History ThatOneLevel / FZero

* Chapter 7 is infamous for its bullshit difficulty. Aside from the difficulty and [[MarathonLevel the pacing necessary to persevere]] (three laps on Normal, four laps on Hard, five laps on Very Hard), Chapter 7's biggest challenge is that it's one big LuckBasedMission. If you manage to retire Black Shadow at the ''very'' beginning of the race (as in, right after the 3-count start) or somehow catch up to him so that you can ram him, the race becomes much more manageable (Blood Falcon--usually second behind Black Shadow--and a few other racers such as Dr. Stewart and Mrs. Arrow tend to zip into the Top 6, but they don't seem to be running on the same [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard engine]] as Black Shadow). However, there's a good chance that some overly-aggressive racer will spin into you, knocking the Blue Falcon off-course. [[ArtificialStupidity Conversely]], there's also a chance that the A.I. will cause other characters (or even Black Shadow and Blood Falcon ''themselves'') to push Black Shadow off of the track. It's half luck, half skill. It's so bad that there's an infamous [[NotSafeForWork NSFW]] [[http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=711267&pagenumber=1 rant about GX's Chapter 7]] on the Website/SomethingAwful forums.

* Silence is already considered difficult by many players, but the mirror version cranks it up to eleven. Along with fighting against muscle memory when it comes to playing a mirrored track, mirrored Silence adds Spinners that make you spin, lose speed, and go flying sideways if you touch them. Since Silence is a pretty narrow track, one touch of a Spinner can make you ping pong against the walls, other players, or Bumpers that are driving nearby, costing you a ton of energy. The split path where mines used to be are replaced by Spinners, making it extremely tricky to drive through. And unlike mines, Spinners don't disappear when hit, ensuring that they are a hazard on every lap.

* The second course of the [[SecretLevel Queen Cup]], Tenth Zone East: Plummet Circuit. It's full of jumps across crooked gaps, and due to the somewhat short draw distance, you need to react ''fast'' to maneuver correctly. One lapse in concentration and it's off to the "YOU LOST" screen you go!

* The second course of the [[SecretLevel Queen Cup]], Tenth Zone East: Plummet Circuit. It's full of jumps across crooked gaps. One lapse in concentration and it's off to the "YOU LOST" screen you go!

%% !! ''VideoGame/FZeroMaximumVelocity'':

* Silence is the last course in the Knight League, and it's a considerable step up from the previous courses, featuring many 90-degree turns on narrow roads, including an S-curve consisting of ''two hairpin turns in quick succession''. Expect to bounce off the barriers a lot here. There's also a part where the road forks in two: Take the longer route and you stand to lose position, but take the shorter route and you have to carefully slip through a grid of mines ''and'' be able to hit the jump pad as you make a sharp left, or else end up in the dirt zone and lose time (or use a boost). Don't think that just because the mines have been detonated already means this fork is much safer, as the blast radius of the mines will be replaced with lava zones.

* Silence is a track already infamous for its incredibly difficult hairpin turns; now mix that in with the chaos of having to dodge exploding Red Bumpers on every other turn as you approach the finish line and it verges onto sheer madness. The upshot is that it only appears in the final race of the Knight Grand Prix, so if you've been prudent at taking kills in previous races you can go in with a large Power advantage. In addition, the land mines disappear completely after exploding rather than turning into lava pits. Furthermore, at this point only at most 20 contenders remain, so it's much less chaotic than the previous rounds; but this also comes at a price, since [[DroughtLevelOfDoom the fewer instances of inter-vehicle contact means yellow orbs and thus Super Boosts are much less frequent]], if you can even get one in during this race.

* Silence is already considered difficult by many players, but the mirror version cranks it up to eleven. Along with fighting against muscle memory when it comes to playing a mirrored track, mirrored Silence adds Spinners that make you spin, lose speed, and go flying sideways if you touch them. Since Silence is a pretty narrow track, one touch of a Spinner can make you ping pong against the walls, other players, or Bumpers that are driving nearby, costing you a ton of energy. The split path where mines used to be are replaced by Spinners, making it extremely tricky to drive through.

* Silence is already considered difficult by many players, but the mirror version cranks it up to eleven. Along with fighting against muscle memory when it comes to playing a mirrored track, mirrored Silence adds bumpers (not the ones that drive on the track) that make you spin and go flying sideways if you touch them. Since Silence is a pretty narrow track, one touch of a bumper can make you ping pong against the walls, other players, or actual Bumpers that are driving nearby, costing you a ton of energy. The split path where mines used to be are replaced by bumpers, making it extremely tricky to drive through.

* January 2024 introduced the first ??? track. See the above mentioned White Land II and Death Wind I? Slap those together in an unholy Frankenstein's monster of a track and you get this track. Dealing with the worst parts of White Land II (including tight turns and awkward jumps) is already hard enough; try doing it with Death Wind's wind gimmick pushing you around at the same time, not to mention still having to avoid getting completely screwed over by Death Wind I's straightaways.

** Even in Practice mode, Fire Field manages to be this, as the time to beat to get the level's backdrop for your Pilot Card is ''much'' stricter than the other tracks. Knowing how to hit the barriers to maneuver around tight turns and corners is all but mandatory if you want a shot at obtaining it.

* Illusion: Lost Way is a basic track with no rails. That already is difficult. With 2 and 3 the track gets more complicated, with 3 throwing so many 90 degree turns it's silly.

''F-Zero'' is a series with dozens of courses across its history of five games[[note]]Or ten, if you count expansions and ''AX'', which is the arcade counterpart to ''GX'', as separate games[[/note]]. As such, several of those courses are bound to [[ThatOneLevel give players some good old road rage at 1,000 km/h]].

* Lightning: G Trace. The faster route requires huge jumps onto what are basically ''islands'', with jump strips at weird angles. Without memorization and practice, taking that route will just send you crashing.

* All of the Illusion: Brake Link stages. You need to time your braking so that you stop on the checkered floor and not overshoot into the pit. However, the game's Type 1 controls, which are the default, don't ''have'' a brake button. Since most players never use the brakes, they may not think to add a brake function for Survival, meaning clever use of Side Attack is needed to win, which is even more difficult.

!! ''VideoGame/FZeroGPLegend'':

[[AC:Courses -- Original game]]

[[AC:Courses -- ''VideoGame/FZeroClimax'']]

* Mist Flow: Puzzle Ring gives you some tough turns and ends with a helix with a jump in the middle.

* Illusion - Lost Way is a basic track with no rails. That already is difficult. With 2 and 3 the track gets more complicated, with 3 throwing so many 90 degree turns it's silly.
* Big Blue - Big Billow is a MarathonLevel with many sharp corners, icy sections, and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs sharp corners ON icy sections.]]

* White Land 2. While the hairpin turns were slightly problematic, the jump at the end is what gets most people. This is because it requires you to ''hold down'' to make it across. At ''no other point in the game'' [[GuideDangIt do you need to do that]].

* January 2024 introduced the first ??? track. See the above mentioned White Land II and Death Wind I? Slap those together in an unholy Frankenstein's monster of a track and you get this track. Dealing with the worst parts of White Land II (including tight turns and awkward jumps) is already hard enough; try doing it with Death Wind's wind gimmick pushing you around at the same time.

** Even in Practice mode, Fire Field manages to be this, as the time to beat to get the level's backdrop for your Pilot Card is ''much'' stricter than the other tracks. Knowing how to hit the barriers to maneuver around tight turns and corners is all but mandatory if you want a shot at obtaining it.

!! ''F-Zero'' (original):

!! ''F-Zero X'':

%% !! ''F-Zero Maximum Velocity'':

!! ''F-Zero GX'' and ''AX'':

!! ''F-Zero GP Legend'':

[[AC:Courses -- ''F-Zero Climax'' expansion]]

* Fire Field is the finale to the King League and it's just as bad as it was in the SNES version. Landmines appear right after the starting line and you will have players who will try to ram you into them. There are also several tight 180 turns with some of them happening back to back, making it quite difficult to get through them without hitting the barriers at least once. The length of the track is [[MarathonLevel quite long]] and if you hadn't been extending your energy meter in the previous tracks, you might not have enough energy to stay ahead or even survive the race - and the game still forces you to choose between the one pit lane on the map, or a slight shortcut. Lastly, the Bumpers will make the already hard course even harder due to how far you're sent flying from hitting one and the track itself being quite narrow. With all of this put together, combined with how nearly every track hazard you've encountered to this point is present and accounted for, good luck figuring out the best place to use the Skyway... which again, you'll be lucky if you can use more than once.

** And let's not forget, Death Wind II adds about a half-dozen or so 90-degree turns to the second half of the track. And while the speed boosters may not ensure that you're going to lose control and smash into a wall, that just means that you're merely much more liable to do so - and because it's "safer" to take a bunch of sharp turns at merely 700 KPH rather than 999 KPH, you're now all but expected to hit every single one of the boosters if you want any hope of winning. Try not to Crash Out.

* Death Wind I is a rather annoying track for being one of the regular mode courses. The track's gimmick is [[GustyGlade wind that constantly pushes you eastward]], which would normally be a mild inconvenience but becomes a much more challenging obstacle when you're sharing the road with 98 other players. It also makes Red Bumpers much more aggravating to be around since it becomes much easier to make a mistake and accidentally collide with one, causing a cavalcade of problems if you mess up. To up its frustration factor even further, it is also the penultimate race of the Knight Grand Prix, with many a player being gatekept out of unlocking Silence because of Death Wind I knocking them around until they are eliminated from the Prix. Its basic shape also means that any screw-up is a death-spell for the top 3, as at that point the leader is practically guaranteed the win, maiking it [[VictoryIsBoring boring to frontrun]] and frustratingly chaotic to place high in. It's even been derisively called "[[VideoGame/MarioKartDoubleDash Baby Park]] with a wind gimmick", with its one concession being that while it has booster arrows on the track like its SNES original, the speed boost is {{nerf}}ed and they don't make your machine into an unsteerable rocket during the boost period anymore.