F-Zero 99 is the answer to how you make the successor to Super Smash Bros.: Ultimate

The caption on this photo I got from KoopaTV.org read “King Bowser Koopa’s Flying Slam is way cooler than Kazuya’s Heaven’s Door and always will be.” I don’t know what this means, but I agree.

The problem with making the ultimate game is that you have nowhere to go from there in a reasonable manner. It has been well documented for a long time that Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of the Smash Bros. series, contemplated retiring from game development a lot while working in the stressful environment of working on Smash. He’s happily creating YouTube videos now and I would rather him retire in peace. However, the nature of Smash Bros is that part of the appeal is the PR cycle where we get to see which character will be revealed next. It has been over 5 years since Ultimate released. With the final roster sitting at over 80 characters (not including all of the Mii outfits and variants and such) a new game would have a tall task in front of its director to please everyone. Something has to give, but my idea of how to proceed solves a lot of “problems” for Nintendo.

Super Smash Bros. 6 should be F-Zero 99-2. It’s no secret that Nintendo doesn’t really care for F-Zero as a franchise to continue growth. To them it is a nostalgia point to that they can point to and use it to sell other products such as Nintendo Land, Mario Kart 8, and of course Smash Bros. Most people have never even seen an F-Zero game, but know that Captain Falcon has an iconic punch move. Before F-Zero 99, the last F-Zero game released in 2004 so its really just a concept at this point. Those concepts were used heavily to sell Mario Kart 8’s Wii U DLC when they added the game’s iconic tracks Mute City and Big Blue along with a Blue Falcon kart and the 200CC mode that goes absurdly fast. The reason why they made F-Zero 99 isn’t known exactly, but my theory is that it is to prepare for the future of Smash.

At 200CC you’re already playing F-Zero anyway, but Mario takes and takes, never gives. It is his franchise now.

With the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Pass finishing its unprecedented enhancement of the base game all the way up to 96 tracks (can’t believe Air Fortress didn’t make the cut) Nintendo has effectively produced Mario Kart Ultimate. The obvious comparison is that Mario Kart 8 is now home to the Zelda, Animal Crossing, and Splatoon franchises (on top of remembering it is a Donkey Kong game too by adding Diddy and Funky). That isn’t even counting all of the Mii costumes, a similar sentence I used above to talk about Smash. This is the progenitor of Smash Kart and there is no turning back. Rather than try to figure out what Mario Kart 9 looks like, Nintendo has already done the ground work for how you get out of this jam.

Here is my elevator pitch for Super Smash Kart: You make lobbies of up to 32 players (maybe include a 64 player mode?) pick from a roster of over 80 different racers that all come with one ability themed around their franchise and a super move. You could probably just trim the existing Smash roster down to about 25 characters (as seen below) and supplement with more relevant characters from the Switch such as Deep Cut from Splatoon 3 sharing a kart or the buff dragon from Ring Fit. That ghost deer man from Tears of the Kingdom could also be a character, why not. If you really need another face, then get the Labo cardboard little guy (or maybe just make a track out of cardboard).

There is so much bloat in this roster and while I realize that we’re in an era of any character being in anything I am going to insist that this goes back to being a party for Nintendo characters only.

Each racer has their own kart as well as some accessories like wheels (like Mario Kart) or toppers (like Rocket League) that alter a minimal amount of stats around such as the three stats seen in F-Zero 99. We’re keeping this accessible so no more hyper specific mechanics that plagued the newest characters in Smash or no essentially requirement of knowing how to drift that developed over time in Mario Kart. Then you will pick from 60 different tracks that can be finished around 2 minutes. The main game should have nothing that is copied from a past game, but you can definitely get free money from a DLC package that includes stuff like Baby Park and Mute City down the road.

And of course, the game plays like F-Zero 99. Boost as much as you like, but it drains your energy. Allow racers to crash out and rank out letting them turn into enemies on the track so they stay engaged. Everyone gets a default spin move and their character ability which both would operate on a cooldown. Characters also get a super move that is equivalent to F-Zero 99’s Skyway where you need to collect energy on the track to build meter. We’re looking to keep the game accessible, fast, and franzied. Mario Kart 8 and Smash are too complicated where as their adopted child F-Zero 99–2 aka Super Smash Kart is gracefully clean in the objective of drive fast and don’t explode.

Hypothetically, you should be playing this on an SNES controller.

You will lose the esports / fighting game community audience that you’ve built, but lets be honest you never wanted them, Nintendo. This presents itself as a tidy little package that resets expectations from two franchises that are over 25 years old. Rather than disappoint by not having the same amount of tracks or characters you get to provide something new, exciting, but really still kinda the same a little bit. By essentially merging your two most popular multiplayer series and once again feasting on F-Zero’s supple nutrients you are poised to have the Switch 2’s best selling game for the next decade supported with whatever ecosystem you want (karts, skins, booster passes, F-Coins, whatever). However, any other course of action will leave both Smash and Mario Kart once again retreading the same ground that has been stomped into dust. I do not want to race on SNES Rainbow Road for a 5th time

…but if we’re being honest I know I’ll play all of that again. Feed me my slop once again, Madam Nintendo. Please take another $60 for the privilege.