F-Zero X - Development and Audio

Development and Audio

Initially titled "F-Zero 64", Famitsu magazine revealed the project in mid-1997. Several key Wave Race 64 programmers including the lead programmer made up the in-house F-Zero X development team. The game made its debut at the Nintendo Space World event in late November 1997 where the public was able to play it for the first time. According to GameSpot, F-Zero X became the first racing game to run at 60 frames per second with up to 30 vehicles on screen at the same time, but in order to keep the frame rate, polygon counts on the vehicles, textures and track detail are sacrificed. The North American release of F-Zero X suffered from a three month delay due to Nintendo of America's policy of spacing the release of first-party games out evenly. The game is programmed with "64DD hooks", which allow it to detect whether the Nintendo 64DD is connected or compatible software is being used. This allows the cartridge to be compatible with add-on disks such as track editors or course updates; however, none of these were utilized outside of Japan due to the 64DD's commercial failure.

F-Zero X features remixed music from its predecessor. Due to compression, the game features monaural music tracks, but ambient effects are generated with stereo sound effects. Two soundtracks were released featuring music from this game onto CD. The F-Zero X Original Soundtrack was released on September 18, 1998. The F-Zero X Guitar Arrange Edition, which was released on January 27, 1999, contains ten guitar arranged musical tracks from the game. Both the original soundtrack and the guitar arrangement are composed by Taro Bando and Hajime Wakai.