F-Zero: Maximum Velocity

F-Zero Maximum Velocity, released in Japan as F-Zero for Game Boy Advance, is a futuristic racing video game developed by NDcube and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. The game was released in Japan, North America and Europe in 2001. It is the first F-Zero game to be released on a handheld game console.

Maximum Velocity takes place twenty-five years after F-Zero, in yet another F-Zero Grand Prix. The past generations of F-Zero had "piloted their way to fame", so it is the only F-Zero game without Captain Falcon, Samurai Goroh, Pico, or Dr. Stewart. Players control fast hovering crafts and use their speed-boosting abilities to navigate through the courses as quickly as possible.

Gameplay
Every race consists of five laps around a race track. A player will lose the race if his or her machine explodes due to either taking too much damage or landing outside of the track, gets ejected from the race due to falling to 20th place or due to completing a lap with a rank outside of the rank limit of that lap, or he or she decides to give up. In the single player Grand Prix mode, all of these conditions requires the player to use an extra machine if and only if he or she has one or more spare machines to try again.

For each lap completed the player is rewarded with a speed boost, to be used once any time, one of the "SSS" marks will be shaded green to indicate that it can be used. A boost will dramatically increase a player's speed, but will decrease their ability to turn. A boost used before a jump will make the player jump farther, which could allow the player to use a shortcut with the right vehicle. Boost time and speed varies according to the machine, and is usually tuned for proper balance. For example, one machine boasts a boost time of twelve seconds, yet has the slowest boost speed of the entire game. Players can also take advantage of the varying deceleration of each vehicle. Some vehicles, such as the Jet Vermilion, take longer than others to decelerate from top boost speed to normal speed, once the boost has been used up. Players can also take advantage of this effect on boost pads.

The Grand Prix is the main single player component of Maximum Velocity. It consists of four series named after chess pieces: "Pawn", "Knight", "Bishop" and "Queen". The latter of these can be unlocked by winning the others on "Expert" mode. They have five races in four difficulty settings, "Master" mode is unlocked by winning expert mode in each series, the player unlocks a new machine after completing it. The player needs to be in the top three at the end of the last lap in order to continue to the next race. If the player is unable to continue, the player will lose a machine and can try the race again. If the player runs out of machines, then the game ends, and the player has to start the series from the beginning.

Championship is another single player component. It is basically the same as a "Time Attack" mode, except the player can only race on one, special course: the Synobazz Championship Circuit. This special course is not selectable in any other modes.

Multiplayer
Maximum Velocity can be played in two multiplayer modes using the Game Boy Advance link cable, with one cartridge, or one cartridge per player. Two to four Players can play in both modes.

In single cart, only one player needs to have a cartridge. The other players will boot off the link cable network from the player with the cart using the GBA's netboot capability. All players drive a generic craft, and the game can only be played on one level, Silence. Silence, along with Fire Field, are the only areas to return from previous games. Aptly, Silence in Maximum Velocity has no background music, unlike in most other F-Zero games.

In multi cart, each player needs to have a cartridge to play. This has many advantages over single cart: All players can use any machine in this game that has been unlocked by another player. Players can select any course in this game. After race is finished, all of the player's ranking data are mixed and shared ("Mixed ranking" stored in each cart).

Development
F-Zero: Maximum Velocity is one of the first titles to have been developed by NDcube. Like the original F-Zero for SNES, Maximum Velocity implements a pseudo-3D visual technique based on the scaling and rotation effects of bitmap graphics. In this game, this technique consists of a double-layer; one of which gives the illusion of depth.

Release
Maximum Velocity is one of ten Game Boy Advance games released on December 16, 2011 to Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors, a program to give free downloadable games to early adopters who bought a Nintendo 3DS before its price drop. It was also released on the Wii U Virtual Console on April 3, 2014 in Japan and April 17, 2014 in North America and Europe.

Reception
On release, Famitsu magazine scored the game a 31 out of 40. F-Zero: Maximum Velocity went on to sell 334,145 copies in Japan and 273,229 copies in the U.S. as of 2005. It also got 86% on Metacritic and 83.37% on Game Rankings