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F-Zero: Maximum Velocity

F-Zero: Maximum Velocity
Fzmvpackshot us.jpg
North American box art
Developer(s) Nd Cube
Publisher(s) Nintendo
Director(s) Isshin Shimizu
Producer(s) Takehiro Izushi
Hitoshi Yamagami
Composer(s) Masaru Tajima
Mitsuteru Furukawa
Naoto Ishida
Series F-Zero
Platform(s) Game Boy Advance
Release
  • JP: March 21, 2001
  • NA: June 12, 2001
  • EU: June 22, 2001
Genre(s) Racing
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer

F-Zero Maximum Velocity, released in Japan as F-Zero for Game Boy Advance, is a futuristic racing video game developed by Nd Cube 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 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.

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.


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