Level 71 - F-Zero X - We've Got Boost Power!

None.
Well, it got cut off a little bit, but here we are.
That's what happens.

When you pull up a YouTube
video, that's a long play as opposed to just sitting there on
the menu.

Anyways, welcome everybody to
Remember 64 this week.

Oh, this week everybody.
We are very, very excited this week.
We've got Boost Power.

Hello everyone, welcome to the
show.

Hello again if you're a
returning listener or viewer.

And welcome if this is your
first time joining us here on

Remember 64.
Of course, we are going through the entire N64 library
discussing the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in
between.

My name is David Pitrangelo and
I'm just straight up having the need for retro 60 frames per
second speed and that's pretty much all I need at this point.
Jiggy, look back.

How you doing buddy?
Oh, I'm feeling it.

I'm feeling the need for speed.
Let's go.

Let's do it, let's do it.
Of course, we are not alone.

We have three of us.
A prestigious guest has.

Returned.
Prestigious guest, one with a hot streak that will continue
once again.

Let's let's be honest.
We'll continue once again for this episode.
Matt from the Funny Games

Podcast and many, many more is
with us once again.

Welcome back to Remember 64
Buddy.

Thanks.
Thanks for having me.

Yeah.
You dared me to pick another game to continue my hot streak,
and I had just the one.

Yeah.
I'm happy to be back.

I love the show.
It was fun being on here with all of the members of Fun and
Games to talk about Banjo

Kazooie.
That was a fun episode, very chaotic, had very a lot of
gremlin energy I feel like in that one, mostly because of
Jeff.

But but yeah, I'm excited to be
back.

It's good to be on the show and
I brought an absolute guitar ripping banger with me this
time.

Yes he did.
Yes he did.

Absolutely.
And if anyone doesn't really know what we're referring to 1
Matt's on a hot streak because he's because Matt's brought Buck
Bumble with if you're watching his the the the T-shirts says it
alone.

And then since then, we've done
episodes on doom 64, we've done

Banjo Kazooie, we've done Yoshi
story.

It has been non-stop, non-stop
bangers, I would say.

And that will continue.
That will continue with F0X.

That's what we're talking about.
F0X is a very, very beloved game, I would say out there for
this console.

And this is the kick off to our
very cleverly named obviously

Vroom Vroom month for for 2025.
There's lots of racing games.

I think that's one of the
reasons why I thought let's bundle a few together.
I think around in in the 90s especially racing games were
like beat em ups and you know, obviously side scrolling
platformers and stuff, kind of the ones that you could easily
find a bunch of different brand names and different styles and
all that.

I feel like the N64 has a few
unique ones, this being one of them.
So we'll get into that in in just a SEC.
I just want to make sure that everyone, if anyone hasn't heard
over the last couple of episodes that we are now part of the
console creatures family of podcasts and video game
coverage.

These are a bunch of fellas that
I've been working with for quite some time now.
And remember, 64 kind of fits perfectly into that family with
PlayStation Generation and the creature cast as the two other
podcasts on the network as well that talk about more modern
games.

But one obviously focused on
PlayStation, the other one focused on broadly the industry
itself and newer games and everything.
So those guests will be those those people that run those
shows like Bobby, Steve, Matt, like those those guys
specifically will be coming on the show every once in awhile
when whenever we get the chance or more likely to than they were
before.

But other than that, if you
haven't heard, this show's not gonna change.
We're gonna have amazing guests like Matt join us like today and
cover games like this and keep the keep the thing going.
Jiggy's gonna be here, of course, and we're gonna keep
plugging away through this N64 library.
But consolecreatures.com is where you can find articles,
reviews, some of which mostly

Indies are ones that I play in
review on that website, and then videos as well.
The YouTube channel of console creatures will have videos of
gameplay and reviews.

The podcasts also have video
versions, including this one.

And we also have, of course, our
own YouTube page where we have all our stuff available as well.
So yeah, just to get the little bit of housekeeping out of the
way.

But let's let's dig into this.
Let's dig into this game.

Let's dig into this game
friends.

I'm going to start with with
Jiggy F0IN General F0X.

What's the experience coming
into this last couple weeks?

OK, before we get in F0, let me
let me just comment because Matt wearing the buck bumble shirt.
Did you hear Argonaut Games is like we want to remaster Buck
Bumble?

Oh, that's.
Right, I didn't hear.

That.
Yes, yeah, they were.

They were a couple all over the
place.

They're like, this is the next
game we want to, we want to remake.
Yes, that's what I've been hoping for because they just
they just released Croc one and two, right?
Like they rematched 2O.

No, they're doing 2.
They're doing 2, but they released one, Yeah.
I was like, did I miss something?
No, I know.

Wait, wait, where is it?
Yeah.

Yeah, no, the minute they
announced that they were back and they were remastering Croc,
I was like, oh, does that mean we'll get Buck Bumble?
So yeah, I'm very excited.

Yeah, it's going to be.
Cool.

I think we probably even talked
about it Matt, at the time.

Like that's a type of game that
I I wouldn't say that it feels super dated or anything.
If anyone hasn't played it, it's, you know, a flying 3D
action game in a garden as you play as a bumblebee with weapons
because of course you do and it's great.
But if you were to remake it, if you were to either remaster or
do a new version of it or whatever, I think it would
really benefit from like newer technology, newer approaches,
like for sure.

Yeah, what if it had voice
acting and it was Jerry

Seinfeld?
Oh God, but that's.

Like the crossover you didn't
know you needed?

Right.
Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.
Have him another bee.

Yeah, I mean, I'm a Seinfeld
fan, but I don't know, maybe it could be Newman.
Maybe Newman could be voice.

That would work for me.
That could work.

Could.
Be busy.

That's right.
Yeah.

I, I'm down for, for anything
new Buck Bumble, because as I said, Oh my gosh.
How long has it been over 2 years now since we did that
episode, Matt, Roughly as we're sitting here.
Yeah, ever since then, I've,

I've been meaning to to be like
we I, I got to pick this back up.
I want to, I want to play it again.
I want to talk about it more.

You know, I, I have a feeling
like every once in a while I have this idea like, oh, maybe
Jiggy every once in a while we'll go back and do episodes
that we didn't do together and, and play a game.
Maybe if you didn't play it before and do like a sort of,
you know, pick up and say like, oh, here's a, he was like 2-3
games in one episode that I did before me and Jiggy did episodes
together and let's get another sort of perspective on it or
something like that.

And that one is always like
right at the top of the list because it's just because one,
I, I'm happy to play it again.

And two, I don't for me.
I, I, I think I also said this at the time, like, I don't know
that a ton of people played it.

I think it's a, it's too much of
a hidden gem.

So why not put more ears and
eyes on it?

So anyways.
Yeah, I've done my best to spread the gospel of it, sharing
that theme song with anyone who will listen.
Yeah, I was, I've been kind of bummed that they didn't put it
on the the expansion pass.

But my assumption is there's a
reason.

And if Argonaut is going to
remaster it then they probably want to get some dollars for it.
Though it would be cool if like maybe we got the OG version on
the online on the NSO at the same time that whenever this
remaster drops, cause also being multi platform would be great.
I mean, I would still probably buy it on the Switch anyway, but
like it would be cool for other folks to be able to play it
outside of the Nintendo ecosystem because you know, like
I know that Croc is it's at least PlayStation and PC, right?
Isn't it the remaster?

Yeah, and I'm not sure if it's
on Switch or not, but like it.

Is because I have it on switch.
You have it on switch so like that.
Also that game wasn't multi platform originally I don't
believe.

I think it was just a
PlayStation game at the time, right?
It was on PC.

Oh, it was on PC, but yeah, it
wasn't on Nintendo systems.

Yeah.
Yeah, Dreamcast anything so yeah, it would be cool for like
if Argonaut Studios like classics could be across multi
platform now.

And so like, if that we get that
for Buck Bumble, I'll be very, very happy.
Yeah, yeah, that would be awesome.
And and like you said, if putting something on NSO, if
it's at all possible, yeah, people can see where it started,
you know, where it came from like that.
That is a little bit of a maybe this is is too highbrow a way of
putting it, but that's a little bit of an education.
For you, Yeah, yeah, I.

Always find that cool and I do
that with a with a lot of games that we cover on this show where
you know it's not quite the same thing, but I'll go and I'll play
the Game Boy version or any kind of handheld version of the 64
game that that is available, which don't really have to do
with F0IN in a way it's kind of like OK, I grew up playing the
SNES1 anyway so anyways, but but.
If if you know if they're Iggy's

Wrecking Ball is on NSO, there's
hope for Buck Bumble.

Yeah, that's true.
But even though it's not on NSO right now, you know what it is.
F0 Segway back.

I brought us out of it.
I'm bringing us back into it.

F0 history with F0 didn't really
play the Super Nintendo one too much.
That's not one of my my friends had 'cause I didn't own a Super
Nintendo.

So I did have friends that had
Genesis and I did have friends that had Super Nintendos, but no
F0, no F0 in the mix there whatsoever.
F this one, The N64 one.

I did not own this one growing
up.

I have it now, but very, very
particular, my friend that had a

PlayStation and I'm going to
always go to his house and we'd play Crash Bandicoot.
Spyro.

Remember Ripto's Rage
specifically, that was that was the best Spyro in my opinion.
But his grandma, who I had been to her house a surprising amount
of times because whenever I go to his house, like after school,
just be like, hey, let's go to my grandma's be like, OK.
And she had a Nintendo 64 and one of the games she had was F0.
So we did a lot of multiplayer

F0, it was awesome.
It was just awesome.

And then Segway out of the N64,
I did play the gamekeeper one a little bit.
I never owned that one, regrettably, because that one's
like pretty substantially expensive at this point.
Super pumped.

It's on NSO now, which is
awesome.

And now we're we're kind of in
this limbo of not having a new entry.
Although F0 99 was pretty dope.

Yeah, I, I, I do enjoy the chaos
of F-099.

And I did have the, I had one of
the Game Boy Advance titles.

It's, it's the one that has the
purple car in the front.

I can't.
I wanna see.

There was, there was Max, there
was maximum.

Velocity, I think, yeah.
And.

Then there was also GP Legend
which was I think more in line with the anime that had come out
at the time.

Like the art was similar to the
anime that ran at the time.

Yeah, I didn't.
I didn't have that one, but I did have maximum velocity and if
I remember right that game was really cool because it's one of
the games you could play a link cable and the other person
didn't need a copy of the game.

I think that's right.
That sounds right.

Yeah, I remember doing something
like that and thinking that was awesome, that we could do that.
But yeah, Evzira loved the series.
I think it's really fun.

I hope we get a new new entry
soon, but that's pretty much my experience.
I mean it's not super super in depth.
Just played it at my friend's grandma's like all the time.
But that's a lot with racing games.
Right.

Shout out to Ben.
Yeah.

Go Ben.
Go Ben.

Go, go Ben's grandma.
Go Ben's grandma.

Go Ben's grandma maximum
velocity is the one where you can do that.
That's.

I just looked it up.
Yeah, you can get the link cable and only one person needs to
have the physical cartridge in order to play.
It's just fantastic.

And I'm sure I don't know off
hand, but that doesn't seem like something that happened too, too
often.

So that's.
Not the Game Boy that I can think of.
Yeah, 2001, so pretty early for the GBA Like that's that's
something that they came up with pretty quickly.
So that's awesome.

Matt, how about yourself?
I know, I know what I don't know if I'm stepping on toes.
I know you, you you have current experience as well with at least
another one or two games on top of the 64 version.
But growing up, was there any and, and how, how did that go?
Yeah, so I had a Super Nintendo.

I got it late.
I think we talked about this before I got the Square SNES.
And so it was around the Dunk when Dunk Kong Country came out.
And so F0 was a launch title, but it was like one of the most
highly rated games.

And like back then it was like
mostly physical lists or magazines where you'd look up
like what games Dubai and F0 was at the top of all the lists.
So I when I got a Super

Nintendo, I got Donkey Kong
Country, I got the Super Mario

All Stars pack that included
Super Mario World, which I'm so mad I don't have any more 'cause
that was like the best deal in gaming.
Oh, the one that came with.

World Super Mario All Stars that
had World included on it, Yeah.

I got the two separate ones.
Yeah, and then and then I got F0 and yeah, I mean, I loved that
game.

I always like to say it's my
favorite game that I'm terrible at because I am very bad at it,
but it's always fun.

And yeah, you alluded to I'm
guesting on an upcoming.

Actually, it's funny, I think
that these are going to air around the same time, but I'm
guesting on an episode of the

Main Quest hosted by the
incredible Keith Casper and I'm doing 2 episodes and one of them
is on F0 and we had just recorded it this week.
And it's very funny that both of booked very far apart from each
other when I first booked them, but landed in the same week is
just very funny to me.

And so I was an F0 fan and I was
an early adopt adopter of the

N64, as we talked about before.
I basically had it since launch or shortly after launch.
And so as new games came out, I bought them and remembering how
much I loved F0 on the S and ES,

I was like, oh, new F0 and it's
finally multiplayer 'cause that's the biggest
disappointment about the first

F0 is it was single player.
It was still a lot of fun, but you can only play by by
yourself.

And so I was so excited that it
was going to be multiplayer and

I picked it up and I loved it.
And again, probably not particularly good at it, but
back then had enough time to sink into it to like still spend
the time to unlock the racers, like, you know, unlock the X
cup, all the other features.

And so I played it a lot and
then continue to play the series beyond.
Fun fact, F0 is one of the few series on in Nintendo's library
that is completely on NSO at this point because it stopped
with the GameCube and the GBA.

So F0F0X both of the Game Boy
Advance titles and F0 GX was just added with the GameCube.
So now the entire franchise is on NSO, which is can't say for a
lot of Nintendo franchises.

There are always gaps somewhere
certain games.

And so that's really, and so
that's really exciting.

And you know, I'm, I think after
this kick of playing these two games, I might as well mess
around with the others over the coming months.
But but yeah, I love the franchise a lot.
But it's, you know, I'm not a giant racing fan.
I like, I like racing games, but it's always about the
multiplayer.

Like I've talked about this on
other podcasts about Mario Kart

World.
Love it on the Switch to think it's a great game barely play it
unless I'm playing with other people because like that's how I
like to play racing games is with other folks.
But but did like a lot of these like fast kind of fast-paced
like space style racing games.

I played a lot of wipeout back
in the day as well, which is basically a spiritual successor
of this.

There's actually a game called
fast and fast fusion, two different games on the switch.
That friend of the show Dave

Jackson has been talking about
that.

Apparently those are also both
really good at 0 style racing games.
I have to check and they're.

Beautiful looking games too.
I I've seen the the footage of the of the latest one which I
think is only on switch.

Two, yeah, Fast Fusion, it was a
lot.

Launch title.
Yeah, it looks it looks great like and definitely looks like a
good like Wipeout F0 mix.

So that would probably be a good
way to get your kick right now if you have that console.
So yeah, but yeah, I mean, I love the franchise.
I really do like Jiggy.

I liked F-099, but when they
like made a big deal about, oh, there's a new F0 and it was this
elimination game, I was like, oh.
Cool.

But what about a new one?
I'm I remain optimistic that we might get like they chose to
launch the GameCube with F0 GX.

There are so many other games
they could have launched that with like Soul Calibur makes
perfect sense.

You know, I totally understand
why they launched with that.

It's one of the best fighting
games ever made.

Like, but to launch with F0,
like is a curious title to choose, unless it means
something like I'm getting all jiggy theory looking for
secrets, but like to me that means something, right, because
why wouldn't you launch with

Luigi's mansion, literally the
one of the best games on the console and and a launch title
and a launch right?

So that's why I think this means
something.

I think maybe there's something
F0 in the works.

And I mean, we're getting a
brand new Kirby's Air Ride, which in a million years, as
much as I love that game, I never thought we would get a
sequel to.

So like, if we're getting that,
I do remain hopeful that maybe we'll get a new F0, maybe not
this year, but maybe next year.

So we'll see 'cause there are
just so many other stronger, as much as I love F0, there's so
many other stronger Game Cube, single player or multiplayer
titles they could have launched with and they didn't.
And so that's why I'm pretty sure there's a reason they chose
these, right?

And it's been at least what,
2022 years since since 1's been out?
Like it's literally decades at this point.
So it's those signs point to yes, so to speak, you know, like
that's, that's just how it is.

We're seeing a resurgence in
Nintendo.

I PS that they've been kinda set
aside.

The only one I'm like waiting to
see if they do anything with

Starfox too.
That's.

That's pretty much the other
one.

And that hasn't been as dormant
as long as F 0 -, 99.

But I mean, we're getting Donkey
Kong, we're getting Kirby Air

Riders, we're getting Metroid
Prime 4.

Like we have so many good games
lined up.

I am so ready.
Like just keep bringing her back.
Just come on.

While we're sitting here in in
the middle of 2025, I would I would think within the next 18
months we'll see a couple of these maybe or at least be close
to having a couple of.

I mean, obviously as we sit
here, Donkey Kong has just released when you're hearing
this, but it's about to as we're sitting here tonight.
But but it's, you know, these, these games are and franchises,
you know, even if you didn't grow up with F0, like the three
of us are sort of talking about like I, I, I think that there's
some, there's some, like, I mean, there's literally there's
attitude in, in, in this franchise, especially this
particular version of, of F0 that like you don't, you don't
see too often.

And it's colorful and it's wild
and it's obviously fast and like all these things that, you know,
like, like you just mentioned,

Matt, there are games that try
and emulate that.

But something about going back
to like this one in particular.

Like for me, this is the one
that I have the most memory with.
I think I, I didn't own it, but definitely was a rental and
definitely had a couple friends that had it.
And I do remember just, you know, playing this around the
same time, or maybe I played the

SNES one just before.
It's kind of, it's kind of hard because I kind of went between
both consoles growing up because

I owned both and the Super
Nintendo was one I kind of always had plugged in or could
easily just swap over and stuff.

And I always just enjoyed it,
but I used to have the original.

I don't know what happened to
that cartridge.

It's one of the ones that
disappeared, unfortunately.

But really enjoy that.
And I did go back and play it a little bit over the last couple
weeks.

I just pulled up a version of it
on on Steam Deck just to like give it a little shot and
whatever.

And it's fun.
It's fun, but the first thing you notice when you play F0X is
just how how much they make it feel like these machines are
just so fast.

They just, I don't know if it's,
I mean, there's a lot of things that play here to make that make
that happen.

You could even attribute the
little speedometer at the bottom and actually tell you what you
like, the kilometers or miles that you're going.
You could look at that if you wanted to, but it's just the the
the track design, the the amount of other racers on it, even just
the the simple background.

So there's something about just
the way that you zip around that the difference between the speed
and this to even the GBA games, which I think I only played the
the maximum velocity 1.

You just you get a completely
different feeling out of this one.
And maybe it's the 3D, maybe it's a combination of things,
but man, it just still feels so freaking good to just go at the
blink of speed, blink of light here.
Like it's just it's.

Blink of speed, the blink.
Of speed.

Because that's a thing, people,
That's a thing.

It's a Canadian unit of
measurement.

It's.
Sure, sure.

Let's go with that.
Yeah.

Can you switch this to MPH?
Speaking of, because right, I'm,

I don't know, can you, I'm
always in kilometers.

So I don't know, I don't think I
never tried to I.

Don't think I wouldn't.
Think it's just by default.

Well, literally everyone but us
in the States uses kilometers.

So exactly.
That's Japanese studio, that whole thing.
Yeah.

I mean, it definitely is one of
those games.

Well, first of all, we should
say at the top, and you hinted at this earlier, this is the
only game on the console that runs at 60 frames per second and
it looks good.

Like I'll say right here at the
beginning of the episode, this is probably one of the best
looking games on the console because it utilizes what this
console does well.

The ship shapes are simple.
The backgrounds, though, Jpegs are simplified and, like, it
utilizes the fog in a way.

And there's not as much of it
that like it.

Yeah.
It just, it's killer.

And like, I was kind of, you
know, whenever I gear up to play an N64 game, like I always go,
oh, this looks good for what it is.
Or like, you know, the NSO is doing a little bit of help to,
like, judge stuff out of it.

But like, yeah, yeah.
This game, like, just it's firing on all cylinders.
And I think the fact that it's like the, like the Super
Nintendo game, they keep most of the design simple but stylish.
It just makes it look like 1,000,000 bucks.
Mm hmm.

And I was gonna say this is this
is part of an elite club.

It's not the only game to run at
six.

Oh, really?
Really.

Killer Instinct gold, actually.
Oh, you're right.

Oh, does.
It really?

Oh wow, it does apparently
Mortal Kombat 4.

The way I'm just reading this, I
can't like confirm it confirm, confirm.
And Super Super Smash Bros when you're in one one character want
like one player mode 60FPS, which that's the one that I
thought.

And then I was like, wait,
doesn't that run at 60 FPS?

But I guess as long as you're
not in multiplayer.

But yeah, it is.
Oh, it's the only race.

Or N 60 at the race.
It's the first racing game to be at 60.
Not the first, yeah, Not the first N64 game because obviously
when it came out and stuff, yeah.
Yeah, because it came out 90.

Was it 90?
898 yeah 90.

Eight.
Yeah.

So sorry Jake, I cut you off.
No, I was done.

Great.
We can wrap up.

No, I'm just kidding.
Yeah, No, I think so.

I think like everything that,
you know, it's pretty easy to see that that the design of of
the tracks and the racers or the actual, you know, machines
themselves, actual cars.

I was going to say cars, but
hover, hover cars, I guess the actual machines themselves are,
are where the focus is, right, as they should be.
And I think like, you can easily like watch this video that we're
seeing now where you can go and, you know, see a screenshot and
be like, oh, look at that, like ugly, you know, like moon or,
oh, look at that stagnant background or oh, it's just a
couple of dots and stars.

Like, but at the end of the day,
like you're never going to look at it.
And it's better that they focus on everything else.
And I, I, you know, it still looks great at the speed that
it's going.

Like you are sure you're not
actually going 1000 kilometers an hour.
I get it.

But the way that they make you
feel that way and the way that the the the maps are zipping by
you and the other racers are zipping by you, that sense of
speed that they've been able to create and make it always run
smooth and always feel like you're at going at that clip no
matter what's happening is impressive in itself.
And it's got color, it's got personality, it's got all these
things that you expect almost from a Nintendo game, but maybe
not necessarily in this like attitude focused racer, you
know?

It feels very like 90s angst
with the the art and everything.

That's what I love about it it
it almost gives me like Speed

Racer vibes.
Oh, totally, that's what.

I think of when I see this, I'm
just like Speed Racer, man, let's go.
Yeah, I mean, this, this game, this series had an anime and it
was very like cheesy a la Speed

Racer.
Like there's an evil clone of

Captain Falcon named Blood
Falcon.

Like it's just, it's really
weird and goofy.

But like, yeah, this game also
like it really just builds on everything the first game does.
And a good sequel does that, right?
There's more racers, there's more tracks, there's you know,
and again, like the graphics, all of it like Jiggy, You're
right, a screenshot of this game probably doesn't always look
great, but in motion it I think looks absolutely flawless when
you're playing it and controls well too.
I mean, again, like its predecessor, this is a game I
love that I am very bad at.

I got first place on like the
first 2 tracks and then on novice and then probably never
again.

Yeah.
So we we definitely have to talk about the difficulty.
That's something that so.

It's so funny.
We're talking about how it controls well.
And then it's like you, you play this game, you're gonna feel
like it doesn't control well, I,

I mean, if it controls well.
But it's responsive.

It's responsive.
It's.

Responsive.
It's like it's hard to make it control well.
Does that make sense?

I I think at times though, at
times like it's simple, right?

You have one button to obviously
you're gas, you have a boost and you have a button that can help
you bump other characters or crash into other characters and
stuff.

And I don't think I'm missing
anything else, right?

Then you just.
And then you have the shoulder buttons to like to drift.
They'll turn.

Yeah.
Oh, I.

Have to drift a little bit and
stuff.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So, you know, pretty basic stuff and something you've you, you
know, we've seen in in other racing games as well.
But I, you know, I, I think there's like this, this balance
is what they're going for.

Where it's like you, you sorry,
but you can't go 1500 kilometers the entire race, you're gonna
lose control.

Like I think that's where that
comes into play.

But once you do lose control,
it's really hard to get.

To literally get back.
On track.

I've bumped into the wall way
too many times.

Well, yeah, I guess we haven't
said that yet.

And in case someone hasn't
played F0, what makes the F0 different from other racing
games, and this is true of the first game too, is you have a
health bar and like hitting other cars, hitting the side of
the track, hitting certain hazards, all deal damage and
then usually at least once per track, depending on the side of
the track, sometimes two, there are these strips of pink glowing
light that when you drive over them, you heal and get your
health back.

Thankfully in this game you heal
much faster and the original F0 like it was slow to start
healing you and it took forever to fill the bar, whereas here
you heal pretty quick.

They also in in this boosting
damages you and so you can boost as much as you want, but it
sucks down your health bar and so so like when you have.
Zero.

You nick 1 little thing and you
explode.

That's.
Right.

And so like that's also part of
this is like the balance of your health versus the track versus
how often do you boost.

And it's kind of like, you know,
it's a risk reward thing.

Well, you know what reminds me
of is, is I mentioned this sort of near the top when I was
talking about how racing games are sort of common in in these
generations in the 90s.

It's kind of like a lot of beat
em UPS where when you had when you would press X&Y at the same
time or B&Y at the same time and that would be like a special
move.

I think this is pretty common in
I wanna say some of the Double

Dragon and Battletoads games.
It's of rage.

It's of rage, yeah, exactly
where that would chip away at your health, but it would be a
super strong move.

Ninja Turtles games have it and
stuff.

It's it's a common idea.
This is that, but on a racetrack, Yeah.
Racetrack and unlike the first game, also like the first game,
you could see the stats of the four cars and like choose which
one you wanted in this all the cars have a a a letter grade of
like how powerful they are, how fast they are and their.
Body, which I think is how much.

Durability ache, I think, Yeah.
But also, when you start a race, you can choose acceleration
versus top speed.

And like, do you really want
high acceleration so you're hitting your top speed faster,
or do you want a high, high top speed, which will take longer to
get to, but once you get to, you'll blow people away?
And control comes in with that too.
Like I often chose right in the middle because I found if I did
too much of one or the other I just couldn't keep control of
the car.

Yeah, yeah, and, and, and what
that, what comes into play with that too is that it gives you a
little preview, like a 3D preview before you pick that
thing to see what the track might look like.
So, Oh yeah, turns and, and dips and stuff.
Well, maybe you wanna, you know, pick up some more acceleration
and stuff.

I, I played around with it a
bit.

I didn't notice that.
Like if you were just a couple of notches on either side, I
didn't notice a massive difference.
But if you if you swing all the way to one side, you're, you're
probably picking up a couple 100 kilometers per hour more when
you if you were to pick all the way to top speed when you're
boosting and stuff, which does make a difference.
But really you can only I, I found I can only take keep
control of a vehicle going that fast, unlike the pretty simple,
like the first two of each cup, maybe where they aren't quite as
intricate, not as tight.

Otherwise I was just bouncing
off walls and not, not even surviving the races 'cause, you
know, on top of this, like to, to me playing this on the on
anything outside of the medium difficulty, forget it.
I'm not, I'm not finished top three unless I'm getting lucky,
you know, like so I was, I was pushing the limits and then not
surviving.

That was my that was my issue.
I ran into a lot.

Jiggy, you're nodding your head.
Yeah, it's hard.

I, I did like my speed spot
tended to be about 3 or 4 ticks toward the Max speed side.
I just found having the top speed more valuable.
And maybe that comes from like my long history of playing lots
of Sonic games, especially Sonic

Adventure 2 is what I'm thinking
of in particular because like there's so many instances where
I wanted to keep my speed.

So it's just like memorization
of where obstacles were and turns and just really like
honing in on that perfect path, which you, you get really good.
And once you get really good in

F0, you want the Max speed like,
because if you're like, OK, I can avoid, I can avoid most
obstacles as long as I can get ahead of the pack, you know, And
then you're, you're, you're like a bullet.
Like it's awesome.

Yeah, Boost the.
Crap out of it.

It's wild too, and and some of
the the speed stuff is something

I kept trying to make note of in
my mind.

Of course, I didn't write it
down because I'm irresponsible, but reminded me now, so I got
it.

Thank you, Jinky.
The the top speed stuff is is important in if you're in that
like sort of last top, like let's say top five.
Let's say the game has this way of and and you know, people talk
about this all the time with these retro racers.
Is that, you know, the rubber banding is just it sucks, right?
It's just a mechanic that was used and I never feel like it
feels good.

I just feel like it just is
arbitrary and it's just OK.

Well, you know, it's there to
make things tense at the end in this.
It's almost like, and I noticed this less so in the in the
easiest difficulty, but the medium one and, and hard as
especially, it's almost like they're giving you the chance to
catch up because I found that it was rare for me to be in first
place, you know, one, especially at the at the end of the first
lap.

But it's not hard to beat the
stay consistently in first place for me, especially on medium and
hard going into the third lap.

So what they do is they sort of
find a little bit of a way, like with the speed and things like
that, as long as you're not bouncing off walls and making
make massive mistakes, you're going to be in the running, but
they make you kind of catch up to them and that feels exciting.
And then if you get that boost and you get that Max speed or
you're able to sort of push yourself to the limit a little
bit like you're mentioning, then you're able to jump ahead
sometimes literally less like I have, I think I took a
screenshot.

I should have, I should have
pulled it up.

I think I beat someone on the
hard difficulty like the first.

First place I got on hard was
.02 of a second or something.

And I was like, you know.
I'm, I'm pumped because I got, I got so excited.
It was probably a sloppy race, but I, I did it and I had like
very little energy and like, that feels good.
That's the way to do this.

And getting that, that balance
of the Max speed and acceleration I think could help
if you're, if you're doing it on the right race, which I don't
know, I, I, I don't know if I, it was probably just my driving
skill that made the biggest difference rather than the
actual, you know, or lack thereof.
How about lack thereof skill?

The person we're watching play
right now is good.

So it's it's kind of depressing.
Did you guys have?

So there's a total of 30
characters in this that you can eventually unlock.
You start with, is it six across the across the top?
I think it's 6.

Yeah, you you start with the
first row of racers and then unlock the rest.
And then you go down as you win more cups and stuff.
I guess to start, you only have a certain amount, but did you
did either of you have a go to that you always went to or was
it kind of like they're kind of the same?
I just I like that the look of that that racer for me it.
Was based on the the stats I needed someone who handled
better and had a better body more than speed because I'm kind
of careless when playing kind of these games and so I need some
cushion.

I played as Leon a lot, who is
his car is the space angler.

It's kind of a bluish kind of.
Oh yeah, yeah, I said to you guys, I put AI put a link into
the into the our chat that has the the big character listings
and stuff doesn't show they're actual racers, but it shows the
the characters themselves.

Yeah.
But the the characters are wild in this game.
And yeah, but I would pick him a lot just 'cause I remembered him
being pretty good when I was younger and had the stats.
I didn't meticulously unlock everything.
There is a code that you can put in that unlocks all the tracks
and all the racers, and if you do that, the game saves that
information so you don't have to go through meticulously unlock
everything.

If I were playing this from
scratch for the first time, I'd never played it before, I would
do that.

But since I've done that before
and I mostly wanted to kind of re familiarize myself with
everything, I did that for this and so I used Leon mostly when I
was racing.

And I think Leon is I think he's
like the second or third row.

That's nice.
So you have to you have to you have to win a couple.
I mean, I think you can just if that either win one or two on
the easy or medium difficulty and then you start unlocking the
rows and everything.

So did you have one Jiggy?
Any go to's?

Samurai Goro.
It's a classic.

I just loved his name.
I don't.

I don't understand that name or
character.

It's so funny because I don't
know, he just doesn't.

You would assume that he had
some sort of samurai outfit or, or inspired outfit or something.
And it's.

He's got like the Japanese flag
as his, yeah, isn't he as his like.
Oh, is that what it is?

I didn't even make that
connection.

And he's a bounty hunter.
And like Captain Falcons rival, he's one of the original racers
from the very first game.

From the first one yeah, he's
also from that so that Yeah.

So all these characters have a
bio.

You mentioned the anime, Matt,
but like, there's like they, they created all these little
sort of blurbs and BIOS of these characters and stuff.
Samurai Goro, one of the best bounty hunters around and the
leader of the group of space thieves.
Goro's reason for joining F0 is because of his hatred for
Captain Falcon, his rival.

Yes, that's again rival.
And his his ship is the fire

Stingray isn't.
That sound dope.

And it actually looks kind of
cool.

It's.
Like hot pink too.

It's.
Oh, no, yeah.

So it's pink with the flames on
the back.

That's what it is, yeah.
Yeah.

Yeah, it looks like, it really
looks like when I was talking about like doing more Max speed
and looking like a bullet, that's the vehicle I was in.
So like it really does like it.

It's like the shape of.
It's on a.

Bullet.
Almost.

It's the shape of a bullet.
Aerodynamic.

Yeah.
And then each one has like what, like I think 4 different choices
where you can slightly change the, the color on it.
Like I think you can turn that, that pink one into yellow or
something like it, small things like that.
So, and if anyone's watching, you can see it's the, it's the,
the pink one that's on the, on the top row here.
So one of the early ones too.

Yeah, What was the what was the
2nd row where this person has the one that's like that looks
like the bat wing.

They're like second from the
right.

I feel like.
Because I remember using that one growing up because I thought
it looked like the Bat 1 and I was like, that one's dope.
I gotta find which one that is.

I remember.
Who it is, though?

I'm clicking through all the all
the ones.

Yeah, it looks cool.
Definitely looks cool.

Yeah, let's see the great.
Now all these names.

I'm clicking on the names, but
not the actual.

Well, it's not Captain Falcons.
I I used early on.

I used is it?
I think it's Pico or Pico is like an alien kind of looks like
is like a turtle shell on them almost.
It's the green and yellow one right beside the pink.
I felt like that one had a had a pretty good balance.
Yeah, he goes also Eraser from the first game.
Yeah.

So that one has an A body.
So there you go, Matt.

That's a.
That's a little.

An A body a.
Body A, body A or A?

Oh, it's AB in F0X, Never mind.
B on boost and C on grip.

Wow, actually, that's not even
as balanced as I thought it was.

I don't know what I was
thinking.

Yeah, what the hell was I doing?
Maybe that was my problem.

I'm going to blame it on I'm
going to blame it on what he what he was racing and rather
than myself.

But there's yeah, there's up to
30 characters.

Is it is it bio Rex?
Is that who it is the the the

Raptor or the T Rex?
Or.

That black one maybe called Big
Fang.

There you go.
Dope.

That's awesome.
It's all very 80s nineties cheese.
You know, you got characters called Zoda, Billy and Billy's
apparently the first monkey to participate in F0, it says.
I love the references.

Yeah, he's.
Owes to prove that monkeys are the superior species.
That's it.

That's why it's.
Amazing.

Do you hear the the references
to other Nintendo titles?

Like James?
James McLeod is one of them from

Starfox.
That's his father.

That's Fox Mcleod's father.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's.

Isn't there a guy that looks
like Mario, like he's got like the mustache in the nose and
everything?

I don't.
Know if there's a mustache?

Let me see if the guy's here.
Maybe I'm reading into it, maybe he's just like, unintentionally
looks like Mario, but.

I feel like it's hard to hide
that something like it's not like you're picking some obscure
Nintendo character to reference, you know what I mean?
Another favorite of mine is actually kind of has a cool a
cool ship too.

I can't quite see it in the
screenshot.

I think he's all the way towards
the 3rd, 4th row maybe?

Or maybe even the last one.
It's the old guy.

The old guy.
Yeah, the old guy Dry.

Let's see, what's his name here?
Oh, Silver Nielsen.

That's right, the silver fox.
He's 97 years old and he drives the Night Thunder.
Oh yeah, most races entered and yet hasn't won his first Grand
Prix.

He hasn't.
Won yet?

Poor guy.
Like just give it to him, you know, just just give it to him.
No, no.

Hand up No.
You got to hit that Max speed baby.
I'm going to do better.

Yeah, I found I didn't, I picked
particular ones eventually, but

I think I leaned towards having
good, good resilience, a good body as well.
It just covered me a little bit with my very, you know, eventual
mistakes that I would probably make an overzealous boosting.
I think that the other key thing in this game, which is which
we've all sort of mentioned before and touched on is the
track design and the different and the amount of tracks is one
thing, of course, but just the track design themselves I found
to be super cool and and and pretty varied.
There's a couple you could say, oh, that's similar to this or
similar to this, but nothing feels exactly the same.
I don't know what you guys,

Matt, what you think about I
it's hard.

It's hard to know all the
different names.

They're all kind of wacky names
and everything.

But it was a certain like style
that you liked because sometimes there's one that has like
different themes or different obstacles or loops or whatever.
Anything like that stand out?

Well, I mean I I love the
classics like Mute City's in this and Big Blue is in this,
which has been in the previous game.
This version of Big Blue had that like tube that you would
race on and you could circle around it but you had to get
back towards the top of it before the road came back.
I am so bad at controlling those segments that I would fly off
all the time, which is like my own mistake, you know?
Like no one's.

No one's doing that to me.
I am doing that to myself.

But like, I think my favorite
tracks in this are honestly, there's some of the repeats from
the first game, sand ocean and stuff because also the music,
like we'll probably talk more about the music later, but like
a lot of like reproductions of songs from the previous game and
like F0 for the SNES still to this day is probably one of the
absolute best video game soundtracks ever made.
It's just absolute bangers, wall to wall.
And this has a bunch of those plus a bunch of new stuff too.
I mean, we shared that guitar shred that is on the opening
screen of the game, like it's just a rock'n'roll game.
And the music is awesome and so, well, I had some favorite tracks
that were the layouts.

Honestly, my favorite thing
about this game, and I think it's one of the first of its
kind this early to have something like this.
But it had an X cup which you unlocked after unlocking
everything else and the X Cop.

The X cup is every time you play
it, it's a it generates a different set of like it pulls
track parts together and creates a new track.
It's procedurally generated.

That's insane and for an N60.
Four-game, it's awesome.

It's basically an F0 rogue like
where every time you enter.

Damn it, now that you put it
that way, I have to go back and play it even more.
Yeah, it's it's a really cool idea and like, I love that.
And I played that a bunch as a kid too, because it was just, it
was always interesting.

I could never kind of prepare
for it.

It was just how good can I do on
this random thing?

And the music on that track also
is awesome.

But yeah, I mean, I think that
the the thing that you were saying, Dave, about how none of
them feel the same.

Even ones that are like sequel
tracks like Mute City 2 or Big

Blue 2, they don't, they don't
feel the same as the previous iteration.
They have the same vibe, but they change it up so it feels
wholly unique.

I mean, the silence is one of my
favorites because it's just that's a cool name for a track.
And it's a it's basically an

Oval.
So it's one of the easier ones to race on like that's a.
Massive.

Track, yeah, basically.
So I really like the silence for that 'cause I felt like I was
accomplishing something on that one.
What about you, Jake?

Any like particular styles at
least?

I really appreciate when there's
ramps to go off of.

I just love going crazy and like
angling my car.

I, I know it's a game about
speed, but I always find myself whenever I'm in that situation.
And the same is still true like with Mario Kart and everything.
Whenever I'm, I'm going off a ramp, I always wanna like make
my car go as high as possible.

I'm almost like, oh, oh, oh, I
wanna like, I'm gonna flutter out and then a dive bomb.
Like it's like I do the same thing every time.
It's like, I don't know if it's the Arkham, Arkham City, Arkham
Knight fan in me.

Like dive bomb momentum.
That's what I need.

I just love that stuff.
It's super fun.

It's super chaotic.
And also I, I love when the track like flips upside down
just 'cause it's, it's so crazy.

Like you'll just be driving and
all of a sudden you'll hit.

There's one in particular I, I
can't think of what it's called.

It's in the like the very first
Grand Prix, but there's like a, it's essential.
And this might be just something that's in a lot of them, but
it's a, it's like essentially a giant like tube like structure
and you're just like whipping around the whole thing.
Oh yeah, you're just, you're just going around the whole
thing like that and like looking for the boost, Like where is it?
It, it just gets so intense.

Oh, that.
One's sand, sand, ocean, I think where there's there's two pipes
that you go in and out of I think during that.
It's awesome.

And they, and they kind of like,
one of them even like narrows towards the end too.
So it starts really wide and then just you have to like fight
for your spot essentially that that's chaotic when that happens
'cause it's really easy to sort of sort of go over the edge and
then you can just literally just keep spinning like insane
amounts.

Man, dude, I'm telling you, like
anything like that is awesome.

And I did play, I wanted to say
knockout mode.

That's not what it's called.
It's called like deathmatch or something.
But essentially, essentially it's like defeat everybody, like
you go and you just like ram into them and stuff.
It just keeps.

Going, I think, until you are
the lot, whoever's the last.

One.
Yeah, Whoever's the last one standing.
Yep.

Yeah.
It's intense.

Were you guys any any good at?
No, I'm so, so bad at it, right?

Yeah, right.
It's hard.

It's hard.
Yeah.

This is a difficult game.
And like I said, like, like the

FCR series is one of those
series that I love playing.

It's so stylish, it's so cool,
but I'm not good at it.

Like I have more fun playing
with other people.

I like playing it by myself, but
like, skill is not.

It's like I could probably get
good at it if I spent a ton of time with it.
But also, I think that's a thing

I don't really do with racing
games in general anymore is like, I don't really play
competitive racing games to try and get better.
It's just not a thing that I I do as much anymore.
But like that said, if there was a new F0 game that like everyone
was playing together online, would definitely play like I'm
playing more Mario Kart now than

I was playing for a while
because it's a brand new one, right?
So like I would totally do that with an F0, but like, yeah, I
was very bad at deathmatch.

Like I would try to take out
other cars off and taking myself out or like doing more damage to
myself.

That's kind of how that always
went for me.

Well, I think because you're,
you're going so fast, you have to be very accurate with it.
And it's hard to do because you really like if you mess up your,
you sort of, you know, use the, the shoulder buttons to kind of
move yourself over and bump into the cars to kind of smack your
momentum into them.

And that's basically the best
way to do it.

The only time I felt like I was
ever really that successful and one time I think I knocked out
like four or five at the same time was like a tight spot at
the beginning of the race and I was like, I got to see what
happens.

Maybe I'll kill myself, I don't
know.

And then the stars pop off and
like, oh cool, I did it.

And then nothing at for the rest
of the races through the whole rest of the GP.
So like it was just one of those like lucky things.
And as far as I can tell, it just kind of keeps a tally for
you and that's pretty much it.

It doesn't actually like it's
not like getting coins in Mario or yellow faster or anything.
It's just an added thing, which

I guess is fine, but but for how
difficult it is, I wish you got a little bit more out of it.
You know what I mean?

And of course, I have to mention
with the tracks, I had a few, a couple favorites that kind of
jump out.

I, I the half pipe one's kind of
cool.

Another one we can get that can
get crazy chaotic.

The Mute City ones are are a lot
of.

Fun plastic.
Those ones are always good.

And there's a rainbow Rd.
There is a rainbow Rd. in this which I probably never tracked
back in the day that this is just, you know.
Speaking of referencing other games, Jake.
Yeah, yeah.

I don't know if you saw my
message I sent in the discord an image of that Mister Eid.
Oh yeah.

Oh, that's the one I was talking
about.

And he has a power star on his
belt buckle, so he's totally supposed to be Mario.
Absolutely that.

Star is stripped directly from
like, no question that's.

He's an Android.
He's an Android with a because because he has the power star.
He's he's all powerful.

Yeah, I want to.
We talked a little bit about the music too, and then since
Rainbow Rd. is here, also just a subtitle to some of these two
Rainbow Rd. psychedelic experience.
Yeah.

It's not just a racetrack, it's
a psychedelic experience menu music, which also is great.
Come on, buddy, pick your character.
Let's go, let's go.

There we go.
Death.

Anchor death.
Anchor Zoda, definitely.

Didn't hear that.
That sound very much knock someone off.
This is again, this is like later on, I think this is in the
last GP that you get to, Yeah, for the X1.
It basically has no rails, so you can follow very easily.
Scary.

Like it's very dangerous.
Exactly the way it should be, but I think to jiggy you were
mentioning that the ones that have loops and and things like
that are some of your favorites.

I, I found that the coolest part
of those for me is yes, a lot of them are, are fun to play, but
just the visual of it, or sometimes like this one as an
example, you see where you were or where you're going to go,
like on top of you or to the side.
Like they made sure that that was also included.
And it's not just a placeholder, like it's actually where you are
or could be, you know, it's not just a background thing to show
like, hey, this track is wild.

No, no, no, you've been there.
You know, you just came from that side of the loop or you
just came from that turn that that whipped you into this area
and stuff.

And I found that to be so cool
'cause in the 2D versions of this, and I have not played the
GameCube one, but in the 2D versions of this, you know, you,
you don't get that sense because there's no way to do it.
And that's just not, it's made right.
That's the added bonus of the presentation of of this game for
me is they really, even though the surroundings around your
very basic with just, you know, the stars as your background or
whatever, you still have the sense of scale and speed and 3D
Ness, if that's the right way to say it like they really take
advantage of hey, we have a three, we have 3D capability.
Let's really show you how how that's going to work in a crazy
space age race like this.

And I feel like it goes a long
way to making these races feel even more epic and stuff like
that.

So I I love that part.
Yeah.

I just, it's this game's really
freaking good.

It's really good.
It's so fun.

It's.
Very arcady, very in a good way.

Yeah, it is.
It's it's an arcade game.

Oh man, imagine playing this in
the arcade sitting down.

Yeah, like 1 like a car or like
a seat.

Yeah, but it but not like a
steering wheel.

It has to have the like a.
Like a they had a version of F0

GX?
Yeah, as an arcade machine.

Oh, kind of like they've done
with Mario Kart.

I think it had a steering.
Did it have a steering wheel or did it have like throttles?
Throttles.

I've totally played it once.
Throttles I think would make sense.
But it would be so much cooler if you said in like little.
So it.

It.
So I found out an image of it, it was F0 AX and it had the
whole kind of cockpit kind of experience with a big TV and a
seat and then like the pilots kind of steering wheel.
And yeah, it was.

I'll post it in our chat.
It was a really cool setup.

I don't know that there were any
in the USI feel like it was like a Japan only thing for a while.
Are you serious?

I swear I've played.
Oh yeah?

Oh, maybe then maybe you did.
Maybe.

I don't remember ever playing it
in person, but.

Because, like, I've never been
to Japan as far as I know.

Yeah, as far as I know, as far
as I remember.

I.
Maybe they're, well, maybe it was like imported or.
Something, or maybe they were imported.
Yeah, because like, I didn't see the Mario Kart stuff as a kid,
but then as I got older I would see them in arcades and there
was even a Luigi's Mansion arcade at one point where you
would catch ghosts against another person.
Yeah.

There it is, a look at that.
It's pretty dope.

Yeah, that's cool.
Yeah, that makes sense.

That's a kind of like.
I want that in my house.

Right.
That's.

Basically a tube TV.
It's probably, you know, not that expensive to get one of
those.

Exactly what it is.
Look at it like it looks like a

Stony tube TV, like, yeah, I
don't, yeah, That's all they did was they just hooked up GameCube
maybe or something, you know, like a it's, you know, maybe not
GameCube specifically, but something like that, yeah.
Because this would have been.

From.
This is a separate version of the game.
Yeah.

It's an exclusive arcade
version.

That's.
Crazy.

Didn't it have or?
No, No no, I'm thinking of Mario

Kart.
I was thinking it had an exclusive character, but Mario
Kart had arcade had Pac-Man.

Yep, I remember.
Oh, was it really?

Oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah, it did.

Did this, Did this have any
exclusive stuff, I wonder.

I don't remember GX.
Yeah, it's like a modified version.
I mean, there's other characters.
Oh, new pilots, there's a bunch.

What?
Yeah, they added a bunch of new pilots, but they I don't think
any of them are like guest characters from other games as.
Well, like Crash Bandicoot.

Let me see.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull it up so you guys can see it.
Where is it?

Here.
This is fun.

That I can do.
This please Princess Peach.

There, those are all the those
are the new characters.

Oh man.
That's awesome.

Looks like someone from.
I feel like I feel like these could be like some popular
Japanese games or something.

Like maybe side characters from
those or something like the three?
Princey remote remote character from something else.
Oh, it's oh, she's OK.

She's in GX.
OK, some of these, a couple of these showed.
Up.

Oh, so F0 AX came out before GX
2000?

Three.
Yeah, yeah, before.

Yeah.
Well, this screen is jumping all over the place, so it's only
four returning pilots and their rest are new.
In it, yeah.

And then they were added to
GGX's roster when that game came out, a lot of them.
Easy.

Hey, only 'cause I noticed it.
What is the GX connectivity?

There's something if you go
Scroll down, Scroll down GX connectivity, you can plug a
GameCube memory card into the cabinet to download or upload
special data.

What?
Custom vehicles.

Oh wow, that kind of stuff is
dope.

Yeah, that's.
Awesome.

What?
Man?

That reminds.
Oh man, that reminds me of like going to Best Buy and getting
like exclusive Pokémon on like

ADS or like.
Doing like a Pokémon snapping, going to the blockbuster and
printing out photos and stuff.

Yeah.
Man, that kind of stuff is awesome.
It's these days now spend like $2.00 and they'll.
Download it.

Yeah, it.
Just sucks and it takes the like mystique out of it, right?
You had to do something to get that, and now it's just like,
well, now everybody has it.

Just press a button and it's
done.

I don't like that jiggy.
The the F0 AX locations database says that less than 20 are
confirmed to be available in

North America.
If this wiki page is correct.

Maybe you experienced 1 of 20.
No freaking way.

I don't know.
I swear to you I have played one of these and I'm trying.
To remember there was 20, maybe you you got to 1 of 20.
There's no freaking way.

I didn't know it was like this
big like rarity thing.

Now I need to like look back.
You got to look for pictures or something and be like I was.
There I did it.

I'm trying to think of where it
was.

I want to say it was that at
like a movie theater arcade.

It doesn't.
July doesn't really say.

It's mostly like Matt was saying
it's mostly a Japanese thing.

So I mean, that's if you did get
a chance to to do that, I mean that that's.
Awesome.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of Japanese
only arcade cabinets did eventually migrate over to the
States, but like.

Oh my gosh, I totally did.
Yeah.

And it says Madison, WI.
There's like a map.

There's one in Madison, WI which
is I'm from Wisconsin.

That's amazing.
Wow I knew I played it.

I'm where is it exactly?
It is at Cottage Grove Rd.

I went to school right right
next to it.

The.
School of F0 this is.

A wow shout out to Nerd Haven
Arcade in Madison, WI.

I totally played it there.
That is it.

Wow, incredible.
You are you are one of the lucky few.
One of.

The odds of that I had no idea.
That's amazing.

Well, you learn something new or
experience re re experience something new every day I guess.
Exactly.

I guess I guess my last thing
with this we we talked a little bit about about the music and
obviously the gameplay and stuff.
But like generally it is, it is, you know, it's a racer, it's got
speed, it's got, you know, you once I think once you get a
handle of how it controls like you you mentioned earlier, Matt,
you can definitely, I want to say perfect, but it's really
hard to perfect, at least with what it seems like our skills
are in this game.

Not the person we've been
watching while we've been talking about this is I think, I
think largely like this is a game to to seek out.
I think it was a franchise to seek out, but I don't know if
there's something I got to play the GameCube one.
But there's something about the sense of speed in this alone
makes me want to go back to this and the, and the simplicity of
it, almost like some of the tracks are a little bit more
complex or have a little bit more going on.
Sure.

But if you just give the first
couple of GPS in the in the novice difficulty a go and it
feels like, oh, I, I get this, this feels good.
Let me just do the first one and all this, this feels good.
I think you're going to get a good sense of what this game has
to offer and it's going to be a lot of fun.
And if you want to ramp up the difficulty, you can do that.
I don't recommend jumping into, if you've never played this game
before at all, I don't recommend even jumping into the medium
difficulty.

Play the first one on novice and
play as many as you want on that because you will get a challenge
even on standard on the medium difficulty.
And I, I mostly stuck to that.

I really wanted to, to play the
X thing, so I kept going and going so I could get to that.
So that's what I was hoping to do and I, I, I think honestly
for me from start to finish, this like this game just shines.
So I love it.

I recommend pretty much anybody,
especially if you have a switch, it'll control well on that too.
You don't have to worry about.

That's another thing too is like
we've talked a lot on on multiple episodes about the
controller, about the N64, like

I don't know that there's an
advantage to playing this on the original controller.
You guys, maybe you 2 can correct me if I'm wrong, but
it's kind of, it's kind of I don't know.
No, I I've used the, the the reproduction for the switch, the
that N64 controller which I have and I mean it felt good to play
on that controller, but I didn't feel like it had any advantage.
You can't use the D pad.

You have to hold it in the
center and on the right prong like a lot of games, but like it
controlled really well.

You could use the D pad for like
selecting eraser and stuff, which some games don't always
let you do.

But yeah, I mean, I the first
time I booted it up was on the

Switch 2IN handheld and it ran
like a dream.

Because most racing games
translate from console to console.
Like the racing game controls have not evolved that much.
The small details that you can do, but like a dual, you know,
most of them are single analog, most of them are, you know, it's
just left and right, you know, pivoting side to side.
So it it controls really well.

Like I said, like Jiggy said
earlier, like you feel like you're out of control, but it's
not the controls fault.

It's it's the it's the pace of
the gameplay.

But yeah, I don't think there's
any advantage on this.

Like we talked about Banjo
Kazooie, like I absolutely felt an advantage using the N64
controller just felt right.

But here I think you you'll be
just fine using the joy cons.

Yeah, I think, I think a big
factor whenever, whenever I play

N64 games, usually the thing
that makes the controller have an advantage is when you have to
use the C buttons for main functionality, like anything
aside from the camera.

It just feels like you have an
advantage with the N64 controller and this game you
don't.

I don't think.
I don't think so.

I don't think it really offers
anything in particular that another controller wouldn't.
I think it'd be just fine, other than I'm not sure about the
sensitivity of the stick.

That's the that's the one thing
I was going to bring up.

Like I wonder if that makes a
difference.

I I jumped between playing this
on the Everdrive a couple times and then on the go.
I was playing a lot sort of on the train back and forth to work
on my Steam Deck for emulation and I didn't notice a massive
difference, but I also wasn't looking for it.
So I don't know because I think because of the way that these
things control like it is pretty quick back like left to right,
left.

To right, Yeah.
Worrying about You're worried about your angle, but there's
but it's not as.

You're kind of doing subtle
movements anyways, like you're kind of going in straight line
and then just like a little bit to the left, little bit to the
right and then you hit the the drift buttons left and right,
so.

I mean, there's click me from my
guy, there's no break.

So even that that doesn't.
Even the wall is to break.

Yeah, exactly.
Use the other cars to slow down.

I'm going too fast.
I don't want to win this easy.

I got to make this interesting.
Yeah, it's which at a certain point, if you get used to the
game, the controls and stuff in the in the novice difficulty,
you'll you'll probably be ahead in most of the races and stuff,
which still feels good because they do make it competitive for
most of the race.

But as you would with a with a
lower down difficulty, it does help you succeed a little bit
more as far as coming in first place and stuff, which is good.
And I think the difficulty ramp up is significant when you when
you playing hard, it is really difficult to win races even in
the in the simpler tracks.

But but it's a lot of racing
games.

You just you know, perfecting
it, understanding it.

It's like it's like knowing boss
patterns, just knowing the races and then what you need to do and
get get good or whatever, you know, yeah, F0XI think it's a
fantastic game.

I think people should should
definitely check it out.

So, any final thoughts my fellow
F0 Xers?

Yeah, I mean, I thank thanks for
having me on to talk about this game.
I'm glad that I brought it.

I'm glad that I revisited it.
No, I agree with everything you guys have said.
Like I think it's just a tight, well made racing game.
I think that's the thing I love about F0 is like across the
board, as far as I can recall.

Admittedly, I haven't played the
later ones in a while.

They're all just really good
tight racing games, right?

I don't, I mean like they don't.
There's not really a bad version of F0.
I think this is one of the better versions because I think
the multiplayer is fun.

I think I like the pace, I like
its style.

There's something about
polygonal graphics when they've aged well.
And I think the N64 does it best when it's got really good art
direction.

As we've said many times on this
show, and I've said in other places, the realism stuff
doesn't age well.

You know, you think of your
golden eyes, Mission Impossible, right, when they're trying to
look like people.

But you know, Mars 64, Banjo
Kazooie, F0X games like this age well because they have a style
and like an artistic vision that is not based in reality.
And so you can kind of get away with whatever you want and that
will always make it look better.

Are there racing games that look
better than this?

Of course.
But like it runs at 60 frames.

The the it's stylized.
It's really fun.

And I think it's really a solid
choice.

And if I had to pick like an N64
game to like give someone with no context to see like what the
N64 is all about, I would totally hand someone this game
and be like, here, play this right, You don't really like
also, because I feel like institutional knowledge of
playing racing games, even since the early days basically
translates to this, to this.

Like it's not really, there's
not a lot to quote UN quote learn.
If you've played a racing game, you know how to play this more
or less and can pick it up quick.
If you don't like racing games, you probably won't like this.
There's not much.

There's no story really.
There's blurbs about the characters, but there's nothing
beyond that.

But if you really like racing
games, this is an easy easy recommend for me too.
Yeah, yeah, I agree.

I think it's a really good game
to get in and get out.

Get N or get out I.
Guess you could say there.

It is, but it really is.
I mean, so easy to jump into and grasp, grasp the concept of it.
The controls are fairly simple, not overly complicated, really
good use of 3D, like solid, just kind of across the board.
And the fact it runs at 60 FPS is awesome.
And I think that that's like a huge selling point.
I think visually just the fact it runs at 60 FBS because not
many games back then did that.

Yeah, totally.
No.

And you know what's what's
interesting too?

I mean, I think I, I think I
learned that maybe a few years ago or something.
But at the end of the day, like, even if you didn't know that
that was the number that was that was ticking in the FBS,
like it just it just the way it feels.
It doesn't have to be. 60 it could have been. 30 minutes.
Yeah, but it just feels smooth, partially because of the frames
per second, but just the design of the game, the tracks, all the
things you've been talking about is, is why that is a possibility
and why it feels so good.

So I think Matt, you, you put
it, you put it.

Well, this is one that you would
just hand to someone and say, yeah, this is a good example of
what you what you can do with this console.
And you know, not every single aspect is going to be like,
whoa, I've never experienced anything like this in my life.
But you'll you'll get a good taste of what early 3D can
really do and how you can create and turn polygons into speed.
And that's cool.

And while I haven't played fast
Fusion, though I've heard it, there are similarities.
Like there aren't a lot of games like this right now.
Like fast fusion is being talked about a cause the switch to line
up is on the smaller side, which is fine.
But like also because they're just like there hasn't been a
new wipeout game in a long time.

As we said before, there hasn't
been a new F0 game in a long time.
And so they're not really making games like this.
So I think this stands up against modern racing games too,
because it is fairly unique even compared to those.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

If you have an SO, play it.
You know, I don't I don't know if it matters which one you jump
into first.

I don't know, you know, but I
think this is one of like, like you guys have all said, I think
that this is a fantastic one.

So if this is the first one you
try, great.

I think you're not going to
definitely won't be disappointed.
So, Matt, thanks so much for bringing another banger.
You're, you're, I don't, I don't know.
There's there's not a lot left.

Yeah, yeah, I I know.
I got to.

Keep a good I I.
Look, it's on saying I know, yeah, look, my my secret weapon
was extreme G because nobody played that, but I loved that
game.

So like now that that one's off
the table, it's like I was like

OF0 we'll do that.
But like now I'm really like looking.
I'm like, I don't know what's left, you know?
I mean there are tons of great games on the N64 but like.
But you've brought all of them.

So I've brought all of them.
So there's none left.

Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
So.

But no, thank you for having me.
Thanks for letting me bring this.
It's.

I'm glad that you guys had a
history with it and were eager to revisit it.
And I'm glad it lived up to it.

Right.
You never know.

Like, I was nervous about
covering the first F0.

Also that it wouldn't live up
because it's a Super Nintendo game.
And there are plenty of great

Super Nintendo games, but there
are also plenty of Super

Nintendo games that haven't aged
great.

And the N64, it's really hit or
miss, right?

How well like do I remember it
being great or is it actually great?
And so I'm.

Just right.
You know, well, because there are games that like I I talk
about this with like a lot of the modern games that play like
old games, like I think of shredders revenge than an in
turtles game.

Like it plays like how we
remember Turtles in Time playing

Turtles in Time plays fine, but
how that new modern game with all the like additional moves
and stuff plays now is how we remember that game being right.
And so like, I'm never sure when

I play an old game and go back
to it, is it actually good or do

I just remember really loving it
because every like they're every game is somebody's favorite.
We like to stay on funny games.

That doesn't necessarily mean
those games are good.

I played a lot of bad games in
my youth that I I genuinely loved.
And so I'm just glad that this lived up to it.
And now I'm really curious to go through the rest of the games in
the franchise and see if they all still live up because like I
remember really liking maximum velocity and it's one of the few
games in the series that doesn't feature any of like the Canon
characters.

It's like a new cast of
characters.

It's AI, think it's a prequel
game, like it's an older race or whatever, so I'm curious to see
if those hold up too.

Yeah, I really want to jump into
the GameCube one in in any way.

Maybe eventually if I got to
switch to that'll be the way, but but I want to try like the
other version of the 3D, you know, the 3D version of it that
that isn't this wild arcade apparently that only one person
in North America played, I think.
He's right on this show.

What are?
The odds of that like that's so cool.
And now it feels like such a missed opportunity to not get
that saved data for my memory card.
And now I'm just like when I go visit my mom back home in
Wisconsin, I'm going to have to make a trip just to get see if I
can get that data.

You're like I need to know.
Yeah, yeah.

Carry carry like a little a
little satchel of your memory cards and start plugging.
Them in I I have one for sure.

You need.
I have.

A.
You need backups, those things.

Behind me.
Right, you need backups.

I mean, I got a GameCube memory
card at least, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, there.
You go Matt, where can where can everybody find your awesome work
out there, including fun and games?
[email protected]

It has both of my podcasts, Fun
and Games and Reignite.

Both of you were guested on our
one of our console retrospectives, obviously the
Nintendo 64 retrospective, and that was a ton of fun.
Oh geez, yeah, right.

What are the odds?
I thought we were talking about the Dreamcast.
But you, but you, you both guested for that and we were
super grateful.

And then you both have done
Sciquest episodes as well.

And yeah, Funny Games is a
podcast that's broadly topic based.
We do console retrospectives, we do franchise retrospectives, we
interview game developers.

We talk about different topics
like is grinding overrated in games?
Are open world games supposed to be signposted?
Can you get anxiety from an open world game?
Things like that.

Really fun, interesting and
unique conversations.

And we have a sub series within
the feed called Sciquest.

We're a different host.
Every episode talks about game they love and why they love it.
Both of you have done some episodes and then we have like
this.

We're we're coming up on our
400th episode, which a little tease.
We've already decided what we're recording about.
And we've also found our guest.

It's a Superpod Saga podcaster
like that, that superpod.com podcast or not from Superpod
Saga, but from one of the other shows.
And so we're excited to do that.

We're not quite ready to reveal
it yet, but we're excited to record that.
And then the other show I do is

Reignite.
It's a play along podcast, started as a Mass Effect play
along pod.

But what if we were Commander
Shepard and make choices as if we were Commander Shepard and
more importantly, the aliens re romanced as Commander Shepard.
That's all people really care about.
We finished that series, did

Andromeda and now we've moved on
to the Dragon Age franchise.

We're currently playing Dragon
Age 2.

That's me and the incredible
Frankie Bradley the Strange.

And yeah, that's a lot of fun as
well.

Like I said, all of this is on
dtstormagain.com or if you want to follow me on socials.
I am most active on Blue Sky which is also so DJ
stormagen.com or Instagram which is DJ under score Stormagenon.
Amazing Jiggy.

Busy as usual, I assume.
Yep, busy as usual.

Dropped a dropped an awesome
video that I think should pick up in some views.
Got my nephew, my 6 year old nephew to play.
It was like a really requested video on my channel.
Was it I?

Mean can be fair.
You talk about him a lot.

Yeah, he's really, he's really
funny.

I just love, he just loves video
games at this point in his life.

And so I'm just having a blast
just showing him like he comes over and the bookshelf in the
background, he'll just come over and just like look at the
bookshelf and be like, can we try that one?
I'll be like, here's what we're going to do.
And I'll pull out like 5 to 10 games.
And if he's staying over the night, I'm like, OK, we're going
to play every single one of these games.
And if you get locked into one, we'll just play it for as long
as you want to play it.

But I saved some of the bangers
for my channel.

And so I had him do Donkey Kong
64 first.

I'm like, play this.
Like this is what I played when

I was your age.
So he was 5 at the time.

And now we just did a video on
Banjo Kazooie.

And he, I was, so I was so proud
of him.

He sat there and he played.
He did basically the entirety of

Mumbles Mountain by himself
essentially.

And he was like, he's still
grasping the 3D controls like it's, it's his dad has a Super
Nintendo.

So Dave, you'll love this.
His favorite game is

WrestleMania on Super Nintendo,
which is so funny.

But they, you know, they play,
I, I bought them Yoshi's Island.

They have Super Mario All Stars.
They play, they play all these games, but it's a lot of 2D
stuff.

So when he comes over to my
house and he's into the 3D

World, it's like a learning
curve.

Like he's got to remember that
he's got to hold the joystick in a direction and move the camera.
And he's still kind of easing into that.
So it's hilarious the things that like one of the things in
this video is him dealing with bridges in games.
It was something he struggled in

Donkey Kong 64, crossing the
specific bridge in Creepy

Castle, and I had totally
forgotten about it, but he brought it up when we were in
Mumbo's Mountain because there's a bridge.
There's the one.

Bridge.
Yeah, his, like, goal.

I could tell his personal goal
was to get across that bridge without any help from me.
He did it slowly but surely.

But it was so funny.
And I just threw a bunch of like flashbacks to the Donkey Kong 64
episode.

I watched, I watched the Donkey
Kong 1.

I gotta watch this banjo one
now.

The banjo one's pretty
entertaining, but yeah, I have that.
And then I've been, I've been covering some, I'm kind of in
the Microsoft era of Rare right now.
So I'm trying to cover some of these games and give them some
love because there's obviously with the hit that Xbox and
Microsoft hit in recent news, like I'm just trying to like
talk about those games and be like, no, no, no, no.
Like Rare had some good games.

Like, yeah, you gotta.
So the next game I'm covering is

Viva Pinata, so he'll probably
be out by the time he's out.

That has a lot of fans.
Like I know a lot of folks that's been covered on Side
Quest.

Like lots of folks love that
game.

I've never played it.
I've always been curious.

Oh, it's really fun.
Yeah, I've heard it's very.

You know very little.
I just, I know what it looks like.
That's pretty much.

It Oh man, dude, just play it.
I, I, I can find a way and we can even talk about it.
I'm.

I'm fine with that.
Like it, it's here, it's great.

Why wouldn't I enjoy it?
And it's from there.

Why wouldn't I enjoy it?
So yeah.

It's one of those games you go
in to play for 20 minutes and you get sucked in for four
hours.

That's what it is.
Yes, please, yes please.

I'm hoping to get that with a,
with a new game I just picked up, but we'll, we'll see Viva
Pinata added to the list.

Before I talk a little bit about
the show, I forgot to mention off the top.
I kind of put out sort of last minute and I was, I'm glad a
couple people wrote in on on blue sky about it, but I wanted
to see what other people thought of F0XI.
Didn't expect anyone to say, Oh, this is a terrible game or, oh,
that's how could you.

Oh my God, all the other ones
are so much better.

Whatever, right, You know, it,
it's I just, I just really think this game's awesome.
So anyways, a couple of people wrote in.
One of them was Ryan Kern, who

I've spoken to before from paper
clips if anyone's seen them across multiple social media
platforms.

Says F0X is one of my favorites.
Not as brutal as GX, which is interesting, which I assume is
the referring to the difficulty, but he says, I love the sense of
speed in it.

So definitely talking about what
what we've been discussing Dave from Tales of the Backlog wrote
in and just said you've got boost power.
Yeah, yeah.

The Bob man who who follows
remember 64 on Blue Sky as well, says I played a lot of F0 and
SNES, GB A and GameCube, but honestly never played much of
the 64 version.

And he said I'm going to change
that today.

I wrote back and he sent a
picture of this, this little device and I was like, this
looks like like an old phone almost, but it's like a flip
Ambernick device.

It looks like an old like, you
know, Motorola Nokia flip cell phone from, you know, 25 years
ago or something like that.

So it's a little handheld and
stuff.

And they pulled it up and wrote
back only a couple minutes later saying, Oh, wow, this rips.
So I wanted to mention that for sure.
And then and then Tim, who is is on blue sky is T-088 who's been
in both our communities jiggy and talking a lot about games
and and you'll hear from in by now you would have heard from
Tim in the perfect dark episode.

He wrote and said the only thing
this game needs is the ability to Falcon punch.
That's right.

Yeah, which?
We didn't even mention Captain

Falcon, who's like the mascot
essentially.

Yeah, it's so funny.
Like I knew sort of who Captain

Falcon was because there was a
comic in the SNES game booklets featuring him.
So when Smash Brothers came out and everyone's like who the hell
is Captain Falcon?

I was like, I know him.
I mean, he also enters the stage with the the car, which like RIP
to the entrances.

Like I missed that in the modern
Smash games. 64 had them like all come like through the pipes
or the star or whatever, like the car.
None of the other games.

They brought it back with
Ultimate.

Did they bring it back with
Ultimate?

OK.
Yeah, now you got me questioning it, but I'm pretty sure.
OK, they didn't for a long time though, 'cause I remember like
Melee and Brawl didn't have.

Those.
Yeah, they instances were were dope.
I'm pretty sure they recognized that and brought it back.
But but yeah, and so like when everyone was like, who's the guy
in the weird tracksuit?

It's like, oh, that's Captain.
Falcon, he ruled.

You know what's crazy about
that?

I remember this whole thing,
that Captain Falcon was designed to be the mascot for the Super
Nintendo.

Originally, yes, originally.
He was, and so they made him like that, that edgy, like this
is this is what we're going for.

Like we want to make this
awesome and then.

He's got, he's got the blue and
the red, yellow.

He's got Mario colors, you know.
Yeah, Oh yeah, Well, his colors matched the colors of the Super
Famicom controller.

Correct.
Oh, that's.

Right for the buttons, yeah.
Yeah, the buttons, yeah, yeah, that's what, yeah.
But yeah, it didn't pan out.

F0 was popular, but not popular
as popular as Mario, and so

Mario continued to just be the
mascot for everything.

Yeah.
And I think honestly like with something where you control.
That's yeah.

You control the hero, you
control Mario, or you can control one of multiple racers
or characters.

Like it's easy to get lost in
the mix.

Like we just mentioned Captain
Falcon.

I know this is not SNES version,
but you know, Falcon is 1 of 30 in this game.
It's very easy to just be like, oh, he's just another, another.
Character.

I could play as Captain Falcon,
or I could play as AT Rex.

Exactly right.
You're T Rex.

You could play as a guy that
looks like Mario, but he's an

Android.
He plays an octopus.

An octopus with only six arms or
no actually I guess 8 because his legs, but his.
Legs are arms.

His legs are arms.
Yeah, I guess so.

Yeah.
You could play as a Star Fox's dad, who is apparently a human.
Yeah.

F0X.
Everybody check it out.

Remember 64 on your podcast
feed, of course, patreon.com/remember 64 show
where you can get all the episodes early, some extra
content as well, putting up a couple extra videos of stuff
where I sort of quote UN quote preview these games before we
get the get to the main episode.

If you've seen it already by
this point, I don't know that there's going to be much of a
surprise because I would have liked this game regardless
whether I've played it before or not, I think.
So that's pretty much what that little short video is going to
be.

I put those ones up early and
then eventually on on YouTube as well where you can also find
these episodes and other videos and you know like like the
podcasts and rate it across those podcast apps helps more
people find it.

And do the same for Jiggy and
Matt's stuff as well.

Make sure that that you give
them some love 'cause they deserve it.
They're hard workers and they do great stuff.
So thanks everyone for listening and for watching and check out
consolecreatures.com where you can see more of this show and
more great work by the other individuals that I work with
there.

Great shows, PlayStation
generation and the creature cast.
Alright everybody chat to you next time get go get boost
power.

Show me your move.
You're in first place.

I should have found those sound
bites.

All right.
Bye everybody.