F-Zero misinformation has permeated throughout the internet, even down to the name of its main character. Douglas Jay Falcon comes from the "Snaky Lore", information from the defunct F-Zero X website that Nintendo of America used to promote the game. The reason why I think it persisted is because F-Zero would definitely give him a name that campy, regardless of its actual canonicity.
To be clear, in an ideal world, Nintendo SHOULD be the ones giving F-Zero fans what we’ve been asking for. Same with Mother 3. Fans should not have to spend decades begging, explaining, preserving, and sustaining franchises that the actual owners could properly revive or contextualize whenever they want. But the reality is, that probably isn’t happening anytime soon. So at a certain point, the question can’t only be “why won’t Nintendo do anything?” We have to look inward and ask, “what can the fandom build without Nintendo?”
Because I keep running into the same problem in real life and online. Several months ago, someone replied to me on Twitter saying that wanting F-Zero back is basically the same as begging for a new Ice Climbers game. In college, one of my Smash friends asked me, “doesn’t F-Zero have, like, no lore?” when I told him Captain Falcon was my goat. A few weeks ago, I was at a birthday party, pieced somebody up with Captain Falcon in Smash, turned on F-Zero GX *(bar none the greatest example of what the series has to offer)*, and the guy next to me goes, “Oh, this is where he comes from? Wait, why is he in a car? So he doesn’t actually fight?” And then, slowly but surely, everybody started leaving the room. THAT is the problem.
Too much of the public F-Zero discourse has been stuck on fantasizing about a new game, asking why the series died, and being bitter at a multibillion-dollar company instead of making the kind of culture that proves F-Zero is still alive and has things to care about. And to be clear, I’m not saying fans haven’t made anything. The music, speedrunning community, F-Zero 99 community, video essays, memes, and mods matter. But just saying “the games are good” over and over again mostly entertains people who already agree. It may create some new fans, but it doesn’t give outsiders a clear and realistic reason to get curious. We lack clear entry points that make people who would love F-Zero, but don't yet, ask, “wait, what is F-Zero actually about?”
Nintendo should be doing this. But if they won’t, then we either keep dreaming forever, or we lock in and create the self-sustaining fanbase we keep saying this series deserves. I respect the dedication of anyone willing to spend 40 thousand dollars of real money just to ask Nintendo about F-Zero directly, but if even that gets met with a corporate non-answer, then waiting isn't gonna do anything.
F-Zero has more content to work with than we act like it does: the 7 mainline titles each with their own unique history and background, the 51 episode anime that emotionally contextualizes the racing, the manuals/comics, the gameplay meta that still has new things being discovered to this day, the music so good that Smash won't stop remixing it, and the entire iconography of Smash Bros.' Captain Falcon himself. The problem is that we keep acting like Nintendo is the only one who can make people care.
I was at a friend’s birthday party a couple weeks ago, and I had just finished piecing somebody up with Captain Falcon in Smash in like, a minute. Then we turn on F-Zero GX, and the guy next to me goes, “Oh, this is where he comes from? Wait, why is he in a car? So he doesn’t actually fight?” And then, slowly but surely, everybody started leaving the room.
That experience made me realize firsthand how much friction there is between what makes F-Zero special and what an uninformed person just sees on the surface.
I found Captain Falcon through Brawl. Then as a teenager I played F-Zero X, and suddenly I understood how all the Smash energy translated back into the actual core gameplay. Then I watched the anime, and that’s when the world finally clicked, and made me realize that there are characters inside the cars. By the final episode, I was actually crying over Captain Falcon. Going back and playing the games having experienced all that actually made the gameplay more fun.
Which sounds insane if all you know is the Falcon Punch, which is exactly the hurdle I'm trying to navigate around as a person who makes art and videos. My goal isn't to say "everyone would secretly love F-Zero if they gave it a chance" because I think that the gameplay and aesthetic naturally lends itself to being niche. It's more like "here are things about this franchise that you've never had the opportunity to be shown".
But tbh, I'm kinda stuck.
The more I revisit F-Zero, the more I think its biggest problem is that people describe it with the least interesting language possible.
Calling it “a futuristic racing game” is technically true, but it misses the health bars, attacks, ring-outs, death-trap race tracks, and comic book roster full of characters with actual story/lore behind them. F-Zero feels less like “Mario Kart without items” and more like a fighting game where the characters express themselves through their machines.
That’s why I keep thinking about how weird Captain Falcon’s reputation is. If you only know him through Smash, it is easy to assume his actual series is just some old racing game (because his fighting moves are mostly original), when really he feels like the playable manifestation of F-Zero’s swag, camp, speed, danger, tech, and style.
So I don’t think F-Zero lacks interesting hooks. I think it lacks a clean bridge to the parts people would actually latch onto. That’s where I think content creation could actually help a lot. Not in the sense of just saying “F-Zero deserves to come back” over and over, but by building the bridge Nintendo never really built: short clips, video essays, edits, character breakdowns, machine spotlights, gameplay explanations, and posts that make the series’ appeal obvious to people who only know it as “Captain Falcon’s racing game.”
F-Zero’s biggest enemy is the statement “I don't know what that is”.
To preface: I’ve been an F-Zero fan since I was 13, and I’m 22 now, so my take comes from the perspective of a hardcore fan who discovered the series years after it had already gone dormant. F-Zero’s biggest problem isn’t that people haven’t seen it; it’s that most people don’t understand what the gameplay is actually expressing when they do.
To the average non-fan, it just looks like hovercars going fast. But that speed, danger, boost-as-health strategy, machine combat, and razor-thin survival represents the playable version of the most unhinged lore in Nintendo's history:
We know both the gameplay is stand-out and the lore is stand-out. "F-Zero is not interesting enough" is not the take I'm getting at.
The issue is that Captain Falcon is instantly digestible in Smash, while his own source material needs more translation because its appeal is scattered across brutally elegant gameplay, comics, anime, obscure lore, and decades of Nintendo barely explaining what his world even is.
That’s why exposure is not conversion. A big YouTuber playing F-Zero, F-Zero 99 existing as a brief spike of attention, or Nintendo rereleasing old games can create buzz, but it will not automatically create self-sustaining interest unless people understand why the racing actually feels like the mythology surrounding it.
I’m not saying F-Zero needs people to ignore the gameplay in favor of lore. But I am saying people need to realize that the gameplay is the proof: What, to them, just looks like a “fast cars” game on the surface, is actually an absurd, stylish, emotionally charged universe in which speed is the language that everything else speaks. That's what needs to be emphasized.
I personally have come to terms with the fact that F-Zero may never come back with a mainline entry. And if it does, we know Nintendo is not the same company they were in 2004. So as a content creator, my goal has shifted from "make this multimillion dollar company give us what we want" to "Make F-Zero easier to feel, easier to explain, easier to share, and easier to participate in for the average person."
With the release of the in-depth Ryuga breakdown, this phase of Beyblade Beyond is wrapping up. Thanks to everyone who watched, shared and commented.
For the summer, the NoxiMationLive channel will start emphasizing F-Zero (the series Captain Falcon is from), and make an attempt to centralize that fandom. It's not complete radio silence for Beyblade, though. Expect periodic updates between my other projects like my short story Sin Package and my action comic The Changers.
When Beyblade Beyond returns in 2027: Kenta, Tsubasa, and Hikaru will get their own long-form videos. The Metal Masters-era redesigns will begin with Wang Hu Zhong. Expect the actual story of the series to start taking form, along with a more refined art style.
Keep the revolution going.
In Masters, Ryuga had arguably the best arc in the entire anime. He went from a villain consumed by the Dark Power to a lone wolf who mastered it through sheer willpower. Instead of building on that in Fury, the writers hit the reset button.
When Gingka's Storm Pegasus expended all its power, it disappeared to rest in the cosmos... but Ryuga on the other hand, ends up in Hades. Down there, the former top Blader of the evil organization Hades Inc, Damian Hart, taunts him with the idea that Ryuga's endless conquest simply just created a bigger leash for him to be chained to. In order to make it back to the living world, the Dragon Emperor has to let go of his lust for power, and shed his past self completely.
Beyblade Beyond is a fan-made project exploring the Metal Saga's 10-year future through the lens of character development (a separate continuity from Zero-G).
Ryuga's death is one of the most ambiguous fates in shonen history. Nobody knows what really happened...
but on May 30th, I'm diving deep into the Dragon Emperor's narrative, why he's a tragic character, and where he ends up as an adult in Beyblade Beyond. This is the FINAL Beyblade Beyond YouTube video of the year... and get ready, because it's a big one.
Beyblade Beyond is a fan-made project exploring the Metal Saga's 10-year future through the lens of character development (a separate continuity from Zero-G).
Every time Masamune Kadoya proclaimed himself to be the Number 1 Blader, he was brutally outclassed or humbled... but he always kept one foot on the ground. In adulthood, he still remains far from the top... and that’s okay: because his real legacy is how far he’s come. Now coaching with Team Dungeon, Masamune becomes “#1” in the eyes of the kids who look up to him: loud, inspiring, kinda dumb, and always reminding young Bladers that facing a tall wall doesn’t mean it can't be scaled.
Beyblade Beyond is a fan-made project exploring the Metal Saga's 10-year future through the lens of character development (a separate continuity from Zero-G).
During the Battle Bladers era, Reiji Mizuchi was released for one simple goal: crush the hearts of weak Bladers and destroy Gingka Hagane. In the many years since that mission failed, he had been growing his strength in the background and cultivating an empire of possessed souls; and with the world still recovering after the devastating Nemesis battle, Reiji slithers through the cracks that the WBBA are still trying to mend, presenting himself as their biggest enemy since.
Beyblade Beyond is a fan-made project exploring the Metal Saga's 10-year future through the lens of character development (a separate continuity from Zero-G).
Made a video touching on the Planetronika discourse, but I’m less interested in calling it “good” or “bad” and more interested in how people are talking about it. I think the pilot has an incredible 2000s cartoon aesthetic and a tiny production context worth respecting, but the fanservice / pacing conversation has gotten way too flattened into culture-war noise.
Ryutaro Fukami is a "Uranaishi", or Japanese fortune teller, who uses Beyblade to determine his clients' fate. Since his battle with Gingka many years ago, he realized that fate itself can be determined by the willpower of those whom it falls upon. Since then, he has dedicated his time to assisting those that come across him in realizing their destiny.
Beyblade Beyond is a fan-made project exploring the Metal Saga's 10-year future through the lens of character development (a separate continuity from Zero-G).
This is the JoJos of Nintendo. Lock in and get creative.
Source: https://x.com/noximation
On my YouTube channel, I’m breaking down the uncomfortable truth about Kyoya from Beyblade—that once you strip away the rivalry, there’s barely anything there… and that works for the story, but what happens after the story “ends”?
Beyblade Beyond is a fan-made project exploring the Metal Saga's 10-year future through the lens of character development (a separate continuity from Zero-G).
(Beyblade Beyond): TOBIO OIKE // “CPT. CAPRI”
MID-20s // CONTRACT BLADE
What looks like a rifle fires Beys at supersonic velocity.
Long-range eliminations. No witnesses.
Beyblade Beyond is a fan-made project exploring the Metal Saga's 10-year future through the lens of character development (a separate continuity from Zero-G).