F-Zero 99 -- Ace League Grand Prix: Let Loose the Goose
I actually tend to record these when I'm playing off-stream if it's a new League and vehicle combination, but I don't know if there's actually any interest in them...
Entirely "new" vehicles (as a purely aesthetic swap, rather than their original BS F-Zero Grand Prix stats) instead of a slightly different configuration for your coat of paint seems a little more interesting, though. So I'm going to ride my high spirits of grabbing a new one for each.
Don't worry, F-Zero, I still love-hate-love-hate-hate-love you:
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I usually prefer to tackle a new Grand Prix STARTING with the Wild Goose, because it gives me a false sense of security that I can make more mistakes and improvise more along the way.
...this logic is FALSE for sure, especially as courses get tougher and you're less worried about your craft spontaneously exploding and more about whether or not you can keep up with the dwindling number of positions safe from lap elimination.
We'll see clearer signs of this later.
The more intense moments on the tougher tracks make the greater acceleration and more frequent boost capacity of the Blue Falcon far more valuable... "just" don't overdo it and explode, either through reckless driving or excessive boosting. (I'm sure NOBODY ever had one of these cause the other and vice versa. Certainly not me. No. Never.)
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Race #1: Mute City IV
I don't want to seem reductive here, but Mute City is just Mute City.
I'm... not entirely sure why people seem to be having more trouble with this one than the others, because I (more) consistently place (slightly) higher (MOST of the time, anyway) here than any of the others, save for some of the more complex Mirror variations.
Heck, I'd even go so far as to consider this one SIMPLER than even Mute City I... you've got the same basic turns, but then they carve out HUGE chunks of track to dedicate towards long stretches for big boost plates and an even larger area exclusively for the big spectacle jump set piece.
Maybe I'm overestimating players' ability to understand jump and boost mechanics, though...
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Race #2: Sand Storm I
When I noted that Sand Storm feels more like a finale than a second or even fourth track, I didn't double check that EACH of these new tracks was originally the final race of a remix broadcast version of their own weekly Grand Prix. Which makes WAY more sense.
With Wild Goose, however, you can't get too cavalier about your boosting, since you'll only reliably get about one per lap unless you want to run out of Power before race end...
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Race #3: Big Blue II
Even with the caveat of its original context, I question this track's placement... or even existence. It's actually SHORTER, i.e. "Smaller" than Big Blue! The jumps actually make it "easier" if you can logically navigate them without doing something disastrous. And you BARELY need to turn under the influence of the Slip Zones, unlike the original.
Simple? Not really. More difficult? ...eh... maybe? But not after just a little bit of experience seeing what the track will ask of you. Which, in my opinion, is not really very much after all.
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Race #4: Sand Storm II
Sand Storm I is already pretty treacherous, but Sand Storm II goes and REALLY finds the right pressure points to twist with a more consistent major hazard area and some very slightly more demanding turns, which are combined to make a noticeably more dangerous ride.
Sure, they test and reward the same skills, so one may be seen as an extension of the other, rather than an actual new threat... but now you have to be MUCH better than the opposition about it to make it under qualification.
Or. You can just pop the Skyway at the right time and let that do most of the work. The only track with a more exploitable Skyway would have to be Fire Field, and good luck getting enough juice to use that with (potentially fewer than) only 20 racers and not losing enough ground in THAT marathon so even THAT can't make it up for you.
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Race #5: Silence II
Well, if nothing else, Wild Goose should have very little trouble just SURVIVING this race. Taking a mine explosion to the face isn't a GOOD idea, but you won't be rendered helpless before utter destruction even after a couple of them. And the other players will surely take out more than a few for you anyway.
Just. Don't crash out off the track with all that jumping, because the controls for the original F-Zero are kinda squirrely.
If all you want is the "Decal" for completing the Grand Prix, don't feel like there's any shame in just coasting and even getting 20th place!
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It's weird for Green Amazone to be slotted over Wild Goose, because the two vehicles are nothing alike statistically in the games of their origin, they're just both green. If anything, Amazone is more like an even more extreme take on the Golden Fox. (But it's GREEN!)