F-Zero: Falcon Densetsu

If your not very sure what F-Zero is let me fill you in since the synopsis doesn't really explain much. F-Zero is one of the first futuristic racing games produced by Nintendo EAD and is a good seller amongst their franchises. You may have heard of the franchises main character Capt. Falcon appearing more popularly in the Super Smash Brothers Series with his signature Falcon Punch. Its funny because the Falcon Punch wasn't really a thing until this anime came out and was then spread by the Smash Bros Series. This was a damn good anime for its time and I am surprised barely anyone ... has actually seen it.

Story 9/10
The story is really deep and really focuses on explaining the F-Zero Universe. Most of the early episodes are somewhat filler as it usually follows a line of introduce one of the games racers and stimulate a plot based around that character. While most people don't enjoy filler episodes like this I actually found them to be quite enjoyable and learned quite a bit about the series in general. The episodes later on start really developing the story around the Mobile Task Force and Dark Million which had lots of tension. Not sure if any of it replicates any of the games storyline since its been a while since I played but damn is it good at providing a core plot and sticking to it and you can just see its evolution and its quite fascinating. I also found it quite interesting when they made references to like Capcom and Star Fox. They really have their way with pleasing Nintendo Fans.

Art 8/10
For an anime that released in 2003 it had really great animation and style and quite enjoyed the F-Zero machines and designs. It really makes them more recognizable now however I felt the anime's art may have been a tad to dark at some points. I felt like I could really see what was actually going on but other than that it was great.

Sound 10/10
What I really enjoyed was the fact they included big themes from the game into the anime like Big Blue Theme and Mute City. I really felt a rush of nostalgia hearing them in this anime. Also the OP and ED were fantastic additions well. They are pretty recognizable and fit well into this animes style.

Character 10/10
They did an excellent job of portraying characters from the games series. Not only was our main character development amazing I really enjoyed the supporting/minor characters that made appearances in the anime. It helps the show really explain F-Zero as a whole. They even took another measure and evaluated the one character you came to see and thats Capt. Falcon. Most people expected the most baddest character from him just Falcon Punching everything in sight. Well, instead they made him mysterious. For the first few episodes they make sure you wanna keep watching just to see Capt. Falcon more and more. I really do believe he had the strongest role even though he had less appearance than most of the Mobile Task Force. Truthfully its worth watching just for Capt. Falcon and his story.

Overall 9/10
Putting it on to terms, this anime was probably meant for those F-Zero and Nintendo Fans out there wanting to view more about Capt. Falcon. Yeah, half of it is filler of the actual games it still can be good to watch and expand your horizon on the games. If you don't really care for F-Zero at all you will probably not enjoy this at all because it moves rather slow in the beginning. However, if you were just looking for something intense to watch don't overlook this for something newer/well known. It still poses a great act for story and action in general and you won't be displeased with it all.

Many video games have been lauded for their brilliant plots. The minimalist storytelling, yet heavy symbolism of Shadow of the Colossus, which says so little in dialogue, yet evokes so much emotion. The knee slapping satire of the first Bioshock against Randian Objectivism. The astounding amount of lore, world building, and background that went into the Elder Scrolls games, or Mass Effect. The lovable characters, excellent action, and vibrant imagination of the Final Fantasy games (well some of them). Then there is F-Zero. It was a decent racing game on the SNES. Why did it get an anime? Who the fuck knows?!

Of all the oldschool ... video games to receive anime adaptations, I perhaps find this one the most baffling of all. Captain Falcon is a blast to play in Smash bros, but he isn't a character worth actually writing about, let alone watching. He isn't likeable in any way. He isn't interesting. He doesn't have a single character trait that makes me give a shit about watching something with him in it. This anime is also brought to us by 4kids Entertainment, so you can just guess what kind of QUALITY voice acting and brilliant Westernization you can look forward to.

Here is the question you are probably asking: "Why did I rate this as high as a 3?" The reason is that after 51 boring, tedious, horrible fucking episodes this anime goes out with one of the most delicious crescendos in the history of animation. In classical music you have examples like the final segment of Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture, The fourth movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, the beginning of Act 3 of Wagner's opera Die Walkure. In anime, you have Captain Falcon leaping out of a car traveling at light speed, screaming FARUKAN PANCHU, and punching a cheesy looking villain so fucking hard that it destroys a large portion of the God damned GALAXY! Absolutely brilliant. A single tear of pure joy slid down my cheek while taking in such a magnanimous segment of animated glory!

F-Zero GP Legends known from its awesome game franchise on the various Nintendo platforms and also fairly known for the Falcon Punch by Captain Falcon!

This anime series sure took me by surprise and on first looks it might not give you any wow effect when you just start the anime but the real action and story starts to develop right in the middle of the story which already starts to buildup development towards the last episode.

The story takes such a turn in quality from start till end that this anime certainly is worth a try even if you have to search wide and for ... for subs or even watch the raws but I can tell you it is totally worth it! Heck this anime even made me play the old games again!

The story itself is fairly decent, a slow but quite decent build up together with various different ways like: racing, action and even slight romance development.

What I personally also enjoyed is that there weren't that much side stories and only one recap episode near the ending of the series so it's a fairly amount of good story and character development combined with futuristic racing!

The art is a bit old but for the time it was created in combination with the CGI it is still pretty decent. The combination of the 3D models and 2D art of their vehicles is pretty well done! It's a bit getting used to in the beginning but when you're enjoying the racers it will only get better later on!

The quality of the sound is a bit on the lower side as the dub wasn't always the best quality nor were the sound effects, although the casting for the Japanese dub was actually quite good especially for Black Shadow which was voiced by Wakamoto Norio

The Characters were quite unique and do follow the games character concepts quite good. The best characters in this are of course Captain Falcon, Ryu and Black Shadow as they're mainly the lead characters and more or less determine the whole story!

I quite enjoyed watching this anime especially the last couple episodes where the quality really increased with really interesting story development and pacing! So all in all a pretty good anime which I'll give a solid 8/10