F-Zero: Maximum Velocity is a 2001 racing game published by Nintendo and the third installment in the F-Zero series. The first of the three games released for Game Boy Advance, the game was co-developed with then-new subsidiary NDcube, foreshadowing a trend of future F-Zero games being given to outside developers.
Maximum Velocity plays similarly to F-Zero (1990), with nearly same controls and gameplay system, but features a new generation of pilots as it takes place 25 years after the original F-Zero race. The new hero is Kent Akechi, a self-appointed descendant of Captain Falcon.
The game would later get a rerelease in 2024 through the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack as part of the service's Game Boy Advance library. Like other multiplayer GBA games on the service, it can replicate the Link Cable features, including multiplayer, through local wireless and online play.
F-Zero: Maximum Velocity contains examples of:
- Alternate Timeline: Maximum Velocity is one. It really takes place a quarter of a century after the original F-Zero in 2585, with none of the original cast making an appearance. Kent Akechi believes himself to be the son of Captain Falcon and Blitz Wagner is Dr. Stewart's protégé. The game doesn't acknowledge the Big Accident from the main canon and uses the same rule set as the original F-Zero.
- Back That Light Up: Maximum Velocity, as one of the earliest GBA games, uses an extremely high contrast between the road and the scenery. No matter how badly you are lighted, you can always see the road.
- Bowdlerise: The Western versions modify the ending portraits of Christie and Kumiko
to cover up more of their breasts. - Chess Motifs: The four cups are named after chess pieces, Pawn, Knight, Bishop, and Queen. Strangely, King is absent.
- Classic Cheat Code: To unlock Jet Vermilion, you need to create a new file with a name "T&T", set up the password menu, and enter "V-J4+6V9A-30". Unlocking the machine in the other way exists, but they take much more time.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: On higher difficulties, the AI will often seem to cover long distances within impossibly short amounts of time or outright teleport right behind the player. Even if the player makes a boost-assisted jump to skip most of the track, machines that are incapable of performing those shortcuts may catch up to the player within a few seconds.
- Critical Existence Failure: Downplayed. Your machine will keep working flawlessly regardless of how much damage you take... until your power meter drops into the red range, at which point your machine's top speed will decrease dramatically until you recover.
- Deliberate Injury Gambit: You can intentionally get hit by mines to give yourself a temporary speed boost, which on certain tracks is a viable tactic. Just mind your power gauge.
- Distant Sequel: It takes place 25 years after the last F-Zero race, with none of the pilots returning.
- Do Well, But Not Perfect: Players doing full-game speedruns of Maximum Velocity will often intentionally place second or third, to avoid the victory animation. The rubber-band A.I. makes this relatively easy to do while still achieving record-level times.
- Earth Is the Center of the Universe: Bianca City is said to have taken over Mute City as the most important city in the galaxy, and it is also located on Earth.
- Expy: Jane B. Christie is basically Samus Aran, with more Fanservice thrown in◊. How's that possible, we'll never know.
- The Foreign Subtitle: In Japan, it's known as "F-Zero", only adding "for Game Boy Advance" to differentiate itself with F-Zero (1990). The foreign versions do away with this and are given a new subtitle, Maximum Velocity.
- Harder Than Hard: After clearing a cup on Expert difficulty, you unlock it on Master difficulty.
- Inconsistent Spelling: The name of one of the starting machines is spelled "Fire Ball" in the game itself, but "Fireball" in the manual.
- Legacy Character: Kent Akechi from Maximum Velocity believes himself to be one to Captain Falcon, since he's under the impression that Falcon is his father. He even wears a similar outfit and drives a vehicle known as the Falcon Mk-II.
- Modular Difficulty: In addition to setting the CPU competence between four levels (Beginner, Standard, Expert, Master), you can also change the number of spare machines between 1, 3, and 5.
- Oddball in the Series:
- Of all sequels, this is the only game to base the gameplay only on F-Zero (1990), not F-Zero X, with all of its Early-Installment Weirdness like Super Jet and Rank Out system; this was done deliberately by the game's director, Kazunobu Shimizu, who also directed the original SNES title and felt that F-Zero X didn't feel like a true sequel. The other Game Boy Advance games found a middle ground that is closer to F-Zero X.
- It features a completely new cast with Captain Falcon reduced to a mention in backstory. The sequels ignored this game and brought the timeline back to the original generation.
- The stat page for each machine is noticably more detailed than that of games before and after it. In addition to the series-traditional pickup graph of the machine's acceleration curve and the machine's durability (this time expressed as a value out of 100 rather than a letter grade), it also shows the normal top speed of the machine, the top speed when boosting, the duration of the boost, how sharply it can turn, and how well it can maintain traction when turning. Later games go back to just having the pickup graph and the Body-Boost-Grip grades; F-Zero GX does feature a four-point graph of the machine's stats as well but it's only in the more obscure menus of the game, rather than the machine select before racing.
- Of all the games that have the course name format of "(locale): (specific course name)", this is the only game to append "Circuit" to the end of every course name.
- Pre-Rendered Graphics: The racing machines are in pre-rendered graphics. They're also programmed to be zoomed in and out by stretching their sprites, unlike F-Zero (1990) that has separate graphics for each zoom level since the Super Nintendo Entertainment System graphics hardware lacked the ability to scale sprites.
- Revisiting the Roots: This game's system is much closer to the first game, F-Zero (1990), with the Grand Prix rules depending on Rank Out system and the Nitro Boost running on Super Jet.
- Socialization Bonus: When played in multi-player mode with link cables, everyone can use any racing machine if it's unlocked in at least one of the cartridges.
- Shows Damage: Like the original game, your vehicle starts smoking and sparking when it has taken enough damage for its top speed to go down.
- Soft Reboot: Although the game is in the same continuity with the previous game (whether said game is F-Zero (1990) or F-Zero X isn't clear), it takes place after a 25-year Time Skip with a new generation of characters.
- Subsystem Damage: Your vehicle's top speed drops significantly if you take enough damage. In this state, your vehicle starts smoking and sparking, an alarm sounds, and your Life Meter flashes. You need to get to the pit area quickly in this state in order to get repaired enough to get out of this state.
- Super Title 64 Advance: The Japanese title is F-Zero for Game Boy Advance. The English version gave it a new subtitle.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Captain Falcon is replaced by Kent Akechi, who claims to be Captain Falcon's son and dresses like him. He also drives Falcon MK-2, a balanced machine like the Blue Falcon. The difference is that Akechi is not available at start.
