TODAY IS THE DAY PEOPLE! BUY THIS GAME! BUY IT WITH MONEY!

No. Using food stamps instead.

@carlosrox Thanks Obama.

I know you're not from America but that makes it even funnier.

Happy to see the good reviews! Okay... I'm going in...

Edit: Ugh, the download and install times on this system are out of control. I really hope the NX is a zippy system.

Ok - shouts to Sunahara Plains. Just a peach of a track to race.

Had fun tonight playing the first two cups. Seems pretty great. Using the boost to take out the racer in front is very satisfying. But on the flip side, you can't tell who's behind you so you can never quite relax.

They don't seem to have a cockpit view option which is a shame; gets the heart pumping, a good cockpit view.
Also the impact when you land a jump is unpleasant, but I think that's just me. I want my anti-grav to be smooth. Maybe hum a little, like it's working extra hard to absorb the impact. Nit-picking.

Might try online...

Just finished first two cups as well (two gold trophies, son!)... this game is super fun and absolutely scratches the F-Zero itch while being different enough. Its so nice playing a 90's style racer where you only have yourself to blame for losing. No brainer at $15.

@Zero
Actually I was born there. I'm a Portland Oregon boy! ....originally...


@Hinph

I always found Wii U DL speeds pretty good. Took bout 2-3 hours for Smash 4 to download. I thought that was pretty good.

Hinph said:

Its so nice playing a 90's style racer where you only have yourself to blame for losing.

Right?

Speaking of 90's style racer...what ever happened to that 90's Arcade Racer game? Did that ever come out?

@carlosrox Well then.

THANKS OBAMA.

There is no novice mode in this game. Even getting all golds on the easiest difficulty is serious business. I'm okay with that though. The guy in the GameXplain review was bitching that he doesn't think it's "fair" that most players will never be able to unlock the expert mode, but... err, if you're not good enough to unlock it then you obviously aren't good enough to play it, right? I might not be good enough, myself, but that's okay. I've never cleared all of the F-Zero cups on the higher difficulties, but I still love those games regardless.

The only thing I am not digging is that there seems to be obvious rubber-banding. There aren't any of those "you're way out in front!" moments against the computer, as far as I can tell, and the rival system is certainly in place to make sure that you won't be placing in the top 3 overall if you screw up one of the races... which you only need to crash once in the final lap to do. Ah well.

@Hinph
Yeah, like you I don't mind that the game is hard, but the rubber-banding makes the challenge feel a bit artificial and cheap. A big shame, I think, considering the rest of the game is so well crafted.

See? I told you guys this game would be awesome! You shoulda listened to me! And for those that DID listen to me, you shoulda listened HARDER!

"Oh I don't know, the controls don't look that tight..."

"The WiiWare games was just OKAY...."

"Grant, your headlines are misleading...."

BAH! Now bask in the awesomeness that is FAST: Racing Neo, y'all! All praise Shin'en!

Is this the official thread, kind of?

This game is pretty sweet, man. I was very impressed by the FAST demo on Wii, and I'm even more impressed by this. Shin'en really are technical wizards. It's almost unfortunate that 95% of their output consist of remakes of Art of Balance.

Honestly, just calling them technical wizards is selling the game short. It's a very solid futuristic hovercar racer. A real breath of fresh air in today's boring-ass sim-heavy racing scene. I like how all of the mechanics fit together, and the controls are very nice. There are a few rough edges (like the crash animations), and it's a bit lacking in terms of personality, but this is one hell of a deal for $15.

I really like Shin'en. They're kind of like the poor man's Factor 5, but, to me, they're the rich man's Factor 5.

(Seriously, though, the two companies have a hell of a lot of things in common - audio expertise, graphical wizardry, Germanicness...)

@Super_Conzo
Why did you have to mention the cockpit view? I hadn't realized that it wasn't in!

@Anand
Soz. It's always the first thing I look for in a racer... even if it's completely unusable! Gotta feel that futuristic wind in my futuristic hair.

Well I went ahead and bought this. It's been wayyyyyy too long since a new F-Zero and this seems like it could scratch that itch.

No idea when I will find time to actually sit down and play it though.

Man, the soundtrack is pretty damn awesome even without the awesome game attached to it.

Played through the first two cups on normal or whatever. Man... this is a great game! It feels VERY much like F-Zero GX, to the point where I'd call it a clone, albeit a good one. I think GX gets a little wilder in the course designs but it's still a worthwhile clone.

In fact it is so much like GX that I make assumptions that aren't true. Like thinking the boost energy was also my own energy and trying to conserve it. Or thinking hitting both triggers will get me an even tighter turn.

...with that said, IS there a way to get a tighter turn like the two trigger thing in GX? I feel like I need it sometimes, but it doesn't seem to be a thing in this game.

I've been meaning to go back and really sink my teeth into GX, but since it looks a bit crappy on my HDTV, I'll have to give this a shot instead!

Hinph said:

The guy in the GameXplain review was bitching that he doesn't think it's "fair" that most players will never be able to unlock the expert mode, but... err, if you're not good enough to unlock it then you obviously aren't good enough to play it, right?

Yeah, a few people had this same complaint for Shapes of Gray. I didn't get it.

I guess this could just be some people's really poor way of saying they wish there were easier difficulty levels to start at so they could unlock things and feel like they are progressing instead of just getting stuck right away.

I dunno though, I took 1st (overall) in the first two cups first try. Doesn't seem like THAT tough of a game to me. But probably some GX skills carry over.

Need to free up space somehow (not too hard but I also don't like deleting games) and then I can get this.

The difficulty thing sounds scary.