F-Zero (video Game) - Development and Audio

Development and Audio

F-Zero was one of the launch titles for the SNES that Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development had approximately fifteen months to develop completely. In Japan, only it and Super Mario World were initially available for launch. In North America and Europe, Super Mario World shipped with the console, and other initial titles included F-Zero, Pilotwings (which also demonstrated the console's "Mode 7" pseudo-3D rendering capability), SimCity, and Gradius III. The game was produced by Shigeru Miyamoto and designed by Isshin Shimizu. The title was downloadable over the Nintendo Power peripheral in Japan and was also released as a demo onto the Nintendo Super System in 1991. Takaya Imamura, one of the art creators for the game, was surprised to be able to so freely design F-Zero's characters and courses as he wanted since it was his first game.

Notable in the development of F-Zero was its use of Mode 7 graphics. Mode 7 is a form of texture mapping available on the SNES which allows a raster graphical plane to be rotated and scaled freely, simulating 3D environments without processing any polygons. The Mode 7 rendering applied in F-Zero consists of a single-layer which is scaled and rotated around the vehicle. This pseudo-3D capability of the SNES was designed to be represented by both F-Zero and Pilotwings, with 1UP.com stating these two games "existed almost entirely for the sake of showing them off".

An F-Zero jazz album was released on March 25, 1992 in Japan by Tokuma Japan Communications. It features twelve songs from the game on a single disc composed by Yumiko Kanki and Naoto Ishida, and arranged by Robert Hill and Michiko Hill. The album also features Marc Russo (saxophones) of the Yellowjackets and Robben Ford (electric guitar).