Aero GPX Review

Introduction

After 20 years of waiting,F-zero fans finally got what they have been waiting for!A brand new game to play!F-zero 99… Ok,i will admit that F-zero 99 is a really fun game,but after so much time,getting a 99 game that’s just the old F-zero tracks on a new engine is a bit disappointing,luckily,we already knew by then that Aaron was in the kitchen cooking something,an spiritual sequel worthy of the best arcade racer ever released.

Gameplay

This game truly understands what being an F-zero spritual sucessor entails since the moment the game gives you control of your ship,beyond the blistering speed of the ships,the controls are fast,snappy and responsive.You move the stick and unless you are moving at +2000 Km/Hour,the ship turns to where you want to go,the player is,always in control of the ship.

The thing that impressed me the most are the physics,obviously its not F-zero GX,but it feels the way it should feel,this is specially notable on the half pipe,I was flying around like nothing,using hyper slides to launch myself into the sky just for the fun of it.

One notable divergence from it’s source material comes in the separated live and boost meters,at first i was very mixed on it but as I played more i started to see why the dev choose to do it this way,combat is very incentivised thanks to this,as the reward of extra health,potentially getting boost before anyone else,and taking out an opponent is too good to pass out. This ends up improving the game,the intense risk/reward of F-zero is still there,but it manifest itself in different ways to tackle the races,the end result ends up incetivising the combat beyond “kill the rival”,and turns the more immediate system of F-zero into something with more strategic depth,not only that but in certain courses this mechanic is expanded with final burn,that adds back the risk/reward of managing your health in an interesting way that compliments the already existing stuff.

And no,i am not done with the mechanics of this game,The reason its called Aero GPX are wind tunnels that let you fly on them!The ship controls like a plane on these sections,that are sometimes almost the entire course,literally adding a new dimension to gameplay,that you will mostly use as a way to propel upwards and drill dive to gain speed.

The level design is really good ,in some cases taking obvious inspiration.(a cylinder course in the middle of the BIG BLUE sea?)but sometimes the game uses its mechanics that differentiate it from the rest to create truly unique levels,every single flying/fire stage is guilty of this,if the rest of the game feels like F-zero,those stages are the ones that feel like Aero GPX,there is nothing like them out there.

An entire wall of text later and i am not even done,this game has every single mayor advanced mechanic from the 3d f-zero games besides snaking.It does an amazing job at making the advance tech more accessible without dumbing down the game,like holding the boost button to hyper slide and disabling the spinning animation to know if you are alined to the wall while turning when you spin grind.

I don’t really have any negatives gameplay wise,I wish we had the rival markers that let you know who is in the lead on grand prix but i imagine that’s already being worked on.

Presentation

The artstyle of the 3d assets is very simplistic,imitating the looks of a comic book, which makes the game pop with its vibrant choice of colors,the graphics are easily readable.The ship models look really good,they are just missing small details.(the vortex shredder really needs eyes)The art that is shown in game also follows this comic book feel,most of them resemble comic book superheroes,with some nods to it’s inspiration,and have good designs.

in terms of music and sound it sounds exactly like what you could imagine,the sound design is straight out of the f-zero games,the announcer is doing his best Mr. zero impression,the music sounds really good,it follows the style of F-zero X,the pieces are really catchy and fit the game like a glove.

Again,no real complains,i hope that the later courses add one or two new themes to spice up the presentation of the game,like a factory,a space station,something that looks very final and intimidating,and sounds oppressive.

There’s a a good bunch of graphical options and its well optimized.

In conclusion

Some people out there are already giving the crown away by saying that this game is way better than GX before it even releases its full version,Aero GPX has a lot of really strong points,but no game is ever replacing the perfect storm of everything good and bad that is GX,you can just replace and improve all other F-zero games,but GX is just a perfect storm of both good design and game design that in most other cases wouldn’t be good,that creates a unique experience.

With that said this is the first time one of these F-zero spiritual successors actually delivers its promise,the game has an amazing present and an even better future up ahead,and if it keeps up it might make it into the hall of fame of arcade racers alongside the big ones.