I'm not joking - this might be the best game in the 99 "series". F-Zero making a return as a battle royale probably seems like some sort of sick monkey's paw situation especially to its fans (I'm not one of them) but this game is actually insanely fun. The races are absolute madness, and they're a blast. There's a surprising amount of content on launch - a few gamemodes, customization options for both your machine and a profile card, time trial modes...this is the most fleshed out a -99 game has ever been as a base package, somehow. This is all held together by a stylish UI and design that feels perfect for the game.

I do think that it's massively lame there's no way to play with others via a room code or something, and it does feel like some things get lost in the chaos - especially KOs, which are touted as integral to increasing your max health and regenerate it entirely when you land one. For as important as they seem, I've never been able to get a KO on another player intentionally. But those two things aside? Unexpected banger, and hope it revitalizes interest in this series that I have not played any other games in but certainly want to learn more about now.