that I can use, with flaws I can work around?" All of the machines in F-Zero GX function pretty differently, and each stat is given an A through E rating, A being the strongest, E being the weakest. Machines have 3 different fields, Body, Boost, and Grip, Body determines your health, or how slowly the energy bar depletes from getting hit or boosting, but this can make your grip on the track falter, next is Boost, Boost determines the speed and length of the boost the machine uses, but beware, the higher the boost, the more energy it depletes. Finally we have Grip, Grip determines your machine's handling on the road, especially in turning and keeping your machine on a straight path. Be careful, not all stats are what they appear to be...

The most important tool in F-Zero history is learning and remembering your tracks, not only does Practice help, but you can somewhat link the track to muscle memory, and you can use the song + the flow of the race to actually trigger what to do in your head. By practicing the tracks, you can start to develop shortcuts, there are no pre-determined shortcut paths in the game, but the only way you can create shortcuts is to sort of use the physics engine and your machine's speed to your advantage.

Another feature to remember is little parts on the map, call them obstacles or something, for the first one we shall refer to the gameplay image previously listed.

At the very top of the screen, just behind the rank, you can see a purplish pink colored line on the track, this is an area where you can restore your energy bar, it's ok to boost while using this if you have to. Next is a Booster panel, these are yellow lightning holograms you see occasionally on the track. These boosters manually trigger your boost ability, without depleting energy or if you even have boost in the first place.

In the picture above, you will see a Mine, these nasty bombs can destroy your ship if you're low on energy and not careful, they will also shunt your vehicle and force you to get back to top speed again, but, they can be used to your advantage. Should you drive straight on into a mine or multiple mines, it will actually boost your machine forward at an extremely fast speed.
Next you have Ice Bars, these light blue, pulsating parts on a track will force your machine to suffer handling, basically driving on ice, then we have Dirt, Dirt is an obstacle used quite frequently in various tracks, it is used to slow your machine down drastically, however, boosting at the right moment will make you clear the dirt on the track without suffering mobility loss. Last but not least we have Jump pads. Jump pads are very dangerous to beginner players, but more advanced players can use them expertly, they are bright blue hologram "ramps" that appear on the track, hitting it will propel your machine upwards, forcing you into the air, you can use this to quickly glide back onto the track and get ahead of contestants, but, using these incorrectly can send you off the track, killing you.

Expert Lessons in F-Zero

Now you're really in the thick of it, the information in this part of the guide should ONLY be practiced once you've established a firm understanding of F-Zero GX's gameplay.
First off, we have the story mode, I'm sure you've tried it, I'm counting on that you've tried it, but if you're new to F-Zero, the Story mode will just frustrate you, but if you've played a decent amount of the game and can understand how the mechanics work, and have played as Captain Falcon a lot, the story mode on Normal can be a passable challenge. Story Mode has three difficulty settings, which you can only access by completing the mission on a previous difficulty, Normal, Hard, and Very Hard. Very Hard is infamous amongst the community, challenging you with extremely brutal AI, intense challenges, unforgiving tracks, and fast timers all the while. For the story mode I am sorry to say I cannot help you, I myself have never ventured very far into the story mode, but there are a bountiful amount of people who can help you here on Youtube.

Now, another feature you may have seen on the main menu is the Customize menu, this part of the game lets you create your own machine, and select a character to pilot it. The Customization segment of the game is where some of the magic happens, you can actually create some of the most powerful, fastest machines in the game just by creating the right machines with the right parts and stats. You unlock parts for your machines by playing modes such as Grand Prix, then purchasing them in the shop for the given amount of credits. The Pilot choice is purely cosmetic, but the parts of the machine are very important, it also gives you a circular chart in the corner of the screen while creating a ship, showing you where the strongest and weakest points of the ship currently are, such as Acceleration, Top Speed, Cornering, and Body.

Now there are some more hidden unlockable features in F-Zero GX, such as characters, even an entire cup and difficulty mode. There are characters that you can purchase in the shop, but you notice there are still a lot of empty spaces on the machine select screen, that's because there are hidden characters that you can unlock. In order to unlock these hidden characters, you have to play through the entire story mode on very hard difficulty, with each character unlocking on each mission, with the exception of two racers, which can be unlocked by completing the entire story on normal or hard difficulties. To unlock the Master difficulty rating, you must complete Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, and Diamond cups in Grand Prix while on Expert Difficulty rating, then from there, complete Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, and Diamond cups on Master to unlock the AX cup, which grants you access to new tracks, new machine parts, and cheesy movies for your pilots.

Finale

I really want to thank you for reading this sh!tpost of a guide, just figured I would share my knowledge of F-Zero GX to potential new players, yes it's an old game on an old console barely anyone plays anymore, but I'll never forget it, and I want to share it with the world.

Thanks again for reading, have a nice day!

[WeakGut]

I use Dolphin EMU to play this.

[Weed Cirno (the strongest)]

yeah..

[M3m0]

if only classic nintendos were released on steam

[Voodsood]

F-Zero GX for the nintendo gamecube

[flatulencegaming]

what's the addons used here?

[UmbraLux]

Cheers!

[Whitegale87]

Absolutely amazing guide.

[Johnnysaurus04]

Thank you

[UmbraLux]

ty nintendo.

[Moorcas]

we need a new f zero















too bad we wont get one