Aero GPX Is The F-Zero Game I’ve Been Wanting

Summary

Aero GPX could be the F-Zero successor fans have been waiting for, closely resembling the classic gameplay and style of the original series.
Despite being in Early Access, the game delivers on track design and handling, offering a fair and enjoyable racing experience.
While some aspects are different from the original F-Zero games, such as separate health and boost bars, Aero GPX captures the essence of the beloved series.

Twenty years! It’s been twenty years since the world has seen a completely new F-Zero game. True, we got 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:F-Zero 99 last year, but that was more of a battle royale remix on the original SNES game. I love F-Zero 99, and it’s still one of my favorite games to waste a few minutes on, but there aren’t a lot of tracks and it’s, by design, online only. And I know we also got some F-Zero bones thrown our way in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mario Kart 8. But the last true new entry in the series was F-Zero: Climax for the Game Boy Advance (Japan only, baby!). Right before that was F-Zero: GP Legend and F-Ze🐟ro GX for the GameCube. We’ve been waiting so long for an F-Zero sequel. So very long. And, folks, I believe Aero🌃 GPX could be that sequel.

I sa𓆏y, “could be” because the game only came out on Steam in Early Access this week. At this point, Aero GPX is still missing a good chunk of its tracks and characters, as well as a few extra features here or there. Some of the art assets on the tracks look incomplete and that’s because, according to Aaron McDevitt, they are. Wh♐o’s Aaron McDevitt? I’m pretty sure he’s the dude making this game - mostly by himself? It’s his name on Steam and his updates use the first person! On the downside of Early Access, the game also has minor bugs scattered throughout - including one that locked out all my keyboard and controller inputs during the tutorial, which always makes you feel like you’re just playing it completely wrong. Again, it’s Early Access and the developer is very clear about what’s been implemented and what’s still being worked on.

With that disclaimer done, let’s talk about Aero GPX as a game and not a game-to-be. If you want the short v🔥ersion of it, it’s F-Zero. Seriously, this is probably as close a🗹s you can get to F-Zero without an angry email from a powerful lawyer. It plays exactly like F-Zero GX and looks exactly like F-Zero X. Don’t get me wrong - absolutely nothing is lifted or stolen or directly copied. There’s no chicanery. But, honestly, outside of one or two gameplay twists, anyone who’s played a previous F-Zero could pick this up and know exactly what they’re doing without hitting the tutorial. You race against 30 opponents at once. You’ve got your yellow booster on the ground. You drive over pink tracks to refill your health. What’s the boost color? Oh, honey, you know it’s green! If I played a half-second clip of this game for you, you’d easily believe it was an F-Zero game that was just in the middle of its dev cycle.

Side note, I’m not saying Aero GPX is just a good “sci-fi future racer.” This game isn’t like Fast RMX or Extreme G or Wipeout, all series I enjoy very much. Aero GPX has basically one inspiration and that inspiration is F-goddamn-Zero. The tracks and drivers are all bright colors with a distinct comic book style. The announcer has the exact same vibe as the announcer in F-Zero X and GX. Literally. It’s like the VO actor listened to the old announcer and just went for that cadence on every take. Meanwhile, each track’s music is very much a store brand version of the other series’ songs. There’s one stage that’s clearly Big Blue and clearly has Big Blue-inspired music. Again, nothing is stolen, but it’s absolutely transparent just how much Aaron McDevitt (am I pronouncing that right?) gets the F-Zero series.

On the bright side, hooray, Aero GPX is more than aesthetics! Yes, yes, the game plays like F-Zero. But that would mean absolutely nothing if the tracks were bad or the cars handled like garbage. They’re not. They don’t. Of the tracks available, the majority are actually pretty great. I’ve already used “F-Zero” to describe everything, so that once more applies. Tunnels, loops, stretches of road without guardrails, etc. All designed well by someone who understands what makes that old series fun. These stages feel fair; I rarely gave up because something about the track itself was frustrating me. If anything, I kept taking on one more race or trying to beat a challenge on a higher difficulty. And guess what? I suck! Just like I did in the old games!

Which brings me to what’s different. And the answer is… not much! Rather than lives, you can just restart a stage if you fail. Death respawns you instead of ending the race entirely. Health and boost abilities are separate, now both with their own bars. Unlike the later F-Zero games, using boost doesn’t hurt you or take away your health. You can boost to your precious little heart’s content and then drive over the green lane to refill. It makes each boost less of a calculated sacrifice, but it does take a lot of the stress out. Harder races feel more manageable because I’m not concerned I’m blowing up my car if I overtake 23rd place. That said, some folks might not love this specific switch. And tracks tend to have a bit more flying / falling segments than F-Zero fans might be used to. You adjust after a while, but they do sometimes break up theꦅ flow a little.

There’s also a career mode with a few loose challenges that end in full Grand Prix Cups. It’s not a story mode (yet?), but it does add some extra🐓 challenges to beat like one-on-one competitions and races against an entire fleet of a specific car. Often, these challenges also unlock additional cars. That said, if you want, you can still just do regular races the same way you can in F-Zero X and F-Zero GX. Those races? From the very beginning to the very ending, they play very much like… Well, you get it. Vroom, zoom, explode.

The good news is Aero GPX is the F-Zero game I’ve been wanting for two decades. That’s the lifetime of a college junior. If you’ve been missing the exact feel of the F-Zero series, this has it. It’s like The Talented Mr. Ripley of racing games except with less murder and I don’t completely remember what happens in The Talented Mr. Ripley. The game gets enough right to feel as close to a spiritual successor as possible without being made by the original team. And, like I said, not everything has been finalized or opened up yet. There are features that could completely change to become less - or more - like F-Zero. Who knows? I don’t! But I don’t regret spending $17 to buy it. I’ll probably keep coming back to this the way I do with - to avoid rewriting the title - those games on the Nintendo 64 and GameCube. Oh, and there’s a demo available on Stea🔯m, so you don’t even have to take my word for it.