How F-Zero Climax prepared me for designing Formula One tracks
F-Zero Climax (2004)
F-Zero Climax (2004)
I know every Formula 1 fan has their own idea of when the sport went into terminal decline. I know I do, yet still I tune in every week. But when classic circuits start getting chopped up, or chopped from the calendar altogether, in favour of places like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, then the writing’s on the wall - and with their human rights records, that message may well be written in blood.
If you haven’t seen what they did to the Hockenheim Circuit in Germany, then this is your trigger warning. In the good old days, racing circuits were abandoned old airfields where you could almost hear and smell the bombs blowing up. Or they were in glamourous cities, where health and safety didn’t really apply and crashing into the sea was a real hazard.
Or finally, the races took place on broken-up roads in forests, and in the near-inevitable event of a driver fatality, it would take days to find his smouldering remains in a bush. That’s what classic F1 circuits were like, none of those gauche NASCAR ovals. Those circuits are where legends were forged, where the best of the best laid down rubber.
It’s all too professional and safe now, of course. F1, under the invincible Bernie Ecclestone’s watch, sold its ass as we came into the professional era. This meant that even the circuit administrators at iconic locations like Silverstone, Spa and Monza had to stump up tens of millions to renew their contract every few years, and they’ve sometimes struggled to do it. Step forward the nouveau riche countries, the hellholes built on the broken backs of indigenous workers.
It’s beyond parody at this stage. They really do have a race in Saudi Arabia now, for probably the next 400 years, where the F1 management really tried to sell their clever new slogan “We Race As One”, while also ensuring Black Lives Matter and Pride flags weren’t on display. Bit of a dissonance there, eh? How does any of that make sense?
Whatever about the human rights abuses and sportswashing - I’m too jaded and too used to that in F1 by now - my real qualm is with the newer circuit designs. And this is where I have to call out Hermann Tilke, the man who somehow managed to bag himself that handy gig of sole track designer in F1.
God I hate him. Actually, I don’t really hate anybody, but he reminds me of those extras you see in pubs in films, drinking as much free alcohol as he likes and not having to spend a copper coin. How can you not hate someone who’s landed the plum role you’ve always wanted?
I already know I’m a better race track designer than Tilkey, because I have much more practice. I’ll have you know that in my youth, I filled jotter after jotter, notepad after notepad, with my own race tracks. And unlike Tilke’s designs, mine had wonderfully unique features.
His tracks are characterised by being counter-clockwise; having 50km long straights smashing into 90 degree turns (specifically designed to hide that unfortunate, unadvertisable fact - that F1 cars cannot overtake each other); being about 15 turns too long; having a ridiculous pit entry/exit; and usually being situated in a place full of resident Instagram and Tiktok influencers, otherwise known as the dregs.
Not looking good for old Tilkey, is it? And it’s gonna get worse for him, because let me tell you my track characteristics: my tracks are defined by turns sharp enough to slash your tyres; 5-minute laptimes; speeds that’ll almost certainly cause a fatality if two drivers were to crash; generally no tyre barriers or safety measures. And jumps, plenty and plenty of jumps. A few alternative routes around the course wouldn’t be unheard of either. And there’s nowhere for the crowd to sit either, because my tracks are situated thousands of feet in the air.
Alright, alright, maybe I should cut Tilkey a bit of slack here. Perhaps it’s really not that easy to design a track, plus all the thoroughfare around it. But I’ve got a trump card up my sleeve - there’s a way for me to test out my “avant-garde” designs. It’s F-Zero Climax, the Japan-only 2004 GBA denouement to the F-Zero anime’s “story”, and the latest full-release game to rev its engine in the flatlining F-Zero series.
My God, my gentle Jesus, I will take a breath here, but do you know how long I’ve been waiting for an official F-Zero track editor?! F-Zero X did have a great Track Designer expansion kit, again Japan-only, which I would have loved, but at least the bloodthirsty X Cup was often enough for me.
But F-Zero Climax struck me with its unique selling point, right out of the stable. I spent more time in this game’s track editor than anywhere else in the game, possibly because the rest of the game was entirely Japanese, apart from an English-speaking track announcer.
Language doesn’t matter much in racing games, true, although there are lots of vignettes and story cards in this game, all in Japanese, which would have been nice to understand. We’re joining the story at a crucial time too, because as the name would suggest, this game takes place towards the tail-end of the F-Zero anime, which barely got off the starting blocks in either territory.
I also regret to inform you that Captain Falcon’s famous, mercurial Falcon Punch that he used to sacrifice himself and send Black Shadow to the Shadow Realm, that moment hasn’t made it into this game. I suppose you couldn’t have a scene like that in two different entertainment mediums; there would have been complaints from parents that their children’s eyes had exploded not just once, but twice.
Apart from all that though, this game is a vast improvement on the vanilla, Plain Jane F-Zero GP Legend. That game was sterile, not at all dangerous, a Tilkedrome in Sochi or Shanghai. F-Zero Climax is the days of cigarette sponsorship and playboy acceptance, voracious sexual appetites, classic Zolder or Monza.
It’s got a Master difficulty mode, it’s got loads more tracks, including differing track and cup variations, it’s mighty difficult to unlock all the machines, the art is a lot better, and when you race the opposition AI, they’re a whole lot more aggressive.
Better music, better track design, a more sensibly chosen 3-lap race length, which almost becomes too short considering the mega high speeds you can attain in this game, so much so that the whole screen starts shaking.
And when all that’s said and done, you can head on back to the beautiful Track Editor where you can even share and input other people’s designs. Mind you, I say ‘share’, but it’s a manual-as-all-hell input of numbers and codes. No QR codes in them days. But it works, and that’s all that matters.
Really, the GameCube’s F-Zero GX is my lasting memory of this beloved series of mine, nearly 20 years laid up in the garage by this stage, rusting away. But I urge you to “acquire” F-Zero Climax as soon as you can, and head on into the Track Editor for infinite 2D racing F-Zero fun. Just make sure you create some better autodromes than old Tilkey, eh?
26 June 2026