I can't lie, this is pretty heartbreaking and the reveal at the direct depressed me so bad. Love the fact that if you're disappointed or not too into this, you're essentially contributing to Nintendo never doing another F-Zero game like they even were going to began with. The whole "you should be grateful for this" attitude around this fucking stinks and this would be laughed out of the room if Sony pulled a stunt like this.

Still I downloaded it and played it, and it is alright. The central gameplay loop of being pit against up to 99 players and enduring the race can be fun, and Nintendo clearly put a modicum of effort in this to not feel like the most soulless and replaceable online BR title with a short ass shelf life that dominates the industry. I still doubt this will be a thing longer than a year or two with how dry in content it is opening with and Nintendo's recent thing of dropping titles dead on arrival with plans to update them with more content falling hard to the wayside.

You could say F-Zero 99 is better than nothing I guess, but saying this feels like an awful excuse and joke that gnaws at me whenever I turn it on or even think about it. I really hope I'm wrong about this and Nintendo secretly has a GX remaster with online in the wings because this is essentially the new product for the series. Back to dolphin I guess until I'm proven wrong but given Nintendo's track record this generation, I'm not holding my breath.