A mod for F-Zero
F-Zero was a launch title for the SNES, introducing the world to futuristic racing with the original 4 machines, 3 leagues, and 15 courses. In 1996-1997, Nintendo and St. Giga distributed F-Zero to their Super Famicom Satellaview subscribers with 2 multi-week, timed events. BS F-Zero Grand Prix contained 4 new machines and 19 courses, including 4 new courses across 4 remixed leagues. BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 used only the 4 new machines and 4 new courses from BS F-Zero Grand Prix, along with 6 more new courses, for a total of 2 leagues. A downloadable companion game, BS F-Zero 2 Practice, allowed players to race on 5 of the new courses, and has been preserved. Sadly, no known copies of the 5 Forest and Metal Fort courses have ever been found. BS F-Zero Deluxe combines all 3 games into a single package, with the 5 lost courses meticulously restored from recorded footage. Two new leagues have been named BS-1 and BS-2, and present the 10 new courses as they were in BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2. Choose from any of the 8 machines, and race on 25 courses across 5 leagues
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In case you wanna know my opinion on the original F-Zero (which this is a hack of), you can find a link to that here!
One piece of Nintendo history that’s always been interesting to me is the Satellaview. To give a quick summary, it was an addon released in 1995 for the Super Famicom, allowing games and virtual magazines to be broadcasted to systems via satellite, with certain titles having live commentary and music known as Soundlink. Unfortunately, a lot of the Satellaview’s releases are completely lost and only exist in grainy VHS recordings, which is the case with the BS F-Zero Grand Prix titles. Whilst the first game’s been preserved, the sequel’s unplayable in its original state, along with its fully unique courses.
Fortunately though, there is still a way of experiencing this content in some form. A few weeks ago, a ROM hack called BS F-Zero Deluxe was released, which painstakingly recreated the lost tracks and inserted them into the base game, alongside the four exclusive vehicles of the Satellaview releases. In fact, this hack was what made me want to check out the original in the first place! But that’s enough rambling, how are the tracks themselves?
Like I said in the intro, BS F-Zero Deluxe adds all 10 Satellaview courses to the base game. In terms of difficulty, they fit perfectly inbetween the Queen and King Leagues; they’re still fairly challenging, but aren’t quite as punishing as something like Death Wind 2 or Fire Field… at least for the most part.
To start off with the sequels to original courses (those being Big Blue 2, Silence 2 and Mute City 4), they were all solid! It was nice seeing the one-off track environments get revisited, and their layouts do a really good job at remixing the originals whilst still being fresh and distinct from what came before. My favourite of these is Silence 2, it’s surprisingly treacherous and I really appreciate the area where all the walls are bouncy, which means you can take some fun shortcuts if you angle it just right.
The majority of the courses are fully new environments, and they’re all fantastic! My pick for the weakest is probably Sand Storm, it’s not bad but doesn’t feel quite as inventive as the other two types (although the wind in the second version did give me Death Wind flashbacks). The Metal Fort duology is pretty solid, being very balanced in their difficulty and having an incredibly cool aesthetic. My favourite of the new track archetypes is absolutely Forest, though; not only is it a really cool location to race in, but the layouts are also very treacherous. The first two versions are the only courses in the game to have no healing areas whatsoever, which means you’ve got to be extra careful with your driving, especially on Forest 2 which has areas with completely icy roads. Forest 3 does have healing areas, but it’s somehow even trickier than its predecessor, which makes being able to heal up after each lap feel a bit fairer.
While it doesn’t come with the hack, I decided to apply the MSU-1 patch so I could experience the soundtrack expansion by CosmicTailz, which gives every course in the game its own theme, with entirely new compositions for the Satellaview-exclusive tracks! These are absolutely fantastic, and perfectly fit in with the original game’s OST! They really help sell the atmosphere on Sand Storm and Metal Fort, and Big Blue 2’s an absolute joy to the ears. Here’s a link to a YT playlist containing the songs, and you should be able to find a video with a link that’ll let you patch all this for yourself on their YT channel!
So yeah, I think that’s everything! BS F-Zero Deluxe is an insanely cool project, and I’m so glad the Satellaview tracks are preserved in some form. This is probably the closest we’ll get to actually playing them until the original ROMs get dumped, which doesn’t seem likely but crazier things have happened before.
For now though, this is easily the definitive version of the original F-Zero, as everything from the base game is still here and accounted for, meaning you’ll have a lot of content to sink your teeth into!