F-Zero: GP Legend
"The race continues!"
F-Zero: GP Legend is based off of the anime of the same name (currently airing on the Fox Box on Saturday mornings). The story revolves around Rick Wheeler, a cop who was frozen 100 years ago and was brought back to life in the year 2201. His archenemy Zoda has also been resurrected. Both are competing in F-Zero races along with dozens of other racers, including Captain Falcon. The game follows the stories of eight of the F-Zero racers.
Visuals:
The graphics found in GP Legend look almost exactly like those that were found in F-Zero: Maximum Velocity, the previous F-Zero game on the GBA. Some new cutscenes have been added, lifted straight from the anime.
Sounds:
You'll find a lot of familiar F-Zero tunes here, ranging from familiar themes of Mute City and Big Blue, and others such as Red Canyon. The music is pretty cool and the sound effects are decent at best. There is an announcer as well; he sounds clear, but is annoying.
Gameplay:
GP Legend, like past F-Zero games, features plenty of tracks to race on. The tracks are located in familiar locales like Lightning, Fire Field, and Mute City. The track design is pretty good, but the physics in the game is not. If you crash into a wall, then you're going to end up ricocheting off of the walls, resulting in your F-Zero machine exploding. This gets incredibly frustrating, especially in the later tracks where plenty of turns are found. And while thirty racers will be in the race at one time, there can only be four racers on the screen at one time, including you. So you're most likely going to be seeing the same three racers the whole race, unless you fall behind.
There are over 30 racers in GP Legend, but only a handful of them are available at the start of the game. The additional racers are unlocked by one of three ways: completing a character's Story mode, winning races in the GP Mode, and by clearing missions in the Zero Test mode.
The controls are a bit awkward in GP Legend and will take some time getting used to. The A button accelerates, and the B button brakes, but who uses brakes when you're going over 1000 KM/H? The L and R buttons are used for drifting. Tapping L or R twice will do a side attack. Pressing L and R at the same time will activate the boost, but you can only boost after Lap 1.
Replayability:
As stated earlier, there are plenty of racers to unlock in GP Legend. In addition to that, you can unlock new tracks as well. You can also try to set times in the Time Trial mode or complete objectives in the Zero Test mode. The multiplayer is fun too; GP Legend supports both Single and Multi-Pak modes, though the latter is more enjoyable.
Bottom Line:
GP Legend, while flawed and somewhat similar to its predecessor, Maximum Velocity, is still a fairly enjoyable racer. F-Zero fans should like GP Legend on the GBA.
Final Score: B-
Also recommended...
F-Zero: Maximum Velocity (GBA)
F-Zero GX (GCN)
F-Zero (SNES)
Did You Know...?
- Blood Falcon is an evil clone of Captain Falcon created by Black Shadow.
- F-Zero: Climax is the sequel to this game, although as of this writing, it has only been released in Japan.
- The character Zoda shares the same as the main villain of the classic Nintendo franchise StarTropics, although the two are not related.
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Last Updated ::
5/9/2005
F-Zero: GP Legend
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Racing
Year released: 2004
Number of Players: 1-4 simultaneous w/ link-up (Single Pak and Multi-Pak)
ESRB: Rated E (Mild Violence)
Save: Game Pak (2 save files)
Misc: N/A